CUTENESS

CLUELESS (1995)
dir: Amy Heckerling

CUTENESS
Cracked #304, December 1995
w: Lou Silverstone
a: John Severin

The story of the movie is told in voice over narration by Cher (Alicia Silverstone), who lives in Beverly Hills with her father (Dan Hedaya). Her stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd) is a nerdy college student who hangs around on breaks.

Jane Austen's Emma is referenced because this movie is based on it.
The masseuse is one of the products of being rich.
The Cat in the Hat hat and the slang parodied here through footnotes are some of many dated things that are also a big part of the movie. The two clips below also show this can only be a product of the nineties.

Her best friend is Dionne (Stacey Dash). Cher usually uses her charms to get good grades but this doesn't work with Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn) until she fixes him up with Miss Geist (Twink Caplan).

Cher feels good having made the teachers over and fixed them up, and it has also worked in her favor, so she decides it's her new goal in life, and sets her sights on new student Tai (Brittany Murphy).

The last row parodies the makeover from My Fair Lady/Pygmalion.


At a party, Tai likes Travis (Breckin Meyer), but he's a stoner and loser, and Cher wants to match Tai with popular kid Elton (Jeremy Sisto). Elton ends up driving Cher home, and when she rejects his advances (it wasn't called sexual harassment yet in the nineties), he ditches her in a parking lot and she gets mugged.

I don't remember a scene of her house being robbed when she gets home. Maybe it was on their screener and edited out for theatrical release and home view. It happens

When she goes back to school the next day, she meets a new student named Christian (Justin Walker), a rat-pack type, but when she tries to date him it turns out he's gay (LGBTQ people were called that in the nineties).

Cher fails her drivers' test, a made-over Tai has become more popular than her, and she finds herself falling for Josh. Now her new purpose in life is to help with charity.

The punchline has her being chased by a mob but the illustration would work better with her dressed like a vain rich person instead of wearing regular people clothes.