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Stereotypes In Legally Blonde

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Comedy and Theme
The texts in the genre are all consider Comedy. Each of these are comedies, together they identify race, gender and social class within their storylines. Stereotypes play a large role in making these movies laugh out loud, funny. The main characters in the movies are the actors playing out the stereotypical roles of their race/gender/social class. The chosen movies by which to identify these themes were created over the previous twenty plus years are, Legally Blonde identifying gender and social class, Trading Places presenting social class and race, and Get Hard pushing the bar with race and social class stereotypes.
Commonalities and Chosen Issues
In Legally Blonde, a 2001 comedy directed by Robert Luketic, the main …show more content…

The entire movie is based on stereotypes and perceptions of gender, race and social class. A very wealthy investment banker, James, is set up by his soon to be father-in law to take the fall for his illegal behaviors. Facing jail time, James mistakenly identifies Darnell, a black man owning and operating a valet service, as a carjacker solely based on the color of his skin, assumes Darnell has a history of being in jail based on his statistical reviews. Darnell a hard working honest man looking to make a living for his family, reluctantly agrees, and doesn’t deny his nonexistent jail time, to train James how to survive in prison for a large sum of money. Because Darnell has never been to prison he can only train James on stereotypes of prison behavior. After James failing all attempts of strength training, Darnell attempts to train James to attempt homosexual activity to stay “safe” in prison. Farrell states, “We’re playing fictitious characters who are articulating some of the attitudes and misconceptions that already exist” (Ge & Bennett, 2015). This is a push the bar R-rated comedy that race, gender and social class throughout the film. Walking a fine line between funny and hitting home, I feel this film, will help bring to light many of the stereotypical feelings many have encountered, and by making fun of these stereotypes, may just help those moviegoers in realizing how outlandish some of these stereotypes

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