Clueless is the modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. Both focus and satirise human follies and foibles. While Emma is set in the nineteenth century gentry of Highbury and Clueless is set in 20th Century Beverley Hills they focus on the same general concepts of matchmaking, romance and social status. While there are many differences due to the rigidity of time barriers Heckerling has proven Austen’s Emma to a malleable and flexible text making Clueless into a rather effective film in portraying the weaknesses of humans. Clueless is a modern teenpic and hence follows the typical conventions of focusing on teen issues such as boys, drugs, high school relationships and others.
“Studying a pair of texts provides insights into the values of different contexts.” To what extent is this true of the two texts you have studied? Amy Heckerling has managed to creatively transform her 1995 teen film ‘Clueless’ into one of Jane Austen’s classic novels, ‘Emma’ (1815) by sustaining the same significant and important values and elements despite living in different contexts. This is depicted through the contrasting of cinematic techniques and narrative structure. The progress of the importance of social hierarchies and the revolution of self-realization is produced to be invariable. ‘Emma’ exposes the impacts of social hierarchies in the way people interact and behave with each other.
Transformations Essay “The Study of transformation explores the tension between continuity and change. “ Explore how this statement is true. Amy Heckerling’s film, Clueless, as a transformation of Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, explores the tension between continuity and change. Emma, written in the early 1800s, reflects the values and class hierarchy of the Regency period. Heckerling’s film has transformed Emma into a dramatic twentieth century teen flick that both exemplifies and undercuts the contemporary culture of 1990s Los Angeles defined by consumption and appearance while still maintaining aspects of Emma’s narrative and characterisation.
Probably because, despite all the radical social changes that have taken place since Jane Austen's time, people haven't really changed all that much. It has been argued that Jane Austen's novels all have the same plot; on a superficial level, there is a germ of truth to that argument. However, the true greatness of Jane Austen's work lies not in the basic stories but in the ironic and occasionally bitchy cultural observations that suffuse those plots and bring them to life. Scriptwriter and director Amy Heckerling has followed admirably Jane Austen's example by making a film that, on the surface, seems like another mindless teen flick but is actually a multi-layered social commentary. She took Austen's novel Emma, the story of a spoiled child of the 19th century English leisure class who thinks she knows everything, and turned it into the film Clueless, the story of a spoiled child of the 20th century American leisure class who thinks she knows everything.
The transformation of the Jane Austen’s novel Emma into the Amy Heckerling’s ‘teen-pic’ Clueless, involves changing the original text in to another medium set in a different context to allow a re-assessment of the values present in the text thus enabling the audience to gain a greater insight and appreciation of the ideals and concerns outlined by Austin in Emma. The themes presented by Austin in Emma are universal and timeless which enables Heckerling to adapt them to a context a modern audience can reflect and relate to, thus generating a greater understanding of the social commentary made by Austen on social class, marriage and education of the 19th century. Heckerling does not devalue Emma and the essence of what is said is not changed however Heckerling goes further than just a transformation and comments on modern issues such as sexuality, education and social equality relevant to her time. This allows the texts to resonate with each other with the known reflecting upon the new and the new reflecting on the known. Both Emma and Clueless deal with a society in which social structure and values are criteria for assessing people.
Evaluate the relative importance of differences or similarities between the texts, and the ways in which these differences or similarities reflect values in the text? In both Emma by Jane Austen and Clueless by Amy Heckerling the values have changed. In Clueless to suit a more contemporary society compared to Austen’s world in the 19th century. The similarities between the texts are how communication is valued. And the differences include how the value of marriage has changed to a value in sex and relationships.
First, it was a flamingo.”, the writer showcases more sarcasm and irony, and that is what the tone of the excerpt seems to be. Price uses the word “staked” which is a more powerful choice then if she had chosen to say “made”. Price’s diction in the excerpt is powerful and yet simple at the same time. She uses words such as “commensurate” and “extravagance” that shows she is knowledgeable, and keeps such words at a minimum so we can still read it without being confused. The syntax that Price showcases includes similes and indirect metaphors, such as “… like a line of semiotic sprouts.”.
Paige undergoes a great deal of sacrifice, which is seems as though is perceived as a normality in the genre of black sci-fi. Cloning is a concept that seems to be featuring more often in modern day science fiction films, but the main difference that Tananarive Due and black sci-fi is bringing to this concept is motherhood. The hunger games is an example of modern film writer who has adapted a similar concept with the addition of heroism. Heroism as a contrast seems to be more attractive to viewers when linked with self-sacrifice and motherhood. Yet in “Like Daughter” Paige is still a hero for saving the child from a live of misery, but this doesn’t need to be written because it is left up to the reader’s imagination.
Amy Heckerling has transformed Jane Austen’s novel Emma to create Clueless, a film set in 90s America thatx appeals and is more relatable to a contemporary audience. Both stories are essentially about the personal development of their protagonists Emma and Cher as they reach self-realisation however there is a slight difference of values that relate to the different contexts in which the stories are set. Through different techniques, we see how Heckerling has retained the story of Emma as well as the way she has adapted it to suit more modern values and concepts. Social order is a prominent idea in both texts Clueless and Emma. Jane Austen presents the importance of family wealth in Regency England, as it is the defining factor of one’s position in the social hierarchy.
Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s 20th century cinematic reconstruction of Jane Austen’s 18th century classic Emma, transforms the rustic values and attitudes of the Regency Period into the dynamics of contemporary existence. Heckerling uses various features of medium to remould the socially stratified society, restrain perceptions on marriage, and patriarchal values into an apparatus of modernity. When reading Emma the reader creates imaginative representations of the characters by building on Austen’s descriptions. For instance, Emma is introduced as being “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition” (page 7). However in the medium of film we are given the filmmaker’s detailed representation of the character: Cher in Clueless is tall, blonde, slender, obviously popular, wealthy, a slave to modern technology and happy driving her friends around in her jeep.