Clueless and the Feminist Film Theory

The film Clueless directed by Amy Heckerling exhibits many different examples of Feminist Film Theory. The entire film is based off of stereotypes including the dumb blonde, privileged California students and the expectations on young women’s behaviors with men. The director of this incredible film, Amy Heckerling, seems to stray from the negative aspects of feminist film theory such as replacing the sexualized male gaze with attractive yet conserved young female actresses. Although there are many positive examples of feminist film theory found throughout this film there is also quite a few negative examples of feminist film theory.

To focus on the positive examples of feminist film theory the audience can see a strong, independent, confident and out spoken female lead. Cher is the main character in this film and she is a passionate one. Although she comes across as the typical dumb blonde seen in many other films, Cher is compassionate and has a knack for leading and helping her fellow female friends. Her bubbly and out spoken personality allows her to negotiate her way to changing any test grade. This shines a positive light on this female lead for many reasons. Her father is a litigator and encourages Cher to take initiative and use constructive and powerful arguments to make her way through the world. This encouragement implies that her father wants his daughter to be successful, smart and powerful in her life and future career. By encouraging Cher’s successful future her father is viewing her as an equal in society and not categorizing her into a female role by encouraging her to learn to cook or clean so she can be suitable to marry.

Along with the many positive examples of feminist film theory in the film Clueless there are also quite a few negative examples. Some of these negative examples can be found in the stereotypes the film portrays. When new student Tai enters Cher’s high school she is immediately uncomfortable with who she is and feels the need to entirely change herself in order to fit in. Tai’s need to fit in goes beyond become popular, her need to fit in is revolving around the idea that she needs to find a boyfriend. So with help from Cher, Tai changes her vocabulary, her outfits, her makeup and her body image to adapt to what a boy would want to have in a girlfriend. The idea that fitting in for young women meant changing who they were to please a guy is an extremely negative viewpoint in the feminist film theory. Although there are both positive and negative aspects of feminist film theory in Clueless both work together to create this epic female dominated film.