Happy 20th Birthday Clueless! You Have One More Year Before We Can Party

Dude what's wrong with you? Are you suffering from buyer's remorse or something? 

Can you believe that it's been 20 whole years since knee-high socks, plait skirts, and a cannon of pop culture phrases that are so timeless that we still use them in conversation were the basis for how we functioned as human beings? Your 'as ifs' your 'whatevers' your 'I totally paused' par example. 

Don't you feel ancient? I do. Let's travel back in time. It's 1995. I'm an awkward overweight 5th grader with greasy hair and I come to school one day and everyone is dressed up exactly like Cher in the opening scene. Well, we all kind of had to because we went to a Jewish private school and we already had plait skirts, that's right Clueless, we did it first. I also noticed a lot of those topless range rovers driving around the campus by the cooler older sisters, even though that thing would fling like a sling shot over a speed bump and violent crumble like a piece of aluminum foil, it looked fly. Another archaic term from the mind of Amy Heckerling. The girls in my class basically turned themselves into little mini-Cher's because let's face it, who wanted to be Tai. We all used pagers and flip phones, bulleted to the galleria after school was out, and started to believe we could argue our way from a C+ to an A- if we told our teachers that an evil male broke our hearts. Seriously I can quote that film from beginning to end verbatim so for all of our sakes, I'll try to keep it at a minimum.

Those outfits, ladies. Those outfits were so amazing that they were a character in the film unto themselves. We collectively thought. Wait, we can dress like that? No one told me! 

Based surprisingly enough on Jane Austen's 'Emma', the film tells the story of a loaded Beverly Hills blondie who has a rotating closet, a mansion in the 90210, and silky blonde hair, and absolutely no clue. It's laden with more 90's nostalgia than the front page of Buzzfeed, and oozing with snarky and quippy one-liners. It's literally the perfect teen movie, and I just feel so sorry for the generation following us that nad nothing better than Twilight to cling to. Mean Girls came close, but c'mon, there can only be one. And Clueless is the undisputed gold medalist.

Here's the thing, it's not just dumb funny the likes of which we see with the frat pack, where fart and pot jokes are front and center. Yes, it's a film for the ladies, but for how much it glorifies being a bit hair-brained, and CLUELESS, superficial and dense, it's a smart satire with such amazing writing that only a woman's sensibility could have brought to it. Amy Heckerling is like the Nora Ephron that doesn't take herself too seriously, and she's damn talented. Female filmmakers to this day like Tamara Jenkins, Nicole Holofcener, and Sofia Coppola takes major queues from her. As they should. She was a trailblazer in her own right, and the film is still relevant today, despite being a fluffy comedy, despite being totally dated, and despite having little substance.

Pillow lipped, gorgeous, and quirky, Alicia created a character that we couldn't help but love and aspire to be. 

Why is it most of us can still quote from it, name at least 3 actors that were in it, and dress like Cher at the Valley party? It's not just teenage fodder. Perhaps unintentionally, Heckerling made a landmark film that through its carefree whimsy became a solid piece of pop culture history.

All of us Gen-Y'ers are starting to procreate (well most anyway), and I'm sure the first thing we sit our kids down to watch when they're about 8 or so is going to be Clueless. You know why? It's very simple. It's fucking fun. It's not Citizen Kane, and it doesn't have to be. It's entertainment in it's purest form, salted and peppered with a great wardrobe, and some of the most memorable spoken lines ever, this film changed our entire cultural landscape. For those of us who remember, we went from wearing Nirvana T's and coming to school with unwashed hair, to pulling up those knee-high socks, charging our giant flip phones, and giving everyone in our path some kind of make-over. Yeah we might not have grown up loaded in a giant mansion in Beverly, nor fallen in love with our step brother (lest we forget, that was also our introduction to Paul Rudd). but we could all relate to Cher's plight. In fact, she is in a very strange way Charles Foster Kane. She's a girl that has literally everything, but in the end realizes she needs to 'make-over' her soul. If only Kane had come to the same conclusions. (I realize film buffs reading this are very close to shooting me right now) I honestly don't care.

Still rollin' with the homies. 

Clueless is a timeless genius piece of filmmaking, and what's great about it is that it doesn't make you think, and it doesn't make you cry. It makes you laugh and it makes you happy. And, escapism is a very important cog in the filmmaking institution. Also, talk about roles people were born to play. Had anyone been cast as Cher aside from Alicia Silverstone, I think the film would definitely have been forgotten damn fast. Her faces alone are unforgettable. The 'oops my bad' big eyes, or the 'anything you can do to attract attention to your mouth is good' dreamy stare, and of course the 'She's a total Monet' side-eye. She was our perky, blonde, Gloria Steinem. So bless you Heckerling, bless you Alicia...now if you'll excuse me I left my Cranberries CD in the quad I have to get it before someone snags it.

And I couldn't resist so here's my favorite list of quotes:

'He's a disco dancing, Oscar Wilde reading, Streisand ticket holding friend of Dorothy, know what I'm sayin'?' - Murray

'At least I didn't skin a collie to make my backpack' - Dionne

'What was that about?' - Cher
'Lucy's from El Salvador' - Josh
'So?' - Cher
'It's a whole different country' - Josh
'What does that matter?' - Cher
'You get upset if people think you live below Sunset' - Josh

'You're a virgin who can't drive' - Tai

'My foot hurts, can I go to the nurse?' - Elton

'Duh, it's like a famous quote...from cliff's notes' - Cher

'And I think I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn't say that. That Polonius guy did' - Cher

'I'm not offering I'm asking you IF you drink, you think I give alcohol to teenage drivers taking out my daughter?' - Mel Horowitz

'Girly, as far as you're concerned I'm the Messiah of the DMV' - DMV instructor

'Isn't my house a classic? The column date back allt he way to 1972' - Cher

'You like Billie Holiday?' - Christian
'I love him' - Cher

'That's Ren and Stimpy. They're way existential' - Cher

'You look confused' - Josh
'Well, I thought they declared peace in the Middle East' - Cher

'It is one thing to spark up a doobie and get laced at parties, but it is quite another to be fried all day' - Cher
'Do you see the distinction?' - Dionne

'Cher get in here' - Mel Horowitz
'Yes daddy?' - Cher
'What the hell is that?' - Mel Horowitz
'A dress' - Cher
'Says who?' -Mel Horowitz
'Calvin Klien' - Cher

Ok I'll stop now. Add your own. You know you have some.

Below, clips! What else?

Life is So Fucking Awkward.!

This is usually the face Jenna (Ashley Rickards) makes when things get awkward, which is often...obviously.

So last night after being bored to tears watching Roger cry like a bitch for the millionth time on Snooki & JWoww the predictable train-wreck spinoff of Jersey Shore (2009 - ), I was too lazy to change the channel when Awkward. came on. I had always written it off because it looked just like one of those many many many retrospectives on a pretty but ugly girl in the most uncomfortable moments in her life, and the endless awkward mishaps that keep happening to her for some reason...but for the digital age. At first, it seemed like the teen version of Sex and the City (1998- 2004) and then I was like, hold up - the main character blogs literally like all the time, hold up - the vast majority of her sexual hookups are painfully awkward, hold up - she narrates her life with passive narcissism and ironic self-deprecation. So she's basically me but 12 years ago (good fucking god I'm old). So my advice for Jenna would be - hang in there sister, it gets worse. 

I remember when my high school boyfriend broke up with me. I had on that exact same face/dress/pigtails. This leads her to have sex with her boyfriend's much hotter friend Matty (Beau Mirchoff).

...this guy. Yep, this one.

I think I've figured it out. The 90's celebrated the ditz in all of us, the one who WAS popular, attractive, smart but not really, and not weird at all, except if it's conventionally weird (which sounds like an oxymoron, but I'm making a My So Called Life (1994) reference here.) From Clueless (1995) to Saved by the Bell (1989 - 1993) the 90's celebrated the rich, conventionally hot, accidentally brilliant persona, while the 00's have given life to the disadvantaged, socially retarded, and yet completely endearing girl that television keeps building shows around, starting way back with Freaks and Geeks (1999 - 2000). But for all shows that have taken this trend to narrative, this is beyond superior. Yes, I'm talking to you Glee (2008 - ), and to you Girls (2012 - ), your awkward main characters just aren't making the cut, they're boring, stuffy, inarticulate, and overall huge boner killers.

If you're in your teens (first of all, my condolences) second of all, you are probably having much more awful sex than what TV dictates you are. I mean in the pilot episode, main character Jenna (played brilliantly by Elizabeth Taylor doppelganger Ashley Rickards) has sex with a guy at her camp and his penis slips into the 'backdoor' accidentally. Let me repeat that: His penis slips into the backdoor...accidentally. Usually you wouldn't even find content like this on your worst run of the mill soap opera, but there it is on MTV. So if you're looking for your TV filth fix during Snooki & JWoww hours, hang in there and stick around for Awkward. It's the best show you're not watching. 

Below the Season 2 promo.

Spotlight on: Clueless

'Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.'

 When those of us on the tail-end of Gen X, or birth of Gen Y were just awkward 10-year-olds with braces, bad hair, and chubby fingers, there was a film that defined everything about growing up in the 90's, and even if we were far too young for a lot of their inside jokes we relished in it, and remember it verbatim to this day.

Penned as a contemporary adaptation of the Jane Austen classic 'Emma' (1815) it told the story of a totally loaded blondie from Beverly Hills named Cher played impeccably by Alicia Silverstone who tries to improve on the shallowness and general misdirection of her peers through the cutest catchphrases of the 90's.
Sure you have your 'as ifs' and your 'whatevers' but my personal favorite is 'He's a disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holding friend of Dorothy, know what I'm saying?' which is exactly what I say to a friend every time I'm trying to convince her that her boyfriend is gay.
But let's talk about the star of the film for one second, blonde, Lolita-esque, curvy, ditsy, and cute as a button Jew Alicia who could not have been more perfectly cast. She was total jailbait but in fact had based much of her career prior to Clueless (1995) on that very shtick. She was the Frodo Baggins in the trilogy of early 90's Aerosmith videos, and by the time she hit the feature screen she was only 16, while her counterpart Stacey Dash (Dionne) was like 30 playing a 16 year old.
As a girl, I just remember wanting nothing more than to be exactly like Cher when I grew up from the soft flowy hair which she adjusts every two seconds, to the designer wardrobe (particularly that infamous yellow outfit she wears in the beginning of the film) I think I even begged on my knees for my parents to buy me one of those windowless white Jeeps that were so popular back then, of course if you hit a speed bump you'd be doing somersaults against the pavement until the car compressed into the size of a foil ball like an accordion. To perpetuate the Lolita aesthetic, she also had those ridiculous knee high socks, remember those? If you played Varsity Volleyball like me you did, because that was part of the uniform. Together with a brightly colored plait skirt and a tight baby-tee, we were all sold.

I'm still waiting for someone to bring back the oversized headband-minidress-thigh high socks look. A girl can dream.

Another Lolita-like quality of the film is the whole incest undertone. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I was and still am pretty bothered by the fact that she ends up with her step-brother (played by Paul Rudd) at the end of it all, I know they are not related by blood and step-sibling romances were a huge trend in the 90's (Cruel Intentions (1999) par example) I still found it rather icky.
But all that aside, we cannot deny that Clueless was a defining moment in 90's culture along with Vanilla Ice, Woodstock '99, and the OJ Bronco chase. Girls my age took pretty much all of their cues from this delightful little film, impeccably written and directed by New York intellectual Amy Heckerling. Aesthetically speaking, no other film better captured what it was like to grow up in the 90's, and it's just too bad that the millennial's don't have something quite like Clueless to point to and say 'this was me, I lived this'. Oh and also, RIP Brittany Murphy...I guess. I'm outty.

Check out below for hilarious commentary.