CLUELESS: LIKE, AMONG THE BEST OF THE BEST
Jane Austen’s original intention when writing Emma, which the film Clueless (1995) is loosely based on, was to create an extremely unlikeable main character… That could easily be applied to Cher Horowitz, the main character of the film, who is a spoiled, rich, popular girl in a Californian high school - a trope we’ve seen vilified to no end in teen rom-coms… except that’s not Cher at all. Through Clueless, Amy Heckerling brilliantly reinvents what the popular girl could be, taking the time to fully understand the character she’s writing & adapting while making sure the viewers do so as well.
© 1995 Paramount Home Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Retelling the classic story in a modern setting in Clueless, through the stereotypical “popular high school girl” trope we’re all familiar with is a stroke of genius, as it provides us with an introspective take on said trope that we’ve never seen before. It allows for more exploration of & an extra layer of depth to not just the trope, but Cher herself as her own character & a three-dimensional young woman. The movie could almost be considered a character study - it’s practically impossible for you to walk away from the film without understanding (or loving) Cher as we see her evolve from a confident & clever yet also naive & borderline manipulative girl with good intentions… into a young woman with a better understanding of herself and the world around her.
“The Haitians need to come to America. But some people are all, ‘What about the strain on our resources?’ But it’s like, when I had this garden party for my father’s birthday, right? I said RSVP because it was a sit-down dinner. But people came that, like, did not RSVP, so I was, like, totally buggin’. I had to haul *** to the kitchen, redistribute the food, squish in extra place settings, but by the end of the day, it was, like, the more the merrier! And so if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haitians! — Cher
Cher providing commentary on immigration and the topic of refugees in Clueless. Is it naive and simple? Yes, but she demonstrates a strong opinion, empathy, and intelligence in a way most teen comedy characters don’t. Her 90s/Cali girl way of conveying it doesn’t make it any less important.
Thus, Clueless is a weird example of a perfect book-to-film adaptation. It captures everything that makes up the original story, but elevates and enriches it, by perfectly translating it into film in a way that is relatable to modern audiences, true to the novel without being bound to it, & still makes perfect sense. Nothing is lost from the novel, even the social hierarchy present in Emma’s Victorian England weirdly perfectly equates to the social structures & importance of status in American high schools including all the colorful characters you might find in both societies. Heckerling makes it entirely her own that it could be argued that Clueless is even more popular and beloved than its source material, as most people don’t even know it’s based on a classic book…
Needless to say, Heckerling achieved something truly phenomenal with Clueless, and I’m not using the word phenomenal lightly here. Clueless is a landmark film of its genre and its decade.
It’s unashamedly of its time - perfectly capturing the spirit of its setting, its characters, and the world Heckerling wrote in the 1990s, yet it is also simultaneously timeless. Despite the fact that the film is filled with 90s pop culture references & obsolete technology and that the world Heckerling creates and captures is borderline satirical and fantastical in nature, it never feels outdated & it works…; it magically remains relatable and in tune with the generation it was created for and all the generations that followed, leaving a significant legacy & cultural impact that lasts to this day (in contrast to many teen comedies that got old quick).
© 1995 Paramount Home Entertainment. All rights reserved.
The success of Clueless is the main reason for the tsunami of teen comedies that followed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reviving the genre of the John Hughes era in the 80s in a new way, for a new generation - including similar “modernized” literary adaptations.
Clueless shaped the way teenagers talked & dressed since its release and up until this day, two decades later - thanks to Heckerling’s brilliant script & costume designer Mona May’s beautiful & incredibly original creations for the film. It’s even more of a remarkable feat when you find out this wasn’t the first time Amy Heckerling impacted pop culture in such a way with one of her films, as her 1982 hit “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” left a similar impact on kids of the 1980s…
Needless to say, I think Clueless is an exceptional film. It’s as unashamedly optimistic, charming, layered, and fabulous as its main character, and remains my favorite teen comedy, among the best films of the 90s, and it definitely has a spot on my all time “must watch movies” list. It’s like, among the best of the best.