January 18, 2007

Ohmigod, a Horrible Idea

Ladies and gentlemen, Legally Blonde: The Musical. You see, the movie wasn't annoying enough, so they decided to add some songs and dance numbers. This will no doubt mark our young century's apotheosis of cultural achievement.

To be fair, I've always hated musicals. I can't sing a damn note -- sometimes I'll hum a song and ask Dr. M what it is, and it sounds to me like I'm humming something but to her (and presumably other human beings) it just sounds like the same tone over and over again. In my drama geek days my tone-deafness was cast into sharp relief by my drama department's emphasis on musicals, and led to a feeling of marginalization amongst the drama elite. Early on I developed an unsound theory that musicals are plays with stories that are so weak that they need songs to fill them out. This is certainly true with respect to some, perhaps many, musicals (think the extremely boring Pygmalion and the unwatchable My Fair Lady). But I can no longer claim that this is true in a general sense.

I actually don't remember the last time I went to see a musical, and hopefully it's something I'll be able to avoid until my own children join the drama department of The Little Lord Fauntleroy School for the Weak in the hopes of meeting girls. I certainly won't be seeing Legally Blonde. In fact, I thank goodness that this wasn't playing in the Bay Area when I was a summer associate, as I anticipate that law firms will view this as prime "summer outing" material (the firms were all taking kids to see The Lion King when I was fake lawyering).

To be further fair, I haven't seen the movie Legally Blonde. However, the previews made me want to push my eyes into my brain so I don't think sitting through the whole film would give me any further insight into the film's merits (I've also sworn off of anything starring that particular gremlin-faced hack). Besides, Legally Blonde was one of only three things that people ever talked about during my first year of law school (the other two being baseball and The Sopranos), so I feel like my initial impressions have been confirmed. Here's a sampling of some of those conversations:

Classmate: I swear to God, they based Elle Woods on my college roomate. No, seriously, if you see the movie and then meet [Jennifer/Bethany/Samantha/Courtney] you'll totally freak.
Me: Yes, well, there's no shortage of shallow, obnoxious people at the nation's top law schools. Ow, you punched me.

Classmate (possibly the same classmate, possibly someone else): No, she's not actually stupid, see, because at the dress shop--
Me: SHUT UP! SHUT UP! STOP TALKING ABOUT LEGALLY BLONDE FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES!

Classmate #1: I grew up in Northern California and am therefore a Giants fan.
Classmate #2: I grew up in Southern California and am therefore an Angels fan.
Classmate #1: Let us debate the merits of our respective teams as they compete in the World Series, including detailed discussions about last night's game and predictions about tonight's game.
Me: Any of you guys like stand-up comedy?

Law Review Write-On Application: [Sopranos LOL.]
Me: I want my Spring Break back.

Posted by hb at January 18, 2007 09:04 AM

Comments

I'm finding people at UCLaw to be notably more shallow then their Loyola equivalents. But it's probably just me. Loyola types tended to have significant others, struggles in their lives, and financial difficulties. The non-transfer UCLAns I've met tend to have never had a problem in their whole life, are financially sound, and are just beautiful. Simply beautiful. So I identified with the former and am cowed by the latter.

Posted by: Kevin! on January 18, 2007 10:35 AM

For some reason my section at UCLA had almost all of the "re-entry" students, so there were parents, divorcees, former police officers, and so forth, most of whom were pretty down-to-earth. There was also Steve, whose powers of hair are truly astounding.

Posted by: matt on January 18, 2007 11:17 AM

That second exchange is hilarious.

But I can't believe you're not supporting this either. Supreme Courtships! Legally Blonde the musical! These are recognitions that out profession is becoming "in." Don't you care about being "with it"?

Posted by: wt on January 18, 2007 01:07 PM

Matt, I love you. I don't think the fact that I'm married and you're married should get in the way of that.

I went back and re-read your reese post and all of the comments and I couldn't stop cracking up. Why did you cut off the comments? It's like watching American Idol auditions. Just keep giving them more rope.

Posted by: emilyp on January 18, 2007 04:21 PM

You should see the poor state of my hair these days. You would turn over in your grave, you would. That is, if I had succeeded in burying you alive as my plot demanded.

Posted by: Steve on January 18, 2007 05:37 PM

wt - Lawyers run the country. You know that as well as I do. We don't need to be "in."

emily - I cut off comments the day after Reese Witherspoon won the Academy Award because I was sure I would get dozens of teenage girls claiming that the Motion Picture Academy had proven me wrong. And I love you, too, marriages be damned.

Posted by: matt on January 18, 2007 10:01 PM

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)