what Clueless taught me about life

Photo courtesy of imdb

Cher Horowitz was my hero for about half of my childhood. Clueless came out when I was five years old and I spent hours plotting how I could become the child of a litigator (something I vaguely understood but mostly knew meant I could live in a huge mansion, mechanize my closet and get more plaid skirts in various hues). I thought about approaching sad, unfashionable girls at my elementary school and using cans to curl their hair.



Did I understand 99% of the humor and information being relayed to me when I originally watched this film, absolutely not, did I pretend to with my friends so I didn’t seem stupid, definitely. Scenes where Cher and her friends Dionne and Tai describe their views on sex and relationships confounded me for years. I still chuckle when viewing the film and thinking about all the jokes and information completely lost on me when I originally watched it some 15 or so years ago.

I just, when looking up the year the film came out, read that it’s loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma. What? I haven’t read anything by Jane Austen, because I’m not actually a woman, but what I can pull together from various Keira Knightley films it seems strange that Clueless would be loosely based on anything written before 1994.

The weirdest/most confusing relationship to understand as a child was that of Cher and Josh, her grungy stepbrother played by a young and incredible looking Paul Rudd — aren’t they related? What? I’m sure I didn’t know the word incest but something is obviously wrong with wanting to make out with your brother even if that brother is the son of a woman my dad was barely even married to anyway.

Now that I’m older and can appreciate the many facets of Clueless it has really been a guidebook to life. The girls are there for each other and in the end they understand each other’s choices with men, even if they’re stupid. Cher taught me the difference between sparking up a doobie at a party and being fried all day. And I did actually find out who Billie Holiday was after her confusion. I learned my first stereotypes about having a gay man as a friend. But mostly I learned how I should have been dressing in the ‘90s as a 7 year old.