In doing some more research on the film, I realized that Heckerling studied high school students for 4 years in order to write the script. I feel that hard work like this makes the film more believable and the viewers can relate better to the film critically. Some of the biggest realizations that I noticed were the clothes, slang, and attitudes that each character presented throughout the film.
As for the clothes, Wikipedia says that "surprisingly trendsetting soon became the new fashions of real life, as plaids, pastels, baby doll dresses and knee-high tights quickly became the new "thing" in young women's fashion at a time where grunge fashion was still popular." In 1995, when the film was released, I can recall some of these fashions through my older sisters. Everything from the skateboarder fashion, to the P.E. spandex makes us remember the times when we once looked as ridiculous as the characters did in the movie.
Some of the slang, "as if, like, whatever, chill..." that was used in the film clueless, was very trend setting. As we discussed in class, these words were used by many females after they saw the film. These words became part of everyone's vocabulary used in our day to day lifestyles.
As for the attitudes of the characters, I noticed that everyone had an attitude that they had to be the best looking and most talked about. One of the big things was that all of the girls were getting nose jobs. This was very true because in high school my cousin got a nose job, and that was during the time when the movie clueless was most popular. Most of the characters throughout the film were mostly concerned with what was going on Friday night and who had the newest most hippest clothes.
I chose to write on the details of the movie that make us realize how effective every little thing like clothes, vocabulary, and attitude had an influence on the viewers. These things make the story line more believable and can relate better to the viewers.
9 comments:
Hi Dan,
I'm also amazed how a film like this could be so telling of youth culture. And yes I was one of those girls that adopted all of the slang words. I think I may even still us some of them.
Seema
It's amazing how "inspirational" films can be. I can definitely say that Clueless had a huge impact on teen culture of that period. Although, Clueless' director studied high school students to made the movie more relateable and accurate, in many ways, Clueless shaped high schoolers and future hs students of that day.
I remember being in the 3rd grade, trying to make knee-highs from my tights, making my mom buy me mary-janes and pink polos, looking up big words in the dictionary that I can put a twist on, and looking for the next make-over project. Movies have a HUGE influence on their audiences--it's kinda scary.
You're absolutely right that Clueless influenced so much during that particular time period. It's amazing how much things have changed since then regarding different styles. We keep on emulating one particular mainstream sensation and it looks like that's the trend that we'll continue to follow especially in this country. Thanks for the insight into that wikipedia article! It really places everything in that era into perspective.
I am amazed at someone like Amy Heckerling who seems to have her finger on the pulse of the teen culture of the moment. I mean she did it with Fast Times at Ridgmount High and then aagin with Clueless. I am also in awe of how that movie and movies in general can take something like slang and bring it into the main stream so that someones grandma can now be heard to say "Whatever."
I absolutly agree that all of Heckerlings research paid off. And Im sure that anyone who was a teen in '95 up to teens now can totally identify with the film.
I do agree with how Heckerling had the teeny bop within her grasp, but I don't see how anyone can enjoy this film. I think that I may just be stuck on the whole chick flick teeny bop craft of this film. For some reason, I can not get past that, so I gave this film a "D" on my grading scale. At least it wasn't an "F".
Haha this film was definitely a movie that became integrated in our culture. I still remember using some of the words in Elementary school from the film. I'm amazed to hear how much the director studied high school students. It def. paid off!
Clueless really did leave a mark on society. It's like watching an 80s movie. You see how life was and how much life changes when a film is released.
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