Is Clueless Emma?

There have been many adaptations of the Jane Austen novels. One of the more recent ones has been the movie Clueless which aired in 1995. Although this movie is fifteen years old it still holds true to today’s culture and society. This movie is an adaption of the novel Emma, but set in more of a modern setting to appeal to teens in the present in this coming of age film.  Clueless is set in Beverly Hills in the 1990’s. Clueless is a coming of age movie where the main character, Cher, who is a modern Emma, tries to set up people only to benefit herself. In the movie she comes to the conclusion that sometimes she cannot control the emotion of attraction, and along the way realizes that she has a larger purpose in life than setting people up.  There are some differences but there are more similarities to the novel than not.

One of the first similarities of the two works is the social class. Most of the novels that Jane Austen writes have class as one of the main themes and Emma is no exception. In both the novel and the adaptation Clueless examines class throughout including the size of estates that they both live in, the social tendencies that both young females tend to avoid, and by their determination to help a female of a different class understand her possibilities. Clueless and Emma both highlight class again in romance; specifically Elton and why he chooses against the female that he is set up with. They even went as far and kept that name the same in Clueless. It was Mr. Elton in Emma, and Elton was a first name in Clueless.  Class can be seen in the novel when Emma tells Harriet on the subject of her opinion of Mr. Martin, the farmer, that, “He is very plain, undoubtedly—remarkably plain—but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility” (27). Here Emma voices her opinion of what the lower class acts like and how different it is to her class.  Cher does the same thing concerning the Travis who Tai immediately likes but then is persuaded otherwise.

Another similarity between Emma and her adaptation is that the film follows the basic plot of Emma. The film does this by having the female lead become a matchmaker. Not on one couple, but with two: an older couple that succeeds followed by a younger couple that doesn’t. This film also has the Cher taking Tai under her wing, just like Emma does with Harriet in the novel.  In the novel Austen writes, “ Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen whom Emma knew very well by sight and had long felt an interest in on account of her beauty… Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody” (19). This is important for the adaptation because if these concepts were left out it would not be as close to the original novel.

Dancing is another thing that these two works also bring together. Dances were an important part of the culture when the novel was written, and when Jane Austen was alive. It was something that her readers would and could connect with. In the adaptation I was really relieved that two dances were put in the script because it is a subtle but important factor in the novel as well. The dancing is a place for people to see one another at their best, and it is also a place to be social but chaperoned. In the film it is a high school party that has dancing in it and there is also a dance that Cher gets taken to. The second dance is a chance for the maturity level of the main male character to show because in both the novel and the film he notices the social differences and sees to correct these differences as well as he can.

The film even goes as far as sealing the ending of the movie to one that is like the novel where the main character ends by getting together with her step-brother who is older her.  This is important to the novel because Emma’s Mr. Knightly is older than her and that is true on the same scale as a high school aged female dating an adult man. Many marriages in the regency period were of a relation, older gentlemen, or a combination of the two. In the novel Emma Mr. Knightly is her brother-in-law and many would say that that is a relative by association. In the same way a step-brother could be considered a relative in today’s society.

The film Clueless is Emma as she would have been in the present day. Even though it is a dated adaption because it was made in the 90s, it still works in today’s audience. Clueless’ main character embodies the personality of the character that Jane Austen made up 200 years ago. This coming of age movie is an adaptation of a classic novel and it sheds light on some of the issues that were present back then as well as issues that are relevant today, and encompasses those both to make the film Clueless much like the novel Emma.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Signet Classic, 1964. Print.

Clueless. Dir. Amy Heckerling. Perf. Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy. Paramount, 1995. DVD.