Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of Clueless, the Greatest Austin Adaptation
Words: Nadira Begum
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Amy Heckerling’s Clueless (1995) revolutionised the art of the Jane Austen adaptation.
Heckerling was praised for her reimagining of Austen’s Emma, where the refined sensibilities of Regency England were swapped for the superficial glamour of 90s Beverly Hills. Emma Woodhouse became Cher Horowitz, Mr. Knightley became Josh Lucas, and the language and setting was updated to better suit a generation raised by MTV and Cosmo. Clueless no doubt paved the way for the success of films like Romeo + Juliet (1996) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), but what sets Heckerling’s film apart from the rest is her earnest depiction of teenage girlhood in all its beautified glory.
I discovered Clueless in the midst of teenage angst, almost 20 years after the film was first released and at a time when my understanding of female gender roles had already been cemented by the (oftentimes harmful) media I had consumed. As a kid raised on the diet culture of the early 2000s, my formative years were shaped by headlines in tabloid rags that profited from women’s insecurities and the kind of media built on archaic distinctions of good and bad, proper and improper, right and wrong. My childhood was dominated by films like Mean Girls (2004) and High School Musical (2006) where the villains were materialistic airheads (Regina George, Sharpay Evans), and the protagonists were responsible brainiacs (Cady Heron, Gabriella Montez). There was an unspoken promise here: abide by socially accepted notions of goodness and you will be rewarded. Rarely were female characters allowed to be messy or indulge in their most materialistic whims without having to atone for their sins by the end of the film. Clueless set flame to these expectations by showing me a teenage girl who could wax poetic about the state of the world with shopping bags in hand and still be taken seriously.
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Where teenage girls are so often made the punchline of the joke, Clueless derives its humour from the sheer absurdity of how it feels to be a girl whose every move is dictated by a social structure you’re still learning the rules of. Cher is the product of a culture that has taught women to value themselves based on appearance from a very young age – but she isn’t ridiculed for believing in this. Through Heckerling’s lens, a teenage girl’s preoccupation with her appearance is simply a by-product of her environment, and not necessarily the most grievous sin of her character.
Cher’s interest in outward beauty is treated with as much seriousness as her belief in women’s bodily autonomy. Sure, she has a laundry list of rules she abides by in order to maintain her appearance – no coffee, low-fat foods only, regular exercise – but she’s also steadfast in her belief that one’s preference for a romantic partner is “a personal choice every woman has got to make for herself.” Here was a character who could discuss the importance of a woman’s self autonomy and the art of attracting a man’s attention in the same breath… and she wasn’t the punchline of the film? It was a fascinating divergence from what I’d come to expect of teen media.
As journalist Sophie Gilbert writes in her book Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, popular culture is indisputably “calibrated to male desire”. The way that Cher chooses to present herself is a reflection of just that. Cher is aware of the power of desirability and how women are expected to perform femininity in a way that is appealing without being overbearing. She lists off the things she’s learned a woman should do to make herself attractive: show a little skin, draw attention to your mouth, make it seem as though you are wanted by other men. When new girl Tai joins their school dressed as a stereotypical tomboy – oversized plaid shirt, unkempt hair, little to no makeup adorned on her face – Cher takes it upon herself to rescue her from “teenage hell.” Watching Cher instruct Tai on what to read and how to use words like ‘sporadic’, I was struck by the myriad ways in which women are judged. Even more fascinating was watching Cher attempt to mould Tai into her own image of the perfect girl; I knew that unrealistic beauty standards were thrust upon us by men, but never had I considered that they could be perpetuated by women too. Heckerling had opened my teenage mind to the inescapable prison that is patriarchy – and there would be no going back.
“It’s a distinction that Heckerling is keenly aware of, but one that she resolutely dismisses by allowing her female characters their frivolities without a hint of judgement while still remaining truthful about the way women will be punished for allowing themselves the same kind of grace.”
Cher is a girl who is as sharp-witted as she is shallow. She finds sanctuary in the mall and would rather spend an afternoon watching reruns of cartoons instead of the news. But her knowledge of the social contract when it comes to young girls in a patriarchal world is second to none. On more than one occasion, she asserts control over her own body and rebuffs unwanted advances from boys not in the form of a powerful monologue on the ethics of consent, but through the disgusted exclamation of “Ugh, as if!”
Cher speaks with the wisdom of a woman twice her age filtered through the mouthpiece of a Cali girl, her intelligence packaged in a custom Alaïa dress and designer heels. She may parrot the kind of harmful messaging found in trashy magazines, but rather than mock her for it, Heckerling showcases the innate difficulty of navigating a world that fed her such lies. Cher is allowed to be an uncompromisingly material girl in a material world who possesses a remarkable level of astuteness – a nuanced characterisation that is truly sporadic in depictions of teenage girls.
In a recent interview with HuffPost UK, Sarah Jessica Parker commented on the stark difference between the treatment of male and female characters, claiming that “a male lead on a show can be a murderer and people love him [...] if a woman has an affair, or behaves poorly, or spends money foolishly [...] there’s a kind of punitive response to it.” After decades of embodying perhaps the most famous material girl in the form of Carrie Bradshaw, Parker is, of course, entirely correct. Male characters are allowed to be unruly where female characters, especially in media aimed at teens, are made to repent for their unruliness. Ferris Bueller can be a truant who cares more about driving around in a Ferrari than he does finishing school and he’ll still be lauded as a teenage icon, but if a female character is even the slightest bit materialistic, she is dismissed as vapid, unserious, unintelligent. It’s a distinction that Heckerling is keenly aware of, but one that she resolutely dismisses by allowing her female characters their frivolities without a hint of judgement while still remaining truthful about the way women will be punished for allowing themselves the same kind of grace.
With Clueless, Heckerling created a film that speaks to a very basic fact of life: existing in a patriarchal society as a woman is, like, way harsh. To see a character like Cher who has complete agency over herself and isn’t belittled for her interests or made to sacrifice any aspects of her identity is a rare gift in the face of a world that never takes teenage girls seriously. Thirty years later, Clueless still feels like one of the only films that truly grapples with the absurdity of being a teenage girl.
