A MOVIE ABOUT GRACE KELLY, HAD SHE BEEN FROM 1990S SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
(editor’s note: this essay was originally published on October 19, 2010)
When I was ten, I had the kind of friend a girl needs. Her name was Natalie. She lived at the trailer court next door, in the second trailer on the left. My house was shaped like the letter A. Natalie had shoulder-length hair that constantly found new ways to be unmanageable. She complained that it was a boring shade of brown. When I try to remember her face, her eyes seem too small—less like eyes and more like slivers of underripe almonds. Her nose, I think her nose might have been something special though. It was slim and freckled and it looked like a flute.
Natalie’s father worked at a Tupperware factory. I’m trying to remember what he looked like, but all I can see is Harry Dean Stanton’s character in Pretty in Pink, which is actually pretty accurate. A forty-five year old man with a melting face, sinking into a recliner clutching a cheap beer, lamenting his absent wife. I used to look for what may have been leftovers of Natalie’s mother in that trailer—floral throw pillows, a closet full of breezy ankle-length dresses—but there was nothing. I did something with Natalie which I would measure all other friendships against until graduating high school; I’d stay overnight in that mustard yellow trailer half the week, even if it was a school night.
Our one-year friendship was cemented by five things:
We thought Oasis was the best band on the planet (as did they).
We were both terribly taken by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo.
Chipped cerulean nail polish.
A blurry series of failed attempts to lift each other off the ground by reciting Light as a feather, stiff as a board, like in The Craft.
The release of Clueless on video.
For whatever reason, we were unable to see Clueless in theaters, which was the great tragedy of our lives. We made her dad reserve a copy at the video store. Even more obnoxiously, we forced him to watch it with us. I can so clearly picture his polymer-skilled hands taking the tape out of its shell. Natalie and I exchanged face-breaking smiles. I was surprised by the way Natalie’s father approached the film: he took it for the lighthearted fare that it is. This was a man who smelled of hot plastic, and there he was, laughing with two ten-year olds about privileged valley girls.
In the years since that first viewing, it has become increasingly difficult to come to grips with the reality that Clueless is one of my favorite movies. In terms of number of times watched, it is right there with Rear Window. I have been simultaneously trying to figure out how it happened and why I feel ashamed of this fact. When I quote it around the wrong people, I receive responses of ignorance, eye-rolling, or laughter. (The laughter being at me.) I find myself needing to justify my apparent adoration for the movie. Oh you haven’t seen it? Well, it’s really… It’s cute. The main character has this delightful little squeal.Or: I mean, it’s sort of like gas station nachos. Not the best lunch choice, but really really good sometimes, if somewhat embarrassing to purchase.
One could argue that Clueless was a cultural touchstone, created for the age group I was in when it was released. One could argue it’s sentimentality for the time in which it was based. For instance, Cher turns on the television and sees Ren & Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead. I often think about what else Cher would have seen while channel surfing. Roseanne. The Cosby Show. Full House. And Nick at Nite was really banging back then.
I took for granted that I would always be surrounded by people who liked the movie, or at least knew what I was referring to when I quoted it weekly. Lately I have known people to have never seen the film. Even worse, they seemingly have no desire to. Ah, man!
I dislike the idea of Clueless being dismissed as just a ‘90s teen movie, when it so perfectly captures what it is to be a teenage girl. Not just in the ‘90s and not just if you live in the San Fernando Valley. But, still: the thrill of a new hairstyle. The innate, overwhelming desire to be popular. The internal debate of when and with whom to lose your virginity. The process of getting ready for a date. (We don’t have to take that long, we just want to.) There is something to spreading the whole thing out. It is the ritual of pulling everything you own out of your closet. It is the ceremony of applying eyeliner set to music with heavy bass guitar.
Clueless answers some hard questions about dudes. For instance, is it okay to date a guy outside of your clique of friends? Answer: Yes. Is it okay for your boyfriend to shave his head right before yearbook pictures? Answer: No. (What would you tell your grandchildren?) Is it okay to date your ex-stepbrother? Answer: Yes, apparently, in the event that he is Paul Rudd.
The star of Clueless is Cher, a lovable fifteen-year old blonde from Southern California played by Alicia Silverstone. Despite the trouble the trailer goes to to promote her as brain-dead and helpless, I give Cher more credit than that. I argue that she is a complex character, albeit fancy-free. Some of this complexity may come from writer/director Amy Heckerling’s loose basis of the film on Jane Austen’s Emma, even if it is somewhat of a parody.
The older I get, the more blown away I am by the things in the film that still don’t seem outdated. With the exception of cell phones the size and weight of gold bars, most of its elements seem timeless. Cher’s style remains, as she would put it, classic. Mini skirts, knee highs, flattering jackets, plaid, and perhaps the ‘90s staple that has carried over in the biggest way: layers. Despite the exponential growth of technology, I have yet to see anything as useful and mind-blowingly awesome as Cher’s digital closet, in which she scans through every top and bottom she owns to create the day’s perfect outfit.
And the soundtrack! The titles read like a plot summary (Kids in America, I Wanna Be a Supermodel, Shake Some Action, Rollin’ With My Homies). The list of tracks that were cool in 1995 are not only listenable today, but enjoyable. (For the opposite effect, watch any eight minute sequence in 48 Hours starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte.)
For being the most popular girl at Bronson Alcott High, Cher’s maturity, confidence, and tendency to not take herself too seriously makes her somewhat removed from her peers. She plays into the flighty role that’s expected of her, but her lovely skull is far from empty. She knows an unequivocal sex invite when she sees one, can argue her way from a C+ to an A-, and knows Shakespeare, too. She is clever, quick, and true of heart.
Unlike those movies people often compare it to (Jawbreaker, She’s All That, Can’t Hardly Wait, Mean Girls), Clueless doesn’t rely on intimidation to establish the coolness of Cher and Dionne. There are no scenes of them walking down high school highways to a guitar-heavy song wearing bitchfaces while their peers stare longingly. Nor are there scenes in which they make fun of “inferior” students. Actually, it’s the opposite. Tai’s first moments on-screen include Amber proclaiming that “she could be a farmer in those clothes.” Cher and Dionne don’t laugh, but instead invite Tai to hang with them and immediately take her under their mesh-covered wings.
Amber’s character reminds the viewer of what Cher could be. Amber, with her unapologetic superficiality, fleeting fashion sense, and complete disregard for everyone other than herself, is Cher’s opposite.
I didn’t question the movie’s title when I was younger. It was just called Clueless, as if there was no other choice. Only recently have I wondered who clueless is referring to. I always assumed it was referring to the main character. I recently realized the word “clueless” is actually used three times in the film, and each time it refers to the same person. It is not Cher, but Tai. First, when Cher tells Dionne that their mission is clear. (Look at her, she is so adorably clueless.) Once when Josh chides Cher for treating Tai like a life size baby doll. (…You’ve found someone even more clueless than you are to worship you.) And then again in Cher’s narrative voiceover, when Tai is assaulted in the mall. (Boy, considering how clueless she was, Tai certainly had that damsel in distress act down.)
I used to imagine the title referred to Cher, that being the way she is seen by the people around her. Now I imagine it as Cher perceiving Tai as clueless, or without having a clue as represented by her former burnout lifestyle, choice of dress, and friends. The point being, that Cher wishes to give her a friendly clue.
Cher’s “good deeds” start in vain. She wishes to get Mr. Hall and Ms. Geist together to better everyone’s grades, specifically her own. Tai’s makeover seems to start out of boredom, or desire to exercise her girly powers of manipulation. (According to Dionne, makeovers give Cher “a sense of control in a world of chaos.”) It isn’t until everything turns to shit (Cher being held at gunpoint, Tai becoming the most popular girl in school, Christian being same-sex oriented), that she begins her ultimate project.
Cher decides that it is she who needs a makeover, except this time, she’s going to “makeover her soul.” Under the assistance of Ms. Geist, Cher heads a Pismo Beach Disaster Relief project set to more upbeat jams (if that’s even possible), and everything seems right again in Cher World.
To anyone who is still unconvinced of Cher’s complexity, I say to you: iCarly. That is the fifteen year old character girls have today. An immature hyperactive baby, who shouts everything she says, who lives in an inexplicable Seattle multifloor condo with no parents, who faces problems like how to tell her juvenile big brother that his butter sculpture melted, and who is ultimately boring.
I think of Clueless when I am looking for my only presentable top, which for her was a collared blouse from Fred Segal. I think of Cher when I am rushed getting ready, and my face gets flushed. I have thought of Dionne probably 4 times out of 10 when merging onto the freeway. Sometimes while drinking coffee, I wonder if it has stunted my growth. I think of this film when I remove a layer of clothing and have no idea what to do with it. Whenever I hear the word sporadically. Whenever I hear The Cranberries or Coolio. Whenever I try to recall what I’ve had to eat (two bowls of Special K, three pieces of turkey bacon, a handful of popcorn, five peanut butter M&M’s, and like, three pieces of licorice). When I see Mentos in the checkout line. While playing tennis. When I see argyle.
When I wonder where the girls like Natalie are hiding.
Bebe Ballroom writes from a small river town in Missouri, where she does not possess her dream job of naming shades of nail lacquer or house paint. She has cultivated inadvertent collections of chopsticks, bobby pins, loose glitter, and neglected musical instruments which haunt her from the corner of the room.
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