Many women will tell you that Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde was one of their childhood heroines. The cult classic for girl sisters of the early 2000s was not only a box office hit, but an inspiration to girls around the world who could achieve anything they did. When Elle (Reese Witherspoon) is studying for LSAT with her sister Amy (Kimberly McCullough), Amy reads the answer options for an LSAT question. This is a topical LSAT issue that is part of the section on analytical reasoning, taken from current LSAT #31, June 2000. Delta Nu is a true sorority at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Harding University, a private college, in Searcy, Arkansas. However, she told Entertainment Tonight in 2015 that she turned down the role because she wasn`t sure she wanted to play another stereotypical blonde character like her role in Fox`s “Married With Children.” McCullah reportedly told the university`s Montpelier magazine: “We were denied our toilet paper. I offered activity points to my sisters because they had stolen spare roles in the administration building. She told Entertainment Weekly in 2001 that she spent time with real members of the sorority to prepare for the role. During the video recording of Elle at Harvard Law School, Elle`s sisterhood, Delta Nu, voted against switching from Charmin toilet paper to a generic brand. This scene is based on co-author Karen McCullah`s experiences in a sorority at James Madison University. During the video recording of Elle at Harvard Law School, the student explained that as president of her sisterhood, she had no problem ordering a piece.
Viewers watch Delta Nu members vote on a very serious issue with Elle Woods at the helm of the table — maintenance staff switching from Charmin toilet paper to a generic brand. The whole film is based on a novel by Amanda Brown and was inspired by her real-life experiences at Stanford Law School – fluffy pink pencil and all. In an interview with Elle, the film`s costume designer, Sophie de Rakoff, explained that they chose Elle Woods` signature pink color after visiting a sister`s home. She decided that the best way to play a sister was to spend time with them and learn their habits. Everything from how they talked, what they ate, how they chose their clothes, even how they treated new promises. Witherspoon has made it his mission to truly infiltrate the life of the sorority in order to define her role as Elle Woods. A spontaneous lesson in folding and slamming may not be very likely. Yet some scenes in this iconic 2000s film were based on real events. This includes a Legally Blonde moment with Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) as president of her Delta Nu sorority. Among the other changes that have occurred between the setting and characters in the story of Legally Blonde in its film adaptation, one of the biggest changes comes from Elle, which changes the sisterhood.
In the film and musical, she is a proud Delta Nu – but in the book, she is a loyal sister of Delta Gamma. In fact, there was (and still is) no sisterhood called Delta Nu at the time of its creation. However, Delta Gamma is 100% real and current, so if you want to become a sister of Elle Woods, you should check if there is a Delta Gamma chapter in your university or college. During the opening credits, a group of boys (mostly boys) are seen wrestling on a lawn in front of a fraternity house. These people are real Caltech students and were a final addition to this scene: they showed up on set out of the blue (the Brotherhood row and Sisterhood Houses are administrative buildings on the edge of Caltech`s campus) and were invited to participate in the filming. “It`s like an anthropological study,” Witherspoon said of the time they spent with the sisters, “You learn what they eat, how they behave, how they take care of their young, things like that.” She went on to say that sometimes it wasn`t always pleasant: “They showed all sides of themselves. Sometimes I`m shocked, I can`t believe they just told me that! The announcement got me thinking about some things – like how endorphins make you happy and happy that people don`t just shoot their husbands. But also how dreamy Delta Nu`s nurses` house was in the movie and how disappointed I was when I arrived at college 10 years after Legally Blonde came out in 2001 to see what college was really like.
