Is Hollywood’s Movie “Clueless” To Jane Austen’s Emma?
written by: Melissa Hadsell
Clueless. Clueless, the way a girl feels when she realizes that she really doesn’t know anything (or at least not as much as she thought she did). This describes Alicea Silverstone’s character Cher, Jane Austen’s character Emma, and of course most of the general public for not realizing the connection between the two. Jane Austen’s wonderfully amusing tale Emma has perhaps gone undetected as the foundation for Paramount’s 1995 motion picture Clueless; a hilarious film created from the novel, but set in the 1990’s instead of the 1800’s. There is almost two hundred years between the two time periods, and yet Austen’s timeless tale shines throughout the movie. Although the days of chivalrous gentlemen callers, daily strolls through gardens, and extravagant ball-like dances have been replaced by contemporary “Baldwins” with cell phones, treadmills and keg parties, romance and the coming-of-age from girl to woman shall always remain the same.
In the film Clueless, Cher enjoys the comforts of a high-class society and feels compelled to share her good fortune with others. She does this by forcing her good-intended but narrow-minded opinions on those around her. Cher discovers Ty (played by Brittany Murphy), a new student at her school whom is both naive and relatively in a lower class than herself. Cher, instead of helping Ty find love, almost destroys her only chance of it. Cher’s assumptions on men and love get her into heaps of trouble and even though she makes many adolescent mistakes, she ultimately finds what she is looking for which is not only who she is, but also whom she loves.
This story seems like just a modern teen flick, but it’s so much more than that. The times have changed, the names have changed, yet the characters and the story are wonderfully portrayed. Instead of high-class society in England, there is a rich high school in Beverly Hills, Mr. Frank Churchill’s secret romance with Jane Fairfax has been switched to “Christian’s” in-the-closet secret, Emma’s hypocondriac father has been converted to Cher’s workaholic dad, and Emma’s brother-in-law Mr. Knightley has been replaced by Cher’s stepbrother Josh, but the chemistry between the two is no less powerful. Despite the changes, Cher’s misinterpretations of the opposite sex and herself are clearly from the very heart of Emma’s. The resemblances lie within the central themes in both the page and on-screen. Cher finds her true love in the person she least expects him to be, Ty stays loyal to her heart and loves the one she loved first, just as Emma and her bosom buddy Harriet both did. The stories both end the way we want them to, happy, fun, and basically the same. So, while not every scene is revealed as in the novel, the most important ones as well as the character interactions are well incorporated in this up-to-date version of an out-of-date era.
These past few years famous literary works from the past have been translated into present-day films to expose young minds to authors like William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, in a way that is both familiar to them and appealing. Clueless displays a great novel in a modern society, yet it doesn’t take much away from the novel’s lessons, and comical mistakes of the young girl we all end up loving. Whether her name is Emma or Cher, she’ll win our hearts and make us laugh every time. Although I shall always prefer my imagination to the big screen, this film is not altogether “clueless” to the story which it was based upon.
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