Summary
- Clueless, an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, remains a beloved teen film, but the romance at the heart of the film is still problematic.
- Cher and Josh were briefly stepsiblings, but their relationship is more problematic due to their age gap.
- Cher and Josh’s age gap was actually much smaller than the age gap between Emma and Mr. Knightly in the original novel, but it still places Cher and Josh at different points in their lives.
Clueless was among the 1990s’ most notable teen romantic comedies. Filled with iconic costumes and relatable lines, the 1995 film is also a well-conceived modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. It was a fairly progressive film for the ’90s, particularly in terms of its feminist outlook on friendship and romance. Even as it completes thirty years soon, Clueless feels largely fresh and current, but has one notable flaw that makes even diehard fans hesitate.
Clueless follows young and oblivious Beverly Hills-born teen Cher (Alicia Silverstone), who lives in her own bubble of privilege. Though not malicious, Cher has a habit of making real people into “projects” so that she can give them a makeover, or boost their popularity in school. On the surface, the movie is a run-of-the-mill teen movie (albeit with seriously memorable dialogues and iconic moments) but within its teenybopper-ness hides a deeper meaning. Cher’s childlike indifference actually hides how confused she is in matters of the heart, ultimately leading to some epiphanies of colossal proportion — including her feelings for Josh. That said, Clueless’ relationship between Cher and Josh made some viewers uncomfortable, and is considered problematic despite how adorable it was.
Updated on May 4, 2024 by Fawzia Khan: Clueless remains a beloved film still today. This article has been updated to adhere to CBR’s new formatting guidelines and include more analysis of the differences between Jane Austen’s Emma and Clueless.
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|
IMDb Rating |
Rotten Tomatoes Score |
Metacritic Score |
|---|---|---|
|
6.9 / 10 |
76% |
71 / 100 |
Clueless put Cher and Josh’s relationship in an awkward position to start with, as their parents were previously married, making them stepsiblings. Mr. Silverstone was “hardly married” to Josh’s mother over five years before the events of the beloved ’90s movie, which meant that Josh and Cher were step-siblings only due to their parents’ conjugal relations, not actually sharing any biological connection. Still, they had lived together as siblings for a short while, setting their dynamics at the start as brother and sister. Cher and Josh maintained a sibling-esque bond even after their parents divorced and frequently teased each other. Josh was also comfortable in Cher’s house and even stayed there during college break, long after their parents’ short marriage was over.
“You were hardly even married to his mother and that was five years ago.”
While they were no longer stepsiblings, the fact that Josh was basically living at Cher’s house and enjoyed a mock-stepson relationship with her father proved awkward for many viewers. Mr. Silverstone also seemed to trust Josh more than he trusted any of Cher’s other boyfriends, as was obvious by his behavior towards Christian and Elton. This trust was obviously because of the brotherly relationship that Josh shared with Cher for years. However, this particular hangup can be explained away easily, as their parents hadn’t been married for years, Josh had gone away to college and lived separately, and the two weren’t actually related. So, while the two characters were briefly stepsiblings, their age gap is the larger issue and remains questionable at best, and prevents Clueless from truly standing the test of time.
Why Cher and Josh’s Age Gap Is a Bigger Issue
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- Paul Rudd left his debut show Sisters to star in Clueless in 1995.
Although there was only about two years difference between their ages, Josh and Cher were at very different points in their lives. At 16 years old, Cher was still finding her footing in a changing world and faced the daunting threshold of graduation. She was in high school and still a child, living with her parents and happy to think of popularity, diets, and her image because of how young she was. Meanwhile, Josh was more mature, home on break from college. Clueless lessened the age gap depicted in Emma to make it more believable for an American teen film. However, because California’s age of consent is 18, it made Josh and Cher’s relationship illegal and, quite frankly, uncomfortable to watch. Depicting a relationship between a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old set a bad example for other young girls and men watching the film, and made it problematic.
Despite capturing the themes that made Emma such a versatile novel while giving it a modern spin, the age gap in Clueless was in poor taste for some viewers. Many viewers pointed out, both upon release of the film and in retrospect, that it was weird that a college-going man like Josh wanted to hang out with someone from high school. He should have been exploring friendships and relationships with his own peers in college, but he chose to come to Cher’s house (against his mother’s wishes) and struck up a romance with a school-going girl. As if being former stepsiblings wasn’t enough, their relationship became even more problematic due to their age gap.
Emma Had Its Own Problematic Elements
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- Emma was the last novel of Jane Austen’s to be published before her death. Her very last novel, Persuasion was published posthumously.
Josh and Cher’s relationship was also different from the central romance in Emma. Despite being an adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, there were many key differences between the book and the movie. Emma had its own flaws, which can be attributed to the time period it was written in. Josh’s counterpart would be Mr. Knightley in Emma, who actually had an alarmingly large age gap between himself and Emma Woodhouse. Mr. Knightley was considered a man of good moral standing, emotional maturity, and good judgment, which made sense because he was a whopping seventeen years older than Emma. Clueless nearly did away with the age gap to suit modern sensibilities, but putting Josh and Cher in college and high school respectively undid a lot of that effort.
However, unlike the movie, Mr. Knightley is not related to Emma the way Josh is to Cher. He is the brother of John Knightley, who was married to Emma’s sister Isabella. Therefore, the relation is not nearly as direct as being step-siblings: in fact, there is no relationship between the two at all as he is only related to Emma’s brother-in-law. However, it is clear that both Emma and Clueless have problematic elements in their narratives, especially from a modern-day perspective. In a way, Clueless may have erased the large age gap between the protagonists by reducing it to two years (college age and all), but introduced a whole other issue which was their previous step-sibling relationship. Still, it’s clear that the heart of both Emma and Clueless lies in the evolution of Emma and Cher respectively, rather than their romantic prospects.
Clueless
Shallow, rich and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school’s pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher first coaxes two teachers into dating each other.
- Director
- Amy Heckerling
- Release Date
- July 19, 1995
- Studio
- Paramount Pictures
- Cast
- Alicia Silverstone , Stacey Dash , Brittany Murphy
- Writers
- Amy Heckerling
- Runtime
- 1 Hour 37 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Comedy
- Producer
- Robert Lawrence, Scott Rudin
- Production Company
- Paramount Pictures, Robert Lawrence Productions, Scott Rudin Productions
