{"id":10,"date":"2007-02-19T23:58:28","date_gmt":"2007-02-20T06:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/2007\/02\/19\/clueless-in-the-neo-colonial-world-order\/"},"modified":"2007-02-20T00:04:15","modified_gmt":"2007-02-20T07:04:15","slug":"clueless-in-the-neo-colonial-world-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/2007\/02\/19\/clueless-in-the-neo-colonial-world-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Clueless in the neo-colonial world order"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her essay, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Clueless <\/em>in the Neo-Colonial World Order,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gayle Wald argues that Amy Heckerling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1995 film analyzes how national citizenship is defined in relation to third and first worlds.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald writes that Clueless<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153situates the subjectivity of its protagonist at the intersection of competing narratives of gender itself; for while it represents Cher as a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcFirst World\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 girl who deploys her cluelessness in order to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinnocently\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 access power, it also suggests that such cluelessness stands in the way of her \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsuccessful\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 gendering according to the demands of the marriage plot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Wald 219).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Furthermore, Wald argues that Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gender identity is based on consumership, a First World characteristic which uses the poverty of the Third World as its other.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Thus, Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character is based on a neo-colonial world order which justifies consumership–while simultaneously shunning it–as something intrinsic to the female gender and American identity.\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>Wald writes that Clueless <\/em>explores \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the role of cinematic representation in the construction of national and cultural citizenship, as well as\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the gender, race and class dimensions of the national narratives produced by a contemporary Hollywood film\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6addressed to an audience of adolescent and pre-adolescent US girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Wald 218).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>To support her claims, Wald analyzes Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHaiti\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 speech, which takes place early in the film, as an example of how Cher is constructed as an All-American First World girl through hospitality and consumership. Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech is juxtaposed with the American national anthem in background which marks her character as a good, innocent All-American girl.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald argues that this makes Cher appealing to both adolescent girls and their parents; Cher is a devoted, obedient teenager who is both stylish and attractive to the opposite sex.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald writes that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the speech not only serves to establish how gender is produced in and through ideologies of nationhood and national identity, but how narratives of national identity may be framed within the context of (or even serve as the rationale for) ideologies of domestic female virtue\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (222).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font>\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>While Cher is presented as a model daughter in her Haiti speech, she is also established as clueless.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>Thus, Heckerling imbues Emma Woodhouse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loveable characteristics into
\nCher. While audiences of teenagers, parents and critics alike love Cher, they are wary of her denseness, but view it as a slight character flaw rather than immoral.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Additionally, Heckerling constructs Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity by using third world citizens, such as Haitians and the maid, Lucy, as an other.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Indeed, Wald writes that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153her\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance of domestic virtue is inextricable from her role as a consumer of domestic labour, and from her obliviousness to the discrepancy between her parable and the problems that Haitians and Haitian immigrants actually face.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>As viewers might be led to surmise\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the only way that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 immigrants attended her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiftieth birthday party were as labourers in the kitchen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (223).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Audiences believe that because Cher is so innocent and All-American, she would include anyone if she only realized that her behaviors were exclusive.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald writes thatCher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech works to<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153ingratiate Cher to the viewing audience, pairing her cluelessness about US-Haitian relations with the audience\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s affection for her as a liberal advocate of the sort of democratic values associated with national symbols such as the Statue of Liberty; it legitimates gendered domestic virtue as both a principle of international diplomacy and the means by which she can win the approval of her father and then later Josh; and it establishes altruism (gift-giving) and communitarianism as the logical paradigms of First World-Third World relations, and by analogy of the gendered relations with the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdomestic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (that is, the national\/public and home\/private) spheres\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (223).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Heckerling appropriates Emma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good-natured cluelessness to the social systems around her and fits them into a commentary on American social systems, both inside and outside the
\nFirst World.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>By fitting Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feminine gendering into a romantic plot, Heckerling comments on the demands of First World femininity; however, Heckerling simultaneously asserts that consumership for the sake of the Third World, or the other, is good by using Josh as a reward for a clued-in
\nCher.\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald also briefly discusses Cher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jewishness in relation to the All-American (WASP) girl and the All-American self-made man.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald writes that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Heckerling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s translation of Emma into a Jewish-American \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprincess\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 complements the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s re-visioning of national identity in terms of specifically \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAmerican\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 narratives of the upward economic mobility of immigrants\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (226).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>While
\nCher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gender and national identity is constructed in the relation to the Third World, her character is still historically apart of a minority, which makes an even more explicit All-American statement.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font>\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>I really liked this article for Wald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments on All-Americanism and identity construction; I would definitely use it for my paper.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>However, I think that it was a little confusing in certain areas.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Wald writes a couple pages on how she will set up her argument, and what her essay will cover, and then spends a couple pages actually supporting her ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 This was both redundant and confusing.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, I think a basic definition of neo-colonial at the start of the essay would have helped instead of paragraphs devoted to how both critics and teenage girls loved Clueless<\/em>.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0by: Leah<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her essay, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Clueless in the Neo-Colonial World Order,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gayle Wald argues that Amy Heckerling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1995 film analyzes how national citizenship is defined in relation to third and first worlds.\u00c2\u00a0 Wald writes that Clueless \u00e2\u20ac\u0153situates the subjectivity of its protagonist at the intersection of competing narratives of gender itself; for while it represents Cher as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/janeaustenfilm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}