The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 51

Hollywood & College Women

women should not be visibly nerdy or deliberately intellectual. For example, in The House
Bunny, Shelley, the Playboy bunny turned sorority house mother, tells the sorority president
(Natalie) as she removes her glasses, "Wait,
Natalie, you're too smart, boys don't like girls
that are too smart." The Prince & Me is the only
ﬁlm where the main character, Paige, begins
the movie focused on a career path. Paige concentrates on becoming a doctor, only to have
her dreams derailed by a marriage proposal.
On the other hand, Legally Blonde develops
into a focus on being successful in college as
Elle works to attend law school. Notably, Elle
initially pursues this advanced degree as a way
to follow her ex-boyfriend and try to win him
back. One of the main messages in all of these
movies seems to be that women should rely on
external validation to ascertain their self-worth
and should prioritize heterosexual coupling
over their academic and career pursuits.

Relationships Valued over Academics
The theme of valuing relationships over academics aligns with the idea that the purpose of
attending college is to ﬁnd a marriage-worthy
relationship or to combine a bachelor's degree
with an M.R.S. degree. All these ﬁlms deal
with romantic relationships, often directly
referencing marriage as the desired outcome
and placing less focus on studying. This is not
surprising, as even newspaper articles about
the undergraduate gender gap that results
from more women than men attending college
focus predominately on how this threatens
women's chances of dating and their marriage possibilities (Yakaboski, 2011). Generally,
these ﬁlms repackage a fairy tale theme with
college serving as the setting for where romantic dreams come true-where the princess

meets, falls in love with, and couples with the
handsome prince. For example, in the main
plot of First Daughter, Samantha falls in love
with her resident assistant, who turns out to
be her bodyguard. Her rebellious behavior only
comes about once he has to break up with her.
Despite the initial setback, the movie remains
faithful to the fairy tale motif by beginning
with "once upon a time" and ending with the
makings of "happily ever after."
Even more than in First Daughter, the plots
of ﬁve (LB, PM, PUM, DEBS, HB) movies
concentrate so heavily on romance that the
relationship hijacks the woman's academic
plans or progress. Legally Blonde begins with
scenes of Elle preparing for a marriage proposal from her college boyfriend and ends
with a scene of a marriage proposal from a
new boyfriend she meets at law school. In
Pumpkin, because of the difﬁculties caused
by Carolyn's decision to pursue a relationship
with a male who is neither a college student
nor has an equivalent social status, Carolyn
decides to transfer schools.
Among these ﬁlms, Paige (PM) and Alicia
(NBF) are the only characters who want to
perform well in school for academic reasons.
They both want to pursue professional degrees
and need high grade point averages to qualify.
Unlike the other ﬁlms, they want degrees to
enter careers and earn money; they do not
enter college focused on a relationship. Moreover, The Prince & Me is the only ﬁlm where,
after the main character gives up college to
consider a marriage proposal, she ends the relationship to pursue her initial goal of medical
school. Paige even states that "this was exactly
the kind of distraction I was trying to avoid."
There is a happy ending when the prince

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1