Emma vs. Clueless This Paper

Emma vs. Clueless

This paper will briefly discuss the parallels between Jane Austen's Emma and the film Clueless directed by Amy Heckerling. The works are clearly didactic and are meant to teach us that helping others is a virtue but one must also be careful and understand one's own motivation and actions. I believe the movie has been true to Austen's message. The characters of Cher and Emma are very similar in many ways despite the difference in time period. The minor characters work to illustrate the main characters and continue the flow of the story. The following paragraphs will explore these ideas.

The didactic approach remains strong in both works as both the characters of Emma and Cher work to help others in their social circle obtain true love without regard for themselves or their own need of love. Both Emma and Cher claim to be happy without that kind of attention as Cher boisterously admits to not having any inclination toward dating "high school boys" with an "As if." Both characters seem content to focus on the well being of others as opposed to realizing their own situation until it is almost too late. Austen writes of Emma, "Her views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of useful reading and conversation, had never yet lead to more than a few first chapters" (67) which means that as much as Emma is bettering herself and her friend through books, they are also enjoying many discussions about new topics. Cher does the same for Tai after her makeover because Cher believes that it is not only the outside that matter but also the beauty of soul and one must care for the soul by feeding it new information. Still both girls are much too busy with the pet project of bettering the Harriet/Tai character and taking care of their fathers to notice that true love is their reach.

From the very beginning of both the novel and the movie, we can see the similarities between the two main characters. Emma is part of the rich, upscale society of a "large and populous village" in nineteenth century England, while Cher lives in rich, upscale Beverly Hills. In Highbury, the Woodhouses are "first in consequence there. All looked up to them" (9). Cher and her father are also among the cultural elite; he is a litigation lawyer, a prestigious and lucrative occupation in one of the most affluent cities in the world. Cher is also one of the most popular girls at her school. The description of Emma that Austen gives is also a description of Cher. She is "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition" (7). In this respect, Heckerling pays tribute to Austen in creating a similar character. Because of their wealth, both Emma and Cher are spoiled, in control socially, and tend to think too highly of themselves. This is a result of the lack of a maternal figure in their lives, as well as their fathers' over-indulgence. Cher has everything a teenage girl could want: money, her own Jeep, a huge wardrobe, et cetera. Like a lot of girls, she spends a large amount of time and money at the mall; however, she spends hundreds and thousands of dollars on her clothes, not the kind of money a typical teenager would spend. Because her father is so busy with his court cases, he has little time to spend with her to give her guidance and discipline. An example of Cher's snobbishness can be seen in the scene where she and Dionne are explaining to Tai how to become more popular. Cher states that she has already started to elevate her social status "due to fact that you hang with Dionne and I." Cher may be taking pity on Tai, but she does so with an air of arrogance because she knows she is from a higher social class.