Legally Blonde – Accountability Techniques at the Movies

Accountability: anything or anyone that helps us gain mental leverage to achieve the results we desire.

—The Accountability Stop

Legally Blonde is thoroughly embedded in the global pop culture psyche; Elle Woods is among the most iconic characters in movies of this century. Quirky and perky, Elle Woods also practices accountability techniques. The movie is so entertaining, it’s easy to miss.

(Am I obligated to say there are spoilers ahead? Legally Blonde is probably on cable television every single day. Turn on a television first if you’d like.)

Elle’s Accountability Buddies

When Elle hatches her initial plan to get into Harvard and prove herself serious to her proposal-averse boyfriend, she employs the accountability buddy technique. Elle enlists a more serious-minded sorority sister to keep her on-track studying for her LSAT. (See studying montage.)

Elle also became an accountability buddy for her Boston manicurist, Paulette. First Elle drove Paulette to get her dog back from a nasty ex husband. Elle also encouraged Paulette to speak to her not-so-secret crush, the cute UPS guy.

Elle’s Secret Benchmarking

Harvard and her new classmates gave Elle the cold shoulder. But instead of giving up and going home, Elle decided to knuckle down and beat them all at their own game. It was a great example of secret benchmarking. (Cut to montage of more studying!)

Elle’s secret work paid off when she got one of the intern slots for her teacher’s law firm.  

Elle’s Public Accountability

At the beginning of her adventure, Elle was all about public accountability. She told her friends and her parents about her plan to attend Harvard. But they were  unsupportive! Elle’s friends wanted to know why she would do something so obviously boring. Her parents suggested she was simply not cut out for Harvard. Elle experienced one of the negative effects of public accountability! So it’s not surprising that most of her Harvard work became secret benchmarking.

At the end of the story, Elle suddenly makes herself accountable for something more  than academics. She’s on the hook for a real courtroom result. Suddenly she’s publicly accountable again—to almost everyone in the story. In particular, she’s accountable to an older sorority sister. We can add that Elle is (likely) paid for this work. It’s a twist we didn’t talk about regarding putting money on the line for accountability. The things we do for money are almost automatically accountability-inducing. Work for money is like an accountability exchange system.

At the beginning of the Legally Blonde, Elle doesn’t need to be serious about much of anything. By the end of the story, she’s realized her own abilities through accountability and how her would-be fiancé isn’t accountable enough to be equal to her.

What’s Your Account?

Feel free to tell me I’m way overanalyzing a comedy movie! What else do you think? Is Legally Blonde and inspiring story of accountability for you?