Character Differences Between Clueless And Emma

Amy Heckerling portrays Jane Austen 's novel Emma by directing Clueless, a film that reflects the Regency England into the 20th century world. Although Heckerling updates her audiences from the small town of Highbury into Beverly Hill, she closely imitates the plot and characterization. From the beginning of the novel and film, the similarities between the two heroines are obvious. Both Emma Woodhouse and Cher are spoiled, high class teenagers whose superficial and pretentious attitude throws them into a crisis and are transformed into mental maturation and social awareness. Character transformation is not the only theme that the movie parallels with Emma. By accurately adapting the society of Highbury, social attitudes and values toward class …show more content…
Emma believes that Harriet should not interact with people beneath her and that "she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance" (Austen 19) in order to assimilate Harriet into good society. As a result, Emma rejects Mr. Martin 's proposal to Harriet since he is just a farmer; therefore, not good enough for her. Emma 's arrogance is preventing Harriet from realizing her true emotions and separating her from the social class she should be in. However, Harriet is oblivious and "only desiring to be guided by any one she looked up to" (Austen 21). In Clueless, Cher attempts to give Tai, a new girl at school, a complete makeover, to elevate her popularity. In doing so, Cher prevents Tai from dating Travis, the counterpart to Mr. Martin. Travis is part of the skate-boarding group who Cher points out that "no respectable girl actually dates them". Instead, Cher decides that Elton is "the only acceptable ones". Elton is rich, popular, and come from a respectable background which Cher thinks is socially compatible with Tai. Unfortunately, Cher 's boldness causes her to falsely suspect that Elton is interested in Tai. When Cher take a picture of Tai, Elton asks for a copy and hangs …show more content…
Even though Cher feels ashamed and embarrassed of her previous idea, she does not yet feel moral guilt. In Emma, once Robert Martin is out of the picture, Emma sets Harriet up with Mr. Elton. Just like the photograph scene in Clueless, Mr. Elton asks for the portrait Emma paints of Harriet. Elton is impressed by the painting because Emma painted it, not because it is a picture of Harriet. In addition, Emma interprets Elton 's charade as for Harriet instead of for herself. From those two actions, Emma mistakenly conclude that Elton is in love with Harriet. Emma 's matchmaking plan goes horribly wrong when Mr. Elton confesses his love for Emma and proposes. However, Emma simply concludes that she made a an error of judgement and will find someone else to replace Mr. Elton. In both Emma and Clueless, Mr. John Knightly and his alter ego Josh warns Emma and Cher that their plan may backfire on them, but to no avail. Emma is fooled once again when she falls in love with Frank Churchill and believes he loves her too, just as Cher falls in love with Christian. Emma 's delusion does not last long as she finds out that Frank has been secretly engaged with Jane Fairfax, while Christian turns out to be homosexual. Things grow even more chaotic