Non-State Actress #17: Elle Woods and Assassination Attempts
President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Elle Woods, and a Bechdel-Wallace Test for Democracies
Welcome to Non-State Actress written by me, Maggie Feldman-Piltch . Our last issue, a Special Addition, featured my remarks from a NATO Public Forum kickoff breakfast. Our last regular post covered The CCP, Regina George, and the 3rd Velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Your support makes Non-State Actress possible.
BLUF
Political violence in the form of assassinations and assassination attempts against a specific individual is not a new phenomena. It is as old as one of, if not the, oldest human behaviors on record: assuming aesthetically cohesive women are inherently stupid. Both have dire consequences for society if we let them, and if Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods, President Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II taught us anything it’s that we can be better than that.
Press Play
First, The Facts
On Saturday, July 13th, 2024 a lone gunman shot and killed a person in the crowd at a rally for Former President Donald Trump1 in what is being called a failed assassination attempt. Former President Trump was injured when a bullet grazed his right ear and two other members of the crowd, both men, were seriously injured. The gunman was shot and killed by US Secret Service within seconds.
This, like everything else I cover in Non-State Actress, is incredibly serious.
For some Americans, it is the first publicly known2 instance of an assassination attempt against a leader and for many people around the world it feels as if the foundations of our nation are shaking in a way we are too fragile to withstand. These are valid feelings. I am undecided as to whether I share them probably because I am running on very little sleep and copious amounts of caffeine.
Anyway.
Non-State Actress is about embracing American pop culture as an utterly necessary tool in engagement and informing. It is ‘unconventional’ by some standards and a well-traveled path by others. Either way, I guard my ability and therefore responsibility to communicate like I mean it with the utmost intensity.
Does that mean it can get uncomfortable at times? Sure.
But unconventional and uncomfortable is not inherently inappropriate and it is never intentionally disrespectful.
TLDR: Don’t confuse my aesthetic cohesion with ineptitude or worse - disregard for the severity of a situation. That would be lazy and boring and un-American.
I Am So Tired I Cannot Feel My Face
Legally Blonde turns 23 this month and many a millennial are not prepared to accept this reality. Hearing one of the greatest movies of all time is old enough to drink - that we’ve lived longer with Elle than without her - is both comforting and terrifying.
I sat down to watch Legally Blonde 1 and 23, partially because I am *very* ready for number 3, partially because I needed some Emotional Support, and partially because I had this feeling Elle was relevant to the Current Moment.
I mean let’s be honest, she’s never not relevant to the Current Moment, but even I was a little concerned when in the wake of an assassination attempt on the most recently former POTUS my brain went “Watch Legally Blonde.”
For the record, it took me 4 minutes and 1 second from the Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s roaring lion for me to hit pause and know why. I have no idea if I’ll adequately to communicate this to you, dear reader, but let’s try.
Legally Blonde is a product of its era, a timeless long-done-over classic, and absolutely groundbreaking all at once. Girl loves boy, boy dumps girl, girl fights to get him back, boy crawls towards her, girl squashes him like the non-ecosystem sustaining bug he is. From the music to the set design, the fashion to the script, Legally Blonde is an early 2000s ‘chick flick’ to its core - yet certain undeniable details turn the old trope upside down and bounce it off the ceiling4.
What could also be described as a product of its time, a not-really-that-new phenomena which regardlessly results in people acting like it’s never happened before/the end is nigh- political violence. And that gives me a ton of hope.
Spicy, right?
I say that because we’ve been here before - both in movies and in political violence - and come out the other side.
Why Legally Blonde?
What makes Legally Blonde stand out is not the premise, but how our hero makes her way. Is it the only example? Absolutely not, but I was in a mood when I started this piece and I am committed to the bit.
Anyway.
When Elle saves the day, it is not because she absorbed the standard knowledge of her colleagues and competitors and assimilated. When faced with a long played out, she does not do the “expected.” She runs towards herself.
Elle prevents an innocent woman from going to jail for murder AND outs the real killer because of 'pre-transformation knowledge’. As she says:
“The rules of haircare are simple and finite. Any Cosmo Girl would have known!”
Our hero succeeds not because she becomes Exactly Like Everyone Else but because she stays who is - and has lived enough life to be challenged for and by, it but holds on with a perfect manicure anyway. And she does it without violating the Bonds of Sisterhood - which means she keeps her word, lives her values, and gets the job done.
Just like President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
Wait, Who Got Shot?
On March 30th, 1981 President Ronald Reagan, two members of his security detail, and White House Press Secretary James Brady were wounded in an assassination attempt using a .22 caliber revolver and ‘devastator’ bullets in Washington, D.C. On May 13th, 1981 - less than two months later, Pope John Paul II was shot twice in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Rome. Both men were irrefutably world leaders, both were shot by a single assailant in their ‘home’ cities, were critically injured, and suffered extreme blood loss. But those aren’t the important similarities, really.
The way both men were impacted by the ordeal is the story, tbh.
It is well documented in large part because in both cases they responded with such an emphasis on reassuring their constituents, with such awareness of the moment, with such commitment to the values they publicly supported, with such nuanced humanity, even their sharpest critics could find no real criteria to complain on.
Like Elle, when forced to be the protagonist in a situation the world had seen so many times and told would only have one response to, they refused to be less than who they were and leaned in to their preexisting definitions of freedom.
President Reagan made clear his respect, admiration, and appreciation for everyone who kept the work of the country going and left no room for partisan dispute. Pope John Paul II immediately made clear he forgave his assailant, building a long relationship with the shooter and the shooter’s family. They refused to allow their worlds to be made smaller, sadder, or more divided out of fear which they made clear in their actions, the words, and the actions and words of those who engaged on their behalf.
And both men openly discussed how the event made them more committed to making the world a better place.
Just like Elle who refused to fight ignorance and misogyny with anger and pettiness, Elle who made friends and built bridges (most notably with the assumed ‘competition’), who never once compromised her values or her way of living in the world. Elle who graduated with friends, job opportunities, a wonderful partner, and a great dog.
So if how the characters in a story face moments of inflection matter so much, to the point where the very existence of the catastrophe does not create an unavoidable outcome, do we have more control than we realize?
I [Concur]!
In 1985, cartoonist, writer, and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel laid out the criteria for seeing a movie in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For.
The original criteria:
Minimum of two women characters
Those women talk to one another
The conversation is about something other than a man.
And thus, the Bechdel-Wallace Test was born. Later versions of the Test have additional criteria like requiring the women to have names known to the audience. The Test attempts to provide a baseline set of binary requirements for the inclusion, involvement, and development of women characters and their role in the story. As simple as it seems, even now, nearly 40 years after its publication, it is terrifying how few major works of fiction across mediums (film, television, theatre, books) pass the Test but that isn’t the point.
For those who think this is a silly, social justice warrior, snowflake and artificial requirement forcing studios to make movies in a certain special way for no reason I quickly offer the following:
Films that pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test earn more money than films that don’t. Passing films have hire revenue and a median 37% higher return on investment5. The movies make more money, which is generally the measure of success for movies.
Legally Blonde, of course, passes the Bechdel-Wallace Test with flying colors. What could have been a silly movie about a silly girl being silly was anything but, because Elle and many of the other film’s beloved characters contained multitudes. Our heroine was more than a cardboard (or plastic) version of what people imagined her to be, and she resisted becoming one even when it was hard.
If the Bechdel-Wallace Test is so effective at ensuring Chick Flicks that are more chicken soup for the soul than Abercrombie & Fitch circa 2002, and the criteria required for passing also makes the movies financially successful, the next logical step would be:
To make a good and financially successful movie, make it past the Bechdel-Wallace Test.
So, is there a Bechdel-Wallace Test the moment we are in? And if so is the criteria somewhere in how President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II faced their respective Next Day in 1981?
Look for Leaders and Helpers
Again, assassinations and attempted assassinations are terrible occurrences and deeply serious, reflecting in many cases a long built up, undemocratic sentiment in society which cannot and should not be tolerated. So, again, why the Chick Flick point?
Chick Flicks often depict women as objects, portray the definition of success in a way that excludes more than it includes, and even so much as suggests an aesthetic preference outside of the ‘standard’ is a mark of incompetence threaten all of us.
I am not saying the attempted assassination of Former President Trump is the equivalent concern of a poorly developed female character. I’m saying that many people see both of these things are inherently corrosive, dangerous, and weakening to our societies and that the existence of either means all hope is lost.
Not every Chick Flick is Legally Blonde or Barbie. Some of these films are miserable, demoralizing, dehumanizing, artless wastes of time and space with not even a decent soundtrack to save you. And worse- sometimes it can be hard to tell the good from the bad at ‘face’ value.
Thanks to accessible measures like the Bechdel-Wallace Test, we have a better chance of saving ourselves from not only making a bad movie but watching one. Better yet, we know how to make a good one.
So, I would like to suggest that perhaps the way President Reagan and Pope John Paul II responded to assassination attempts against them had a greater impact on the health of global society than the incidents themselves…which means political violence does not need to spell inherent doom.
Wrap Up
Not all acts of political violence bring on the end of the world (we’re still here!) and not all Chick Flicks are trash - there is choice here. And the choices impact the story.
The best part? Since this isn’t a movie, we all get to be characters.
As our country and our world continues to face hard questions and decide how, or even if, we want to deal with those questions, it isn’t wrong to look for an Elle Woods - someone who at their hardest moments, when it would be easiest to be less instead continues to give more. It isn’t wrong to want to see some President Reagan or Pope John Paul II or Elle Woods in our leaders and people who occupy leadership roles, as long as we recognize we all get to be characters too.
Not seeing the Elle Woods you need in the world? Guess that means there’s an opening and your just got cast!
Itching for Someone in Charge to speak up in the name of civic engagement, peaceful transitions of power, and a common cause for democracy? Buy some throat lozenges and a microphone.
Basically, look in the mirror and get to work.
The fact that we are not numb to the violence and terror now just like we haven’t been in the past is an important sign that we can restore the cracks and live long enough to face new ones.
As the world once heard at the 2004 Harvard Law School graduation,
On our very first day at Harvard, a very wise Professor quoted Aristotle: "The law is reason free from passion." Well, no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law -- and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world, remembering that first impressions are not always correct. You must always have faith in people. And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.
Gimme More
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde
Attempted Assassination of President Ronald Reagan
Pope John Paul II’s Message to ‘Fellow Sufferers’
‘Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies,’ by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young
‘Famous Assassinations in World History: An Encyclopedia,’ by Michael Newton
‘A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930–1960,’ by Jeanine Basinger
‘Hollywood's America: Twentieth-Century America Through Film’, edited by Steven Mintz, Randy W. Roberts. Chapter: The Women’s Film - When Women Wept,’ by Jeanine Basinger
Hit or Miss? The Effects of Assassinations on Institutions and War, by Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken
I refer to Former President Trump as such because the incident in focus did not occur during his presidency. I refer to President Reagan as such because the incident of focus did occur during his presidency.
There are lots of assassination plots and attempts, unfortunately. The overwhelming majority are thwarted by various law enforcement entities and other organizations.
These are both exceptional movies. If you liked ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ you’ll like Legally Blonde 2. If you liked ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ and don’t think Legally Blonde 2 is worthy of your time, you’re lying to yourself…because the latter is intentionally nearly shot for shot the same movie of the former 🙃.
If you’re not singing you’re doing it wrong.
A FiveThirtyEight study of films from 1990 to 2013 looked at 1,615 projects. Projects that passed the Bechdel-Wallace Test had a median budget 35% lower than films that failed the test - but a 37% higher return on investment (ROI) in US Markets.
In 2018, Creative Artists Agency, one of the largest artist management companies in the world, looked at the 350 top earning films from 2014-2017. 60% of those films passed the Bechdel-Wallace Test. And so did every film since 2012 bringing in more than $1 billion in revenue.