Clueless: Social Class and Harriet Smith
Emma/Clueless
• Amy Heckerling’s teenpic comedy Clueless resonates the ideas, values and cultural assumptions evident in Jane Austen’s Emma
• Through the transformation of Austen’s text, several elements have been transformed and contemporised in the Heckerling’s Clueless
▪ Make-over/transformation ▪ Role of women in patriarchal society ▪ Struggles of social classes: the mobility and fluidity of the class structure ▪ Societal commentary ▪ Love and marriage (matchmaking, flirtation)
• The most important element of both Emma and Clueless is the “make-over”/transformation of Harriet Smith (Emma) and Tai (Clueless)
• Both Emma and Cher desire to create a being in their own image
• Harriet Smith and Tai are both of a low socio-economic status and are lacking in cultural knowledge and intelligence
• The main difference between them shows an element of the transformation of Emma in to a modern day film: this is the fact that Harriet’s downfall is her lack of cultural knowledge, social status due to her lack of family ties and low intelligence. However, in Clueless, it is Tai’s poor fashion sense which, in Cher’s view, makes her “adorably clueless”
• The archetypal concept of transformation alludes to several stories in modern day society and history. These include, the “Pretty Woman”/”Cinderella” myth – which constitutes the personal transformation via the symbolic acquisition of a newly constructed self. In the ideas of the “Frankenstein” myth, Cher’s statement “I’ve created a monster!” alludes to the failure on Cher’s part in Tai’s transformation.
• In Emma, the role of women in a patriarchal society is addressed in the relationship of Emma Woodhouse and her father – this is mirrored in a contemporary manner in Clueless
• In Emma & Clueless, both our heroines (Emma Woodhouse and Cher Horowitz) are presided over by a commanding patriarch: in Emma – the ailing Mr Woodhouse,
• Amy Heckerling’s teenpic comedy Clueless resonates the ideas, values and cultural assumptions evident in Jane Austen’s Emma
• Through the transformation of Austen’s text, several elements have been transformed and contemporised in the Heckerling’s Clueless
▪ Make-over/transformation ▪ Role of women in patriarchal society ▪ Struggles of social classes: the mobility and fluidity of the class structure ▪ Societal commentary ▪ Love and marriage (matchmaking, flirtation)
• The most important element of both Emma and Clueless is the “make-over”/transformation of Harriet Smith (Emma) and Tai (Clueless)
• Both Emma and Cher desire to create a being in their own image
• Harriet Smith and Tai are both of a low socio-economic status and are lacking in cultural knowledge and intelligence
• The main difference between them shows an element of the transformation of Emma in to a modern day film: this is the fact that Harriet’s downfall is her lack of cultural knowledge, social status due to her lack of family ties and low intelligence. However, in Clueless, it is Tai’s poor fashion sense which, in Cher’s view, makes her “adorably clueless”
• The archetypal concept of transformation alludes to several stories in modern day society and history. These include, the “Pretty Woman”/”Cinderella” myth – which constitutes the personal transformation via the symbolic acquisition of a newly constructed self. In the ideas of the “Frankenstein” myth, Cher’s statement “I’ve created a monster!” alludes to the failure on Cher’s part in Tai’s transformation.
• In Emma, the role of women in a patriarchal society is addressed in the relationship of Emma Woodhouse and her father – this is mirrored in a contemporary manner in Clueless
• In Emma & Clueless, both our heroines (Emma Woodhouse and Cher Horowitz) are presided over by a commanding patriarch: in Emma – the ailing Mr Woodhouse,