In the 1995 coming of age movie, Clueless, protagonist Cher Horowitz struggles to balance her intentions of doing “good” for others with her own self-interest and general naivety. The struggles Cher faces represent many struggles of adolescent development, from her changing and confusing relationships with her peers and family to her quest to find meaningful direction in her society. These challenges are essential to any adolescent; as the task to find oneself and also navigate through life all conflate with normative physical, cognitive, and social struggles unique to adolescents. Through the exploration of Cher’s character, as well as the characters she acts upon in the film, we can unveil an important depiction of an adolescent trying to piece together new difficult environments, relationships, and experiences while often ending up feeling, “totally clueless” (Heckerling, 1995).
In the opening sequence of the film, Cher assures the audience she has a, “way normal life for a teenage girl,” (Heckerling, 1995) and while this seems untrue when looking at her multi-million dollar home in Beverly Hills, brand new Jeep, and extensive morning routine, she does follow normative trends seen in the physical, social, and cognitive developments of typical adolescents. Cher is fifteen in the movie, so she and her peers have already started pubertal changes, and some of her classmates are still ongoing these changes. Since Cher and her classmates live in a developed country and urbanized city, many of them may also have experienced an earlier onset of puberty, as, “adolescents in developed countries and large urban areas reach puberty earlier than their counterparts in less- developed countries and rural areas” (Santrock, 2019, p. 52). Important physical developments like the formation of breasts in girls and the deepening of the voice in males are visible changes the teens in Clueless have already experienced. Additionally, the onset of the female menstruation has occurred for Cher, as she is able to get out of her tardies because she was “riding the crimson wave”, which is a normative part of female development she has undergone (Heckerling, 1995).
Adolescence is heavily characterized by an increasing amount of focus on one’s physical appearance. Pubertal changes in girls can often lead to dissatisfaction in their view of their body, the widening of hips can be especially disconcerting for girls (Santrock, 2019, p. 55), as we see Cher’s friend, Tai, struggle with her body image after being rejected by popular boy, Elton. When being comforted by her friends she asks, “it’s my hips isn’t it?” (Heckerling, 1995). Body dissatisfaction can be seen not only in Tai, but in Cher’s female classmates. Many of whom have had surgical nose jobs. This includes Cher’s rival, Amber, as well as a plethora of girls walking around campus and in Cher’s homeroom. Cher also falls victim to this mentality, as she requires pictures of her in all her outfits to be taken because she doesn’t trust mirrors to properly capture her image. Additionally, any and all important events in her life revolve around clothes, makeup, and lighting; this is extremely apparent when she tries to seduce Christian, whom she is unaware is actually gay, and thinks she failed because her, “hair got flat,” or she, “stumble(d) into some bad lighting,” ( Heckerling, 1995) rather than there being a deeper, emotional reason he could be uninterested in her romantically. The focus on physical aspects of oneself is much higher for early adolescents and eventually will go down in late adolescence (Santrock, 2019, p. 55); however, one must take into account that the rich and superficial Beverly Hills world in which Cher lives is extremely focused on outer beauty, seen clearly by how Cher’s mom quite literally dies for beauty due to a liposuction accident. This environment could prolong the focus on image Cher and her classmates have as well as increase their dissatisfaction with their bodies, as they live in a world more saturated with media and messages of physical beauty (Santrock, 2019, p. 56).
Cher’s main normative cognitive developmental characteristic in the movie is her egocentrism. Egocentrism is, “the heightened self-consciousness of adolescents, which is the belief that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves” (Santrock, 2019, p. 120). Cher mainly exhibits the imaginary audience type of egocentrism. This helps explain a lot of her attention-getting behavior; when she wants to capture Christian’s attention in class, she goes through excessively outlandish means, such as sending herself flowers, love letters, and candy as well as smugly narrating to the audience her techniques (Heckerling, 1995). Cher seems to believe that everyone could benefit from her method of getting male attention and also makes sure her whole class is able to see the spectacle she puts on for Christian, believing they are as interested in her love life as she is. Her egocentrism is apparent in her relations with her peers; when we meet Dion, Cher claims they are friends because, “we both know what it’s like to have people be jealous of us” (Heckerling, 1995). Cher believes her peers pay special attention to her, when Amber wears the same dress Cher had worn the day before to a party, she asks, “was that you going through my laundry?” (Heckerling, 1995). This egocentric mindset has allowed Cher to believe any dress or outfit she wears is uniquely hers, when in reality Amber most likely just bought it from the same store in the mall.
Cher also exhibits a large sense of invulnerability on par with adolescent egocentrism, she regularly drives without a license and pays no mind to the rules of the road, believing herself above them. When driving to school she insists she, “totally paused,” (Heckerling, 1995) after running straight through a stop sign and also often drives on the wrong side of the road; which she believes she is justified in doing because she is wearing platforms. This arrogance is a prime example during her driving test, when she fails and insists, “Can’t we just start over, I mean, I’m kind of having a personal problem, my mind was somewhere else. I mean you saw how that biker came out of nowhere, right?” (Heckerling, 1995) as she is unable to fathom her own failure despite being an awful driver. Cher is not the only character who is egocentric, this behavior comes out in Tai, who uses personal fable egocentrism. When at the mall, Tai is held over the second-floor railing by the guys she is with; this stunt, which although is dangerous, is nowhere near the near-death experience tale she spins at school. Certain aspects of the personal fable can be linked to riskier adolescent behavior such as, “smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and engaging in acts of delinquency,” (Santrock, 2019, p. 120). Tai is one of the more at-risk characters in Clueless, as she comes from a lower income family and prior to meeting Cher and Dion, engaged in drugs and early sexual behavior, so her interaction with the personal fable makes sense for her character.
Cher is regularly depicted throughout the movie as a very social person. Additionally, she is extremely competent in navigating the social hierarchy at her school. Cher is among the popular crowd and has close friendships, although it is important to note that much of this status comes from sources outside of Cher’s control such as her family’s wealth and her general privilege. Most of Cher’s free time is spent with peers, which is normal for adolescents, some research finding that, “over the course of one weekend, young adolescent boys and girls spent more than twice as much time with peers as with parents” (Santrock, 2019, p. 297). Cher regularly has friends over at her house and goes out to parties often. Adolescents eventually will focus more on smaller, quality friendships over quantity as they move into emerging adulthood, a transition which Cher seems to have already made given her exclusive closeness to Tai and Dion (Santrock, 2019, p. 304). This is tied to her being female, as girls have higher attachment than boys are able to make close friendships easier (Santrock, 2019, p. 310); Cher quickly attaches to Tai, sometimes spending more time with her than with Dion.
Socio-metrically, Cher is in a good place for positive development, as being popular is linked with higher self-esteem and adolescents able to, “give our reinforcements, listen carefully, maintain open lines of communication with peers, are happy…and are self-confident without being conceited,” (Santrock, 2019, p. 300). Cher does have a number of these positive traits, and she is able to help bring out these traits in others, primarily Tai after she gives her a makeover. Having positive friendships can lead to lower levels of delinquency such as substance abuse, bullying, and risky sexual behavior (Santrock, 2019, p. 304). Cher is able to help Tai down a better path by providing her a positive friendship as well as warn her of the dangers of becoming too close with the school druggies. Cher exhibits high social cognition as well when she makes over Tai, as she knows what exactly will get peers to like and accept Tai easier including hair styles, makeup, outfits, and setting her up with Elton instead of the less popular, Travis (Heckerling, 1995). These moves by Cher strategically up Tai’s social standing and change her into a member of the popular crowd.
Cher exhibits many prosocial behaviors, especially at the end of the movie. She is able to empathize with Tai when she is dancing alone at the party, and well as with the Pismo Beach Disaster. By becoming captain of the Disaster Relief effort, she is finally propelled into actually helping her community in a non-superficial way (Heckerling, 1995). She regularly looks up to moral exemplars which is an important element in establishing a moral personality (Santrock, 2019, p. 236), her mom and her ex step brother, Josh, are her two main ones, both of whom she coins as “do-gooders” (Heckerling, 1995). Cher’s social skills and knack for understanding her peers is what really defines her character, while she struggles to challenge the valley-girl stereotype she has been assigned in order to find a real sense of direction, the deep caring she finds she has for others by the end of the film is a developmental norm many adolescents also go through.
While Cher goes through many normative developmental events, her romantic relationships and dating life have some non-normative trends. Cher is completely uninterested in dating high school boys, which is not unheard of for her age, however it is slightly off considering her age. She should be in the second stage of dating which is exploring romantic relationships, and while she has a short-lived crush on Christian, she doesn’t really casually date or date in groups during the movie (Santrock, 2019, p. 314). Once Cher does start to want to date, the object of her affection ends up being her ex step brother Josh. While Cher views Josh as a pesky annoyance when he first comes to visit, though her own maturing and social development she starts to see him as a viable and very compatible potential partner. While Cher and Josh are completely biologically and legally unrelated, this does go outside the norm of typical sibling and blended family relations. Adjustment problems are common in stepfamilies, this can be seen by Josh not wanting to return home to see his new dad, and instead staying with Cher and her dad, Mel, over his spring break (Heckerling, 1995). However, Cher and Josh are setting themselves up for having many problems with role ambiguity because of their romantic relationship. Throughout the film, Cher insists to Josh and others on many occasions that he is not her brother, this is a prime example of role ambiguity as the family unit is unsure about, “who is within or outside the family” (Santrock, 2019, p. 284). While Cher is insistent Mel is not Josh’s father, Josh sees Mel as his primary father figure, going so far as to calling him dad. This wouldn’t be abnormal if it weren’t for his affections towards Cher, which could be confusing and cause her emotional distress, as she is still only fifteen and is still learning about romantic relationships.
Additionally, Josh does exhibit many brotherly behaviors towards Cher, such as helping her learn to drive and picking her up after her ride ditches her after a party (Heckerling, 1995). Cher and Josh also display sibling-like interactions, such as their tendency towards conflict, but also their warmth for each other, acting as each other’s, “emotional supports, rivals, and communication partners” (Santrock, 2019, P. 276). While not all these traits are exclusive to sibling relationships, it is important to note that differentiating between these could be difficult for Cher and cause confusion going forward with her relationship with Josh. Issues with step family can lead to, “academic struggles, externalizing an internalizing problems, lower self-esteem, earlier sexual activity, delinquency, and so on,” all of which Cher could be potentially vulnerable to if she is unable to resolve some of the confusion surrounding her relationship with Josh in the future (Santrock, 2019, p. 284).
Cher shows herself as a maturing adolescent in all aspects. She develops physically, cognitively, and socially during the movie and is able to witness and interact with her peers as they do the same. She is able to masterfully navigate her social status while also striving to find meaning in a world that overlooks her for her seemingly fickle interests. While this can be a difficult ground to navigate and lead to many miscommunications, Cher emerges as a more competent teenager ready to create meaningful change in her society as well as value the relationships around her, which is a goal all adolescents should strive to.
References
Heckerling, A. (Director). (1995). Clueless [Film]. Paramount Pictures.
Santrock, J. W. (2019). Adolescence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Rachel Loring 