Clueless

Clueless is a film clearly written and directed by a woman, with its female leading role and main characters and its most prominent theme of female independence. It is a story of the obstacles a teenage girl faces at her high school, with her friends, and in her love life. Cher is a typical “popular high school girl” foil, with looks, money, and confidence. Although Cher seems naïve and ditsy, the movie’s main theme of independence permeates through every one of her actions. Cher’s personality, similar to that of the characters in the film “Mean Girls,” is a mask hiding her compassion and intelligence. Unlike the teenage girls of “Mean Girls,” Cher spends her time trying to help a “clueless” new girl adjust, without malice or backstabbing, and arranging the romance of two of the faculty at her high school in order to raise her grades. Contrary to her ditsy character foil, Cher knows exactly who she is and exerts her independence and confidence in order to get her way through being a female. She uses her sense of fashion, amongst many other assets to help the outsider new girl fit in, and uses her knowledge of romance and the male sex to spark a relationship between her two teachers. Although she has money, and a father who has influenced her talent in argument and persuasion, Cher grew up without an important female role model, her mother. Her upbringing, lacking that major maternal element, reinforces her personality as a independent girl who knows what she wants and how to get it. Amy Heckerling, the writer and dierector of the movie, uses her lead actress in that way to portray a strongwilled young woman who knows who she is.