Being Clueless Is A Privilege, But Cher Horowitz Isn’t Just A Spoiled, Dumb Blonde

Twenty years ago, writer/director Amy Heckerling put a Beverly Hills spin on a Jane Austen classic with Clueless. We’re honoring this pop culture powerhouse with Clueless Week on Decider. Click here to follow our coverage.

It might be weird watching Clueless for the first time in 2015. After all, the story of a rich, blonde, Beverly Hills princess making the new girl in school prettier, falling hopelessly for the single gay kid in school, and then finding true love with her ex-step-brother brings one word to mind: PROBLEMATIC. Yes, Cher Horowitz is possibly the most entitled romantic comedy heroine ever put on film. She seems, on the surface, to be enemy of social justice-focused bloggers everywhere: the epitome of white feminism, a conventionally beautiful, able-bodied, and privileged woman who does good for others only, in the words of her step-brother Josh, because it serves her interests more than theirs. She’s a selfish, spoiled brat. How could anyone possibly like her?

That’s, at least, the thesis I was going with before I watched the movie again this week. I’ll admit: I loved Clueless so much the first time I saw it when I was just twelve years old. In fact, I think it was probably my favorite movie after only seeing the trailer. Cher, especially, was living an aspirational life, but she was also the most clueless character. She thought she was brilliant, but she was, in fact, some dumb blonde. Oh, the years I spent making fun of her and feeling like she was the butt of every joke.

Going into this post, I tried to base my thesis on my memory of the film and, in particular, Cher’s more annoying character flaws. The way she demands every teacher change her grade, either by lying to her lesbian PE coach that her performance slipped because of a broken heart (appealing to her man-hating sensibilities) or promising to devote time and effort into raising funds for charities? Gross. The very premise of the movie revolves around her efforts to make the lives of those around her better — better in the most superficial sense, at least — solely to prove her own depth. The deepest thing about Cher Horowitz, however, is her walk-in closet.

But as I watched the movie again, I couldn’t help but see the best parts of Cher. Yes, her altruism was rooted in her selfishness, but whose isn’t? In no way were we to walk away from the film — a movie about a sixteen-year-old girl, by the way, so let’s be kind of empathetic here — feeling like Cher was a selfless human being.

Take, for example, how much she truly cared for her friends, how popularity seemed like a nice perk rather than an entitlement, how she never pushed anyone around or made anyone’s life miserable. I mean, compared to any other Queen Bee in a teen comedy — Mean Girls’ Regina George, Heathers’ Heather Chandler, and Jawbreaker’s Courtney Shayne — Cher is practically a saint. The worse thing she does in the movie is mistake her housekeeper, who is from El Salvador, as being from Mexico, and that was in the midst of a rare temper tantrum. We can hardly judge the whole of her person from one immature mistake, because, as the film displays by its final shot, she’s changed her tune enough to care about others for their sake rather than her own. If she can change that much in the course of a semester, just imagine what the full-fledged adult Cher would be like today, and what she’s capable of.

Being clueless is certainly a privilege — it’s a blessing, after all, to be naive and ignorant of the world’s worst evils. But a bad faith assumption about Cher’s inner life — to suggest that she can’t possibly care about anyone because she’s too focused on herself, seems not just a mediocre — knee-jerk reaction to a fictional character in a perfectly harmless, pleasurable film, but also one that seems a little immature. Clueless isn’t a movie about class, but that doesn’t mean the people behind it weren’t — or aren’t — aware of it. But to demand it in the text is to distract from what the film actually displays throughout its 90-minute running time: a teenager girl who looks out for others as much as she looks out for herself, because their happiness and comfort is, naturally, connection to her own.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!

Photos: Paramount Pictures