Way harsh, Tai
As Clueless turns 30, we celebrate girlhood and all its mess
There are a lot of formative films celebrating milestone anniversaries this year. We’ve already talked about The Goonies, and since that film’s anniversary, Airplane! and Jaws both passed major milestones (45 and 50, respectively, and boy, do both films hold up). Now, though, we have another coming-of-age film anniversary coming up: Clueless turns 30 on July 19. This film convinced me I could be an outfit girl, you know, the kind of girl who coordinates her whole look every day—preferably with the help of an automated closet—only to ultimately accept that I am not a Cher, I am a Tai. I like oversized flannel and comfy jeans and band tee shirts. I’m never going to look cute like Cher, but that’s okay. Because Clueless isn’t really about being an outfit girl, it’s about being a girl, full stop.
Clueless is not just unabashedly feminine, it is gloriously, graphically, egregiously girly. Written and directed by Amy Heckerling, who previously depicted a much less glamorous high school experience in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Clueless is loosely adapted from Jane Austen’s Emma, making it part social comedy and part romantic comedy. It preserves the rhythm of Austen’s story—a well-meaning but self-involved girl tries to “help” everyone around her by knowing what they need better than they do, only for her efforts to blow up in her face. Like Emma Woodhouse, Cher Horowitz gains maturity through her failed experiments as a matchmaker and also finds love for herself along the way…
