: When Harvard’s Asian Student Arts Project first decided to perform “Legally Blonde” with an all-Asian cast, it was something of a joke. But by the time the musical sold out last month, it had become a reflection on white privilege, class and the model minority myth.
Thursday, November 11, 2021
How Harvard’s ‘Legally Blonde’ production bent the narrative with a snap of Asian flair
www.nbcnews.com
: When Harvard’s Asian Student Arts Project first decided to perform “Legally Blonde” with an all-Asian cast, it was something of a joke. But by the time the musical sold out last month, it had become a reflection on white privilege, class and the model minority myth.
: When Harvard’s Asian Student Arts Project first decided to perform “Legally Blonde” with an all-Asian cast, it was something of a joke. But by the time the musical sold out last month, it had become a reflection on white privilege, class and the model minority myth.
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I LOVE this!!! These students have truly reclaimed Legally Blonde using design, and made it into a poignant and culturally relevant way to show Asian American identity and experience, even through an overwhelmingly white show. Because of their thoughtful and important way of breaking tradition, I feel like their production should be a testament to the power of design, as well as to the power of intentional casting to support BIPOC narratives. This show proves that if producers actually wanted to, they would, and that their excuses carry little validity. I am glad to see so many strong Asian women rising to the cause to create a positive theatrical experience and story, and I hope all goes well with the production. I would love to see more productions like this in the future, and my hope is that young people continue to pioneer efforts like this. Of course I hope older people do as well, but I really see the innovation and change in the works of young people like the women in this article. Very cool.
This is simply the best thing ever. Much like the director Karina Cowperthwaite said, many works are representing the Asians as one person, one stereotype and one trait as if we are one monolith. This lack of singularity and individuality in the characters are still very problematic. Including one Asian character in your show that is smart, good at school and wears glasses is not diversity, it's a stereotype. Being able to acknowledge this is a huge step forward for Cowperthwaite, and going beyond just adding Asian American characters into her show is admirable. Seeing how the sets and costumes have changed to better tell the authentic story motivates me as a designer. Another thing that really spoke to me is the fact that “there are a lot of nonrace specific musicals that are just automatically assumed to be white”, and this is a good place to start approaching adaptations of musicals and plays. This is where we can tell stories from a different perspective that is no longer just from a privileged White person.
First of all, seeing M. Butterfly in this article made me flare with anger. It was a whole thing with Design Collab last year and sort of having it there to add a play with Asians, or so I've been led to understand, and it's just kinda icky. I really like this Legally Blonde idea so far though. I would love to see a deeper dive by the article into how the show reflects a diversity of Asian identities, beyond what has currently been said about Elle, Emmett, etc. There is a lot to unpack here that I can't fully articulate because of this roiling maelstrom of thoughts about my Asian identity, romanticizing whiteness (which is so real and was so detrimental to me throughout my growth), and the near non-existence of plays (especially musicals) that cater to the Asian or Asian American experience that aren't, as Cowperthwaite says, offensive, tropey, or stereotypical. I'd like to see this show also.
I actually watched a TikTok about this yesterday and reading this article, it was interesting to see the different perspectives about this performance. The most important thing that this article and the video that I watched that I think is so important to take away is the line “There are a lot of nonrace specific musicals that are just automatically assumed to be white”, because this is very true. There are a lot of pieces of theater that exist without race and they are just assumed to have a white cast. Reading about the changes that they made is also really cool and I liked that the article included an image of that in the article. I do like how they made sure to try to have different identities involved in their piece, and how they used the titular “blonde” to show that anyone can be blonde, regardless of race.
(I've never seen Legally Blonde so forgive me if I interpret any of this wrong.) I really enjoyed the attention to detail and meaning that they put into their design choices. One touch I found especially impactful is the dark roots on Elle's blonde wig. I appreciate that they made it apparent that this character chose to be this way in a nod to the western beauty standard and romanticization of tall white blonde women as the ideal figure. It's always exciting to see Asian-produced works that don't focus solely on the stereotypical strict parents, good in school, model minority crap that we see all the time. Rewatching shows from my childhood through middle school times I've noticed more of the problematic stereotypes they perpetuated. I see the characters that have little depth and the subtle ways they prioritize and romanticize European over Asian culture. The ways they insinuate and joke that Asian languages and cultures are all similar or the same. While those depictions in the mass media are decreasing we need more people like Karina Cowperthwaite to help break and point out these stereotypes.
This is such an interesting spin on a show that I've often heard people see as shallow. Turning the narrative of "Legally Blonde" in the way of challenging white privilege and the model minority myth is really sharp, and makes me see the original show in a different manner. I also feel like performing it at Harvard is the perfect setting for this: the epicenter of privileged American education, where people are considered to be wildly smart, but problematic tendencies continue to exist. Besides knowing that the house was fully sold out, I would be interested in knowing what the on campus student and faculty reaction was to the production. I also feel like this show worked because it was about issues faced by Asian students, presented fully by Asian students. The fact that they could pull directly from their experiences makes it much more authentic and avoids the problems that arise if anyone else were to produce it.
This seems like a really cool production, and I wish I could have seen it. Trying to modify or reinterpret shows like this can definitely be a hard line to walk, and you quickly run into questions like "is restaging a white (or at least implicitly white) story as a story about people of color actually doing anything for representation and actually doing anything to tell the stories of people of color, or is it just tokenizing on a larger scale?" And many productions that you hear about seem to fall on the wrong side of that question. This, though, seems like the design concepts and thought process that went into this really takes care to not just reinterpret a white story, but to deconstruct and use the white story as a frame for a story that is genuinely about Asian Americans, and carries important messages that question and break down stereotypes to show a multi-faceted picture.
I love this! I’ve always had issues with Legally Blonde as a story of feminist power, since the whole show is based around Elle trying to get a man and prove to him that she’s just as good as him, and then ending up going for another man. But watching this as a story about white privilege, played by non-white people, is an amazing change! The fact that the story was adapted by the community it represents adds authenticity and removes a lot of tokenism or fear or pandering. The other changes to the story to make it more appropriate to the characters sounds like it was done in a very smart way. I do wonder if they changed the song where they expose the trainer to being gay, it always felt like it was done in poor taste and has aged like milk. I hope the producers of the original allow this version to go on to be something that other people can see. I would love to buy tickets to this version and see the changes made.
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