Emma/Clueless

EMMA & CLUELESS

Both Emma in Jane Austen's Emma and Cher in Amy Heckerling's Clueless portray symbolical manifestations and representational products of their social environment. Each of their social contexts are established by the composers' distinctions and parallels of values, ethics, settings and mediums used.

In observing Jane Austen's Emma and Amy Heckerling's Clueless one if forced to observe the paralleled values in both texts. These values assist in confirming the social, historical and cultural contexts within both texts.

A prominent binary in establishing disparate contexts within Emma and Clueless is that of 'propriety' against 'equality and expression'. Propriety is a principle issue within Jane Austen's social context of Emma, the correctness and admiration towards 'wealth' in 1816 is very much observed. This propriety is sustained by the somewhat hierarchal features that the town of Highbury possesses. "The Woodhouses held a high place" within the 19th century social context, superior to that of Ms. Bates, Harriet and Mrs Weston, all of whom possessed a lower fortune. Mr Knightley's perception of Mrs. Weston "She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing everything" testifies the inferior's admiration and regard towards the wealthy and fortunate.

Although the popular, respected character Cher enables the 1995 film to exhibit some aspects of social propriety there are scenes introduced by the composer to swiftly disregard this concept. In Emma the prospect of Harriet displaying disrespect

towards the protagonist would have contravened Austen's social context, whereas Tai's ability to verbalise irreverence towards Cher shows a change in social acceptability, thus social context. Heckerling's introduction of Cher being held at gunpoint, and robbed and Cher being hectored by her father's employee brings Cher to a parity in her social context, more so

than Emma.

There is a close affiliation between Jane Austen's concept of propriety and Amy Heckerling's inclusion of popularity, within Cher's school environment. There are some effectively compositoned ( mis-en-scene)shots that communicate to the responders that Cher is respected and admired by her peers. For example, Cher is the vector of the shot when Dyonne, Cher and Tai walk through the school grounds. This makes Cher centred within an entire school shot making her visually the primary focus of the school, thus the most popular. Respect for Cher is also displayed following her debate on the comparison of 'refugees to her father's party guests'. The fact that her peers applaud and praise such a politically incorrect argument with such high regard emphasises her popularity, verging on propriety. Heckerling enables Tai to obtain popularity easily after her 'brush with death', this negates any chance of there being a connection between Jane Austen's social context of propriety, and Amy Heckerling's of equality and freedom of expression.

'Appearance' in both Jane Austen's Emma and Heckerling's Clueless has great stress placed on it. Although this value of appearance in both texts reveals a similarity between Austen's social context and that of Heckerling's, at the same time, this value of appearance establishes voluminous distinctions also.

In Emma, the value of appearance is ascertained through manners, respect, propriety, gentility and elegance whereas in Clueless, appearance is measured by image, materialism, fashion, possessions and 'whatever'.

This observation of appearance in Jane Austen's social, historical and cultural context is demonstrated within Highbury's social interactions. All characters within Emma wear social masks and act in accordance to class and rank. The characters outwardly display codes of etiquette, demeanour and conformity with a clear focus on discourse and manner. Emma's promiscuous flirting towards Mr. Churchill at Boxhill was viewed by those present (within the social context) as irrelevant and extraneous, as it contravened the 1816 view of appearance and gentility. Emma, who typifies her social character, regards the lesser Mr. Martin as "vulgar, gross and inattentive to appearances". This example confirms Jane Austen's value of appearance within Emma

Amy Heckerling places great importance on 1995's value towards appearance to establish her social context. Materialism, image and possessions and 'are all concerns within Clueless which testify its context. The opening sequence of laughing, flirting, stylish girls with the protagonist laden with shopping bags, an expensive car, bikinis, and a luxurious swimming pool visually establishes the social milieu, as well as the values of materialism, possessions and image within Clueless.

Cher's computerised wardrobe selection also manages to comically establish the importance of fashion and image within this social milieu of appearance. The exaggerated costuming within Clueless and Cher's love of her "satin red heels" confirms the importance of possession within the chosen film text. Cher's whole existence is based on pretence, artifice and possessions, this can be testified in numerous ways. A person of Cher's socio-economic status should be perfectly content with her possessions, however, when Cher fails to attain and possess a driver's licence she feels hopelessly depressed and underprivileged. This once again confirms the materialism, possessions and image within Amy Heckerlings satirical view of appearance within Clueless. Both Jane Austen in Emma and Amy Heckerling in Clueless sustain their social contexts, although almost 200 years apart, through their emphasis on appearance.

The value and importance of wealth plays an intrinsic role in establishing both Jane Austen's and Amy Heckerlings context. An implicit scene transformation to prove this concept is that of the original "Mr Elton and Emma in carriage scene" to the appropriated 'Elton and Cher in car scene". At the mention of Elton possibly being interested in Tai he quickly says "You know who my father is......Cher, you and me make sense". This prejudiced comment is disregarding Tai as she is not of wealth, and verifying why Elton and Cher "make sense", because they are both of wealth. Previously in the film, Heckerling creates Cher to recognise Elton as the "most popular guy in school". This implies that popularity is achieved through wealth in Clueless.

Mr. Elton responds

...