Popularity. The Holy Grail of adolescence.
How can teens starving for acceptance score
points with their peers these days? If they take
their cues from the misguided hit movie
Clueless, requisites include snobbish
narcissism, sexual permissiveness,
materialism, drug use, crude language,
immodest clothing and a liberal
worldview.
MTV vixen Alicia Silverstone stars as Cher,
a popular, wealthy, superficial, Beverly Hills
mall rat used to manipulating her way through
day-to-day life. She lies and cajoles her
teachers into upping her grades. To Cher,
shopping, matchmaking and makeovers are
the cures for society's ills. Also, she has lax
attitudes toward alcohol, marijuana and
premarital sex, and ends up romantically
linked to her stepbrother. How imprudent is
she?
Cher on recreational drug use: "It is
one thing to spark up a doobie and get laced
at parties but it is quite another to be fried all
day." On media discernment: "Until
mankind is peaceful enough not to have
violence on the news, there's no point in
taking it out of shows that need it for
entertainment value." On dating:
"Sometimes you have to show a little skin.
That reminds guys of being naked and then
they think of sex."
By refusing to pass judgement on
certain lifestyles woven into the story,
Clueless passively endorses multiple
marriages and divorce, premarital sex and
teen homosexuality. Cher and her pals
casually discuss "crooked" male anatomy and
whether one of the girls is a virgin because
she stimulates her boyfriend without having
intercourse.
The students' media choices are similarly
lacking in good taste. Cher monitors MTV
(tuning in to the scatalogical antics of
Beavis & Butt-head) and one of her
classmates expresses a passion for Trent
Reznor's nihilistic band, Nine Inch Nails. In
fact, the Clueless soundtrack features
songs by Coolio, Jill Sobule, Beastie Boys
and other acts with disturbing agendas.
A window on today's popular youth
culture? Perhaps to some degree, but the
creative forces behind Clueless chose to exploit the immorality of a
generation rather than focus on the many
popular teens committed to chastity, purity,
honesty, and sexual self-respect.
The filmmakers define Clueless as
"focusing on teenage girls who are worldly,
rich and hyper-hormonal." That's putting it
kindly. More to the point, it reflects the
excesses of one group of Southern California
high school students with such
tongue-in-cheek giddiness that many
disenchanted youngsters in the
mainstream—frustrated in their own quest for
the Holy Grail of popularity—will embrace its
unhealthy philosophies simply because the
characters in the film appear to be well-liked
and enjoying themselves. A Top-10 video
smash quickly achieving cult status.
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