Clueless is an American coming-of-age romantic comedy film written and directed by Amy Heckerling in 1995. The theory I would like to discuss in this film is the Feminist film theory matured in the late 1960s.
Before we talk about feminist film theory, we must understand feminism. Feminism is a set of political practices seen through the analyses of the social position of women. As stated by Mulvey in 1975, it stated that Feminist Film Theory talks about men and women are differently positioned by the cinema, “men as subjects identifying with agents who drive the film’s narrative forward, women as objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing” (Freeland, 1996). ‘The Male Gaze’ only focused on the males’ point of view, everything including the camera movements, characters development, is directed by the male in order to satisfy the male audiences. In this theory, women often being objectified to visually please males. In early Hollywood movies, women often get stereotyped through the cinema and it caused negative impacts onto female viewers. It does have an improvement in decreasing the stereotyping of women representatives however the subtle one still remains in the contemporary film industry. Males often being portrayed as strong, powerful, and masculine; while the females are the weak and powerless one. Superheroes or the protagonists of films in the past only featured males, and it only started improved since 1940 when the first female superhero debuted, Fatimah who is an ageless Egyptian woman to fight evils.
Clueless is a film talking about a high school student in Beverly Hills, Cher, must survive the ups and downs of adolescent life. She is a rich, pretty, blonde, popular girl and knows how to talk anyone into doing just about anything. When she can't get a teacher to give her a better grade, she and her friend Dion match him up with another teacher to make him happier... and maybe a bit laxer on his expectations. When a girl named Tai transfers to Cher's school, she and Dion give her a makeover and attempt to find her a boyfriend. Cher soon realizes that she wants a boyfriend herself, but no one seems right. She goes through a spiritual makeover and realizes that there's more to life than clothes and popularity before she finds the boy of her dreams. Her external demeanor at first seems superficial, but rather it hides her wit, charm, and intelligence which help her to deal with relationships, friends, family, school, and the all-important teenage social life.
For the analysis part, we can find some various representations and compare them. The first female representation is Cher. She is a rich girl with blond hair. She is a caring and optimistic person but being judgemental and immature. As an example, she keeps arguing with her teacher to get a better grade for her results because she knew that if she show the results to her father she will be scolded. In fact, she did bad in her exam. She had turned over a new leaf in the end and become a mature teenager. The second female representation is Tai, Cher's friend. She is a brunette with a pretty look. Everyone thought she is a smart person but actually, she is dumb even a narcissism. Her actions were quite funny and she keeps asking silly questions. She had disputes with Cher but they reconciled in the end.
Cher
Tai
Overall, clueless is one of the movies that I have been watched in film studies I like the most because there are no involved in any horror scenes. We can see different types of female representations in this film. I will recommend this film to my female friends as it has well described the Feminist film theory.
REFERENCE :
Hayward, Susan (2013) Cinema Studies The Key Concepts, 4th ed., USA: Routledge, pp. 137 – 148.
Notes by lecturer
1MDb. (2019). Clueless | Plot
Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112697/plotsummary
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