This week one of the movie channels on television screened the Reese Witherspoon hit, Legally Blonde. Those who’ve seen the film would be familiar with the story: Elle Woods, frivolous but good-natured fashion victim, gets dumped by would-be lawyer boyfriend. She chases him to Harvard Law School and gets picked by a lewd professor to assist in a high-profile murder trial. Predictably, the previously dumb blonde springs a surprise in the form of a sharp mind which, combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of high-end brands and beauty treatments, wins the day. So far, so good. Had this slim tale ended here, it would have been a mildly amusing entertainer. But there’s just a little bit more. The boyfriend comes back crawling on his knees seeking forgiveness and Miss Nice, clearly not so nice after all, delivers a humiliating put down. She also graduates top of class, wins over cute, brainy lawyer, is invited with lavish praise to address the school, is the most adored, most admired, most exalted.Why this lengthy exposition of a not very remarkable Hollywood film? Because it seems to not just celebrate but venerate an increasingly visible species in the western entertainment industry, namely the ditsy female. Ally McBeal, eponymous heroine of the long running TV series is probably the best example. She’s well dressed and attractive in a painfully thin, waify kind of way. She’s supposed to be a bright, successful lawyer but has an unstable mental and emotional life that could have her hitting people on a street or experiencing wild episodes in a courtroom. She’s lonely, neurotically self absorbed and chronically looking for love in the wrong places which makes her, in the bizarre world of the drama — admirable! Colleagues sing her praises, clients love her and the camera lingers on her with the ardent passion she never seems to find in the plot.Or take the much talked about Diary of Bridget Jones. Ms McBeal’s British book/movie counterpart is both buxom and overweight in contrast and unhappily so. She overeats, over-drinks, over-smokes, has an indiscriminate sense of decorum and is a dead loss at her job. She is bitchy, flirtatious, a loving daughter and has a likeable quirkiness that gets her a job on television and a journalistic scoop to top it up, a chance to obliterate caddish boyfriend number one and capture the adoration of an intelligent, mature, kind-hearted, rich, faithful man.Such luck! So this is the modern version of the fairy tale and happy endings are part and parcel of the genre and who could argue with that? What is interesting, however, is how much the basic assumption of the fairy tale has changed. Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel — think of them and the image conjured up is one of fair maidens cast by misfortune to the mercy of strangers and rescued by love. What it took to be a heroine in the past was beauty, innocence and a persecutor usually in the form of an evil stepmother. Now look at the current crop of heroines.There is no stunning beauty, no innocence, and the persecutors are often, in fact mainly, the devils inside their heads. The truth is today’s fairy tale heroines, far from being the pristine, helpless creatures of the past are individuals and exaggeratedly flawed ones. It is Elle Woods’s heightened triviality, McBeal’s neurosis and Jones’s self indulgence that our attention is drawn to. The wonder, if any, is that such women should be at the center of a fairy tale. But inasmuch as they are, they end up doing something fairly startling, which is, challenging straitlaced traditional perceptions of what is desirable and deserving of reward. In these three instances, for instance, it would be the high value placed on book learning, so-called normality and feminine perfection.By stressing the weaknesses to the point of celebrating them, the creators of these stories seem to be humanising the heroine. There is, however, one fatal problem with the way things turn out. Today’s heroines get too much too easily. There are no beasts to slay, no years of captivity, no murderous witches or poisonous potions. The trials faced by Jones and Co. are light compared to their predecessors though they make far too much of them. And the rewards seem excessive. Consider Elle Woods — fashion sense could help her win one case, but to turn her into a minor Einstein — strains credulity and turns what could have the makings of a sugar-coated revolution into a somewhat juvenile daydream.These, then, are the fantasies that emerge from an urbanised society, riding high on consumerism and the idea of instant gratification. In them is a sign for us.
