“Any cosmo girl would’ve known”: Collaboration, feminine knowledge, and Femme theory in Legally Blonde

Abstract

In 2001, the film Legally Blonde was released into a pop cultural landscape saturated with the Spice Girls’ brand of feminism-lite and postfeminist media texts like Sex and the City (1998–2004). With its firm hold on “girlie” feminism, Legally Blonde is postfeminist — but not post-femme. I extend the claim that femme theory can be located in low-cultural spaces and texts to understand the “chick flick” as another possible site of femme theory. I argue that Legally Blonde demonstrates that femme resistance can be located in the success of femininity, rather than only in its failure.