corktown common
Thursday, July 11, 2024

legally blonde

With the short film Camera Test

No programme about work would be complete without a razor-sharp indictment of the severe gender inequalities that plague the modern workplace. In Canada, women make 84 cents for every dollar a man makes – and this gap is much wider if you’re Indigenous, racialized, or disabled. While Legally Blonde’s overwhelming whiteness makes it unable to fully grapple with the intersectionality of gendered discrimination, it remains relevant in its willingness to embrace femininity and reckon with the devaluation of women’s contributions to the workplace (two decades before Barbie). In Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon is a modern-day Marilyn Monroe in her now iconic turn as sorority president-turned law student Elle Woods. After being dumped by her boyfriend in her senior year for being “too blonde,” Elle decides to try to win him back from her arch-nemesis Vivian (Selma Blair) by going to Harvard Law School. However, once she arrives, Elle quickly becomes disheartened as her professors (Victor Garber and Holland Taylor) and classmates dismiss her as unserious. But with the help of an intrepid esthetician Paulette (scene-stealer Jennifer Coolidge), Elle quickly demonstrates her mettle when she’s thrust into supporting the defence in a murder trial that requires not only legal acumen but also an encyclopedic knowledge of hair care and last season’s Prada shoes. Throughout, Elle Woods always remains Elle Woods, and her success in law depends entirely on embracing who she is – bright, bubbly, and blonde. 

Like Legally Blonde,local filmmaker Joyce Wong’s Camera Test  – produced as part of the NFB’s Five Feminist Minutes 2019 programme, marking 45 years of feminist filmmaking at the NFB and 80 years of the NFB – offers both incisive and hilarious commentary on the realities of working in the screen sector as a woman. Oscillating between absurdist reenactments and poignant personal interviews with a wide range of women occupying different intersectional identities, Camera Test shines a light not only on experiences of misogyny and racism in the screen sector, but creativity and resistance as well.

This screening will be presented with optional pre-recorded Audio Description available for blind, low vision, or visually impaired audience members. More information about this accessibility feature is available at TOpictureshow.com/audio. Other accessibility features available at TOPS events, including open captioning, are outlined at TOpictureshow.com/accessibility.