As a Millennial, I’m lucky to have so many nostalgic moments that bring me joy, specifically, being able to take a walk down memory lane when life was oh so much more simpler.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about being raised on Legally Blonde: you don't just love Elle Woods; you grow up alongside her. And Elle, which sends a teenage version of the famed lawyer back to 1995, years before Harvard Law, years before the orange Apple laptop and the Playboy bunny suit, isn't just a prequel. It's a time machine. And apparently, I wasn't ready for where this type of emotional roller coaster would take me.
Elle gave all the feelings, including mixtapes, dial-up internet, and a girl who hasn't yet learned that being underestimated can become a superpower instead of a wound. Perhaps that's what caught me off guard. I was ready for a very established Elle. But this isn't the Elle who already knows she's more than people assume. This is Elle before: awkward, uncertain, figuring out who she is in a place (high school) that doesn't quite know what to do with her. Watching her stumble, even while wearing Chanel tweed, reminded me so much of being that age myself. It very much felt less like nostalgia and more like a mirror, especially when it was a mini fluffy locker mirror you used to buy at Staples.
There's something about the messiness of being a pre-teen/teenager in the late 90s. We didn’t doomscroll or create makeup content about Drunk Elephant bronzing drops dupes. And we definitely didn't leave the house wearing a pimple patch. If anything, we sucked up the pain of a Stridex alcohol pad and called it a day. Nobody worked harder to make mixtapes with intention than us. Painstakingly downloading every song to curate the perfect road trip CD. Almost effortlessly, Elle captures every feeling down to the very first time you bedazzled your denim jacket. The show isn't subtly tipping its hat at the decade. It's living in it, the way many of us did.
Maybe that's why Elle feels like a love letter and not just to Elle Woods. It's a love letter to being a teenage girl who didn't have the language yet for her own confidence. A girl who was still learning that softness and strength aren't opposites, whatever the world around her was implying. I needed that boost of confidence from my old friend, and luckily she didn't let me down.
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