If you already think this is some kind of ironic joke post, I urge you to examine this. You should look inside and wonder what part of you is prepared to dislike a movie called Legally Blonde, which you may be aware is a lighthearted romp. What about you has been programmed to think there’s nothing you can learn from an easygoing piece of entertainment, to taxonomize it out of relevance based on a mental representation of it, formed instantly by your anticipatory systems?
Is it weird, maybe, that a part of you shrinks from even the preliminary idea of a reality in which you enjoy watching an adorable woman surmount obstacles in a heartwarming fashion?
Your ability to be openhearted has been damaged. Before you take the risk of feeling joy, you have to adopt a defensive posture. It’s not your fault. You have been assaulted by the insane demands of human life. Maintaining your position in the tribe has required projecting disdain, often, based on a subtle knowledge of cultural codes accumulated unconsciously. And this is what Legally Blonde is about. Like Siddhartha, it is a story of a terminally openhearted person encountering a world that embitters the sensitive. And, also like Siddhartha, it is a story of integration, of a person learning to shed their naïveté but not their joie de vivre.
Elle Woods is profoundly beautiful. Her physical attractiveness is notable, but it’s really the way she carries herself. She is a person who loves, full stop. You know how there are two modes you can bring to the world—the having/using mode, and the being/becoming mode? She permanently defaults to the latter, creating what John Vervaeke calls the “resonating moreness in the mystery, between the mystery within you and the mystery without.” Any antagonistic division between her and anyone else is merely a matter of circumstance. The universe is her friend, it just might not always act like it, which is totally okay.
But this stance doesn’t lead her towards passivity. It leads her to lunge passionately at existence, following her heart wherever it goes. She loves Warner. When Warner turns out to be an unavailable dullard, she goes after a prestigious job at a law firm. When the partner turns out to be a lecherous pig, she goes after her first case alone, winning it with a knowledge of hair treatment that others might dismiss as feminine frivolity.
The bad version of desire is the one where the world is your battleground. There is something you want behind some fortifications. What you do is get ready to blow them up, at great expense, hoping that the victory will finally heal that little scratch inside. And then either you win, and you find out that the victory isn’t everything you thought it would be, or, more often, your plan falls apart.
The good version of desire is the one where the world is your dance partner—you make a gesture, it gestures back, and that’s what you get to do on earth. This is Elle’s mode of wanting.
One scene really sticks with me. Elle, in her room, is visited by Vivian, her nemesis. Vivian is there to praise Elle on maintaining her ethical compass in a difficult professional situation. This is a person who shamed Elle in public, is dating her ex-boyfriend, and has nothing in common with Elle culturally. But when Vivian offers Elle an olive branch, there is no friction and little surprise. Elle just says here hold my cute dog.
You’re Elle’s friend if you want to be unless you’re a man who wrongs her, in which case you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what brought you to resist Elle’s manifest goodness. She has the capacity for punishment, but she uses it judiciously, only when required. Elle is the meritorious elite that our society needs to survive, Mr. Rogers with a lovely cravat and a little hatchet.
I want to be more like Elle, on a lot of levels. My nail care could be better this year. My wardrobe could use some editing. And, also, I haven’t always been as kind as I could. What separates me from Elle is that I get stuck, sometimes, in wondering what it means that I might show affection to one person, rather than another—what the utility of that is. Elle is too serious to occupy herself with such silly questions. She regards harmony as the proper mode of human existence but brings all of her idiosyncrasies to the service of this goal, rather than eliminating her difference.
This is the ethos that builds civilizations, that holds together all of the human dust we’ve snatched at great cost from the tyranny of entropy. It’s fine if your hero isn’t Elle Woods. But if these aren’t qualities you aspire to, take this as an opportunity to reconsider your qualities.
Recently, my father admitted to being very moved by Hallmark movies. In many ways he is a traditional man's man. His favourite literary languages are sex, violence, and innuendo. When my brothers and I were growing up, he often counseled us on the virtue of grit. I have rarely seen him cry. At the same time, he is an English teacher, is sensitive to tricks of storytelling, and is highly critical of the inauthentic. He's quick to chide anyone he notices telling themselves a story about life in which they deserved more than they got, or in which they are a maligned hero. All this is to say, I would never have imagined that he would be disposed to weep at Hallmark movies. My younger brother was equally surprised, and swore that he himself could never be moved anything so artless. But my father suggested that, if your heart is not moved by simple stories of basically good people overcoming obstacles to love, maybe it's your heart that's the problem.
All this is to say: Hallmark movies could serve as an easy litmus test for metta.