INTERPERSONAL

COMMUNICATION FILM

ANALYSIS:

CLUELE

SS (1995), DIR.

AMY HECKERLING

JULIA GIANCOLA

CMS 330

Clueless is a 1995 American comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling. A loosely based (and clever) adaptation of Jane Austen's 1815 novel, Emma, the film is a West Coast teen lifestyle parody centered around a popular Beverly Hills high school girl named Cher and those she interacts with/encounters on a daily basis both at home and at school. I chose this film because (as with the case of many other high school/adolescent films) it is comprised of a group of characters whose interpersonal communication skills shape the events of the film, often creating a series of blunders and conflicts within their intimate relationships (family, friend, and romantic), directly relating to what we have been learning in the course and text, only in a much more exaggerated and comedic fashion.

PREMISE

RELEVANT CHARACTERSCher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone): The film’s protagonist, Cher is a spoiled, popular, and somewhat dippy high school girl who lives with her litigator father in Beverly Hills. Like her father, she is persuasive and has extensive conversational skills that are offset by her “valley girl” speak. Believing that she knows it all, she likes to use her social know-how for good causes (such as through makeovers and matchmaking), but her crusades often backfire and she finds herself realizing that she can’t talk her way out of everything.Dionne Davenport (Stacey Dash): Dionne is Cher’s fashionable close friend and confidante who is of a high social status like Cher. Dionne is dating Murray, one of the popular guys in school, with whom she has a tumultuous relationship with (often having public spats). In contrast to Cher, she is less willing to use her social status to help others (illustrated in her reluctance to befriend Tai).Tai Frasier (Brittany Murphy): Tai is a transfer student that Cher and Dionne take under their wing (all Cher’s idea in an attempt to use her popularity for good) after seeing her get teased by the other girls on her first day of school for not fitting in. She is given a makeover by Cher and Dionne which gives her confidence. She develops a crush on the skater at school, Travis, with whom she has much in common, but Cher doesn’t approve and makes extensive attempts to set her up with a wealthy, arrogant student named Elton (which ultimately fails because he has more interest in Cher than Tai).Josh Lucas (Paul Rudd): Josh is Cher’s former stepbrother from Seattle who attends college in Los Angeles and often works with Cher’s father part-time (Josh has an interest in environmental law). With an interest in the environment and all things intellectual, Josh points out to Cher that her desire to do good deeds are rooted in selfishness (that she only has an interest in doing things if it will benefit her or her image). Travis Birkenstock (Breckin Meyer): Travis is stereotyped as an underachiever, skater, and stoner at school. Him and Tai really hit it off, but Cher does not approve of their blossoming relationship and attempts to set Tai up with Elton instead and solidify her place in the popular crowd. Travis is portrayed as very laid-back, kind to everyone, and caring – especially to Tai.

Elton (Jeremy Sisto): Elton is essentially the male version of Cher, only a lot more conceited. Throughout the film, Elton is seen attempting to put the moves on Cher, but Cher views his actions towards her simply as platonic gestures only. Cher attempts to set Elton up with Tai to help boost Tai’s popularity and give her confidence. A series of misunderstandings leads Cher to believe that her efforts are paying off, but in actuality Elton likes Cher and not Tai.

Christian Stovitz (Justin Walker): Christian is a newer student to Bronson Alcott High School who instantly attracts Cher as she searches for a boyfriend of her own. Cher actively pursues Christian, but is oblivious to the fact that he is homosexual because of the way he seemingly flirts with her. Upon Cher learning of this, the two remain good friends as they share similar tastes in fashion and art.

Murray Duvall (Donald Faison): Murray is Dionne’s long-term boyfriend and is a part of the popular male crowd at school. Dionne and Murray have a rocky relationship, but they seem to be able to patch up their relationship and care for each other.

PREVIEW OF CONCEPTS

I plan to discuss the following interpersonal communication concepts from the course and text in my analysis of Clueless:1. Stereotyping2. Self-perception: self-concept and self-esteem3. Conversational maxims (the quality maxim)4. Self-fulfilling prophecies5. Interpersonal influence (referent power)6. Persuasion (persuading automatic processors)7. Slang8. Nonverbal communication9. Managing conflict (collaborative conflict conversation)10. Owning the feeling

STEREOTYPINGOne of the ways in which Clueless ties into the course and text is through stereotyping. A hallmark characteristic of many high school films, Clueless stereotypes its characters satirically, which can be pinpointed in the character descriptions and their appearances/behavior in the film (Cher as the spoiled, popular girl, Tai as the new girl, Travis as the slacker, Josh as the college intellectual, etc.).“Stereotyping is applying the beliefs you have about the characteristics of a group to an individual whom you identify as a member of that group” (Verderber, 45).An example of stereotyping in practice within the world of the film is when Cher is showing Tai around the school during lunch and each social group has their own special spot. Cher goes through a few of the social groups at Bronson Alcott High School such as the “Prussian mafia” and the popular boys and where they convene. A more prominent illustration of stereotyping that influences the actions of the characters in the film is when Tai tells Cher about meeting Travis at lunch. Cher immediately identifies him as a “loadie” (a drug user) and that no respectable girl would date an underachiever like Travis (even though Cher doesn’t know him well and only bases her opinion of him off of external appearances and the people he hangs out with at lunch). Because Tai wants to fit in and keep her new friends, she holds off on pursuing Travis despite still having feelings for him. In multiple instances Cher is shown interrupting Tai and Travis’s conversations, but later discovers that Travis is actually a super nice guy with a caring nature. It wasn’t until after Cher’s failed matchmaking attempt (to set up Tai and Elton) and getting to know Travis more for herself that she realized how good of a guy he really was for Tai and that she was wrong for being judgmental and tampering with others’ relationships.

SELF-PERCEPTION: SELF-CONCEPT AND SELF-ESTEEM

High school is a time where many people are unsure of themselves and their self-perception.

“Self-perception is the overall view people have of themselves” (Verderber, 50). Self-perception is illustrated clearly in Clueless, specifically in the character Tai. Tai’s self-perception changes over the course of the film.“Self-concept is one’s perceptions of their competencies and personality traits” (Verderber, 50). We learn about what our skills, abilities, and personalities are by the unique interpretations we make about ourselves based on our experiences and the ways that others react and respond to us. We see Tai’s self-concept being shaped during lunch when she meets Travis and he compliments her on her Marvin the Martian artwork. While Tai is seemingly in denial that she’s good at drawing, its positive experiences like these that are critical to forming one’s self-concept.“Self-esteem is one’s evaluation of their perceived competence and personal worthiness” (Verderber, 50), be it positive or negative, and the importance or value we place on what we do. Before her makeover, Tai is very self-conscious and through her nervous body language, lacks confidence and shows signs of low self-esteem. She is surprised when Cher and Dionne ask her to hang out with them in gym after being mocked by the other girls. Tai’s denial after Travis compliments her drawing abilities is another potential indicator of low self-esteem. Tai’s self-esteem seems to improve when she is made over by Cher and Dionne (much to Tai’s reluctance). Post-makeover she is seen smiling and full of energy with a new-found sense of confidence (especially after Travis invites her to a party), but it doesn’t last long, and she begins to lose sight of her true self (by undergoing somewhat of a personality change). When Tai is rejected by Elton, she is shown bursting into tears in the locker room with Cher and Dionne by her side, believing that Elton rejected her because of her body (warping her self-esteem even further).

Tai before and after her makeover by Cher and

Dionne:

THE QUALITY MAXIM AND SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES

Abiding by conversational maxims is essential to improving pragmatic understanding. The text identifies four conversational maxims, but I am going to focus on the first because it directly applies to the film.“Conversational maxims are specific rules that cooperating partners count on others to follow and can be used to help develop pragmatic competence” (Verderber, 117).The first conversational maxim, known as the “quality maxim,” is to tell the truth, the whole truth, and only the truth. This guideline directs us to say things we believe to be true and that we have enough evidence to support it. This guideline is followed by not saying things one knows or expects to be false (lying, distorting, or misrepresenting what one knows to be true results in the violation of this guideline and often misleads others). Cher violates this maxim when she attempts to set Tai up with Elton and tells a series of white lies. From there a number of misunderstandings occur. For example, when Cher and Dionne discuss finding Tai a boyfriend, they mention to Tai that they’ve noticed Elton checking her out and that he said she [Tai] was sweet. This excites Tai and as she walks away, Dionne asks Cher, “Is that true?” and Cher says, “No.” Dionne replies with, “You are so bad!” and the two walk away giggling, but Cher’s seemingly innocent action ends up having serious repercussions. One of the many reasons people tell partial or non truths is to “protect” their conversational partners or themselves. In this case, it appears as though Cher is telling these fibs to give Tai more confidence and perhaps even create a self-fulfilling prophecy, a concept from Chapter 2.“Self-fulfilling prophecies are events that happen as a result of being foretold, expected, or talked about and may be self-created or other-imposed” (Verderber, 55). You can view the clip in which she violates the quality maxim (here). Cher tries to impose a self-fulfilling prophecy for Tai saying, “If you strike while the iron is hot, you can have any guy that you want!” If Cher wanted to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, being misleading was the wrong way to go about it because it ended up severing her friendship with Tai as well as hurting Tai’s feelings after Elton rejected her. In addition, Cher was meddling in another’s affairs (trying to set Tai up with a more “respectable” and popular guy than Travis), which wasn’t a smart idea to begin with.

REFERENT POWER AND PERSUASIONInterpersonal influence and persuasion are two more concepts that influence the characters over the course of the film’s duration.“Interpersonal influence is the act of changing the attitudes or behaviors of others” (Verderber, 326). Being of a high social standing, Cher has a great amount of interpersonal influence over others because she exerts referent power. “Referent power is the potential to influence rooted in liking, respect, or admiration (Verderber, 328). Cher’s know-it-all attitude, placement in the top tier of the high school social hierarchy, and the confidence she exudes makes her very good at influencing and persuading others (with the exception of her teachers). Cher’s referent power is visible in Cher’s friendship with Tai who is new, impressionable, and moldable because of her low self-esteem. What Cher says, Tai does because she looks up to Cher and is grateful that Cher has taken her under her wing. Examples of this include Tai’s adopting of Cher and Dionne’s clothing styles after her makeover by them, her willingness to leave Travis by the wayside because Cher said it wouldn’t be good for her image to date him, and her mirroring of Cher’s social behaviors. For example, at the party in which Cher attempts to set Tai up with Elton, Cher tells Tai to laugh at what Travis says to gain Elton’s attention and she does so. Cher invites Tai to do as she does. This ties into persuading automatic processors, particularly the social proof and liking heuristics, explaining why Tai is so influenced by Cher.

“Persuasion is using verbal messages designed to influence the attitudes and behaviors of others” (Verderber, 329).

“The social proof heuristic is all about doing what others do and following the crowd” (Verderber, 332). If Tai wants to fit in in her new environment, she will have to do as others do (looking and acting the part).“The liking heuristic is all about doing what your friends your friends do” (Verderber, 332). This means complying with what someone is saying because they are your friend. For example, Cher tells Tai not to date Travis because dating a social misfit would jeopardize her image and friendships in the popular group. Tai complies with Cher because she doesn’t want to lose her friends.

Cher’s college-age former stepbrother, Josh, can see right through Cher’s schemes. When Cher has Tai over for a workout (a continuation of her makeover), Cher takes a break and steps into the kitchen with Josh and the following conversation ensues:Cher: “What do you think?”Josh: “I’m amazed.”Cher: “What I’m devoting myself so generously to someone else?”Josh: “No, that you’ve found someone even more clueless than yourself to worship you.”

Cher deems Tai as a “lost soul” and feels that it is her duty to make her “well-dressed and popular.” You can watch the clip of their dialogue (here). Throughout the film she demonstrates that she likes to utilize her referent power for good things, but Josh points out an underlying selfishness in her actions. It appears as though Cher wants to prove herself to be something other than spoiled, possibly hinting at an underlying issue with her self-perception (self-concept and self-esteem) despite seemingly having it all.

Clueless is regarded as a quintessential 90’s pop culture film. Just as prominent as the fashions is the heavy use of slang. “Slang is the informal vocabulary developed and used by particular co-cultural groups in a society” (Verderber, 114), and it plays a huge role in Clueless (with Cher’s “valley girl” speech and use of filler words being the most obvious).Slang bonds those who use the same terminology by emphasizing a shared experience while simultaneously excluding others who don’t share the terminology. It is emphasized by the text that slang should be used appropriately because some slang, which may be inoffensive to in-group members, may become offensive when used by non-members or when outside the in-group speech community.The attached clip (here) depicts this kind of scenario in a conversation between Dionne and her boyfriend Murray in which Dionne objects to Murray calling her “woman.” It can be assumed that Murray learned this kind of slang through his male peers or friends (the in-group). As a female, Dionne is not a member of the in-group, and thus finds it offensive.

SLANG

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATIONIn Clueless, the misinterpretation of nonverbal messages is significant. The snafus that occur in the film particularly involve Cher misreading nonverbal communication (particularly those of Elton and Christian) and receiving mixed signals.“Nonverbal communication is a term used to describe all human communication events that transcend spoken or written words” (Verderber, 131). It also describes how actions and vocal tone create meanings that stand alone or that support, modify, or contradict the meaning of a verbal message. Towards the beginning of the film, we see Elton acting flirty in his body language towards Cher in class, which makes the audience wonder if he’s her boyfriend, but he is not.“Body language is the intentional or unintentional movement of various body parts that sends nonverbal messages” (Verderber 135) and includes eye contact, facial expression, gesture, posture, and touch. Cher appears to go along with his gestures, but she appears to view Elton’s use of touch (putting his arm around her shoulder, embracing her, kissing her cheek, etc.) as platonic. This is pretty ironic (most likely for comedic effect) when we take a look at the situation with Christian.“Personal space is the area that surrounds a person, moves with that person, and changes the situation as well as moment to moment” (Verderber, 140). At the party Cher attends with Dionne in Tai (with the hope of setting up Elton and Tai), she becomes increasingly pestered by Elton’s spatial usage and proximity within her personal space. While playing a kissing game at the party, Elton gets within intimate distance of Cher (up to 18 inches) and loses the game just so that he can passionately kiss her. Not comfortable with this, Cher gets upset at Elton.Elton weasels his way out of driving Tai home and drives Cher home instead, much to her dismay. In the car, he reveals that he likes her as more than just a friend and aggressively tries to kiss her. It’s important that people need to be sensitive to others’ definitions of intimate space to avoid perceptions of harassment. Cher is completely shocked and mortified as she completely misread the nonverbal messages he was sending while he was under the impression that she liked him because of the way she would play along with his flirty gestures. Cher was also under the impression that Elton liked Tai , but in reality he did not. As the audience, we can observe Elton’s body language towards Tai and it makes sense to us that he does not have feelings for her. There is a scene at school in which Cher takes a group photo of her friends and Tai. Cher tells Elton to put his arm around Tai to make her feel included and bring them closer together. When Cher tells him to do this, he rolls his eyes and puts his arm around her and sarcastically says, “Alright…” These nonverbal actions do not register with Cher. You can watch the clip (here).

Elton and Cher – platonic or not?

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION CONTINUED

Another situation in which the misreading of nonverbal messages occurs is during Cher’s “date” with Christian, though the confusion originates much earlier than that. When Christian arrives on the first day of the semester, Cher instantly takes a liking to him and pursues him to be her boyfriend (when in actuality, Christian does not like girls). In an attempt to be flirty, Cher drops her pencil. Christian picks it up for her and compliments her legs, leading Cher to believe that he is flirting. It appears as though Christian responds to Cher’s advances as a means of getting the lowdown on parties, but Cher believes otherwise. When Christian finally agrees to hang out with her at her house, Cher goes to extreme measures to make herself look perfect for what she believes is a big date night. She tries to impress Christian by being overtly flirty and playing footsie and moving into intimate proximity, but has no effect and only confuses Christian (noticeable in his facial expressions). When Cher says that her feet are cold in a flirtatious manner, Christian (clearly annoyed) covers her foot with a pillow. In an attempt to look “sexy,” Cher ends up falling off the bed and offers Christian some wine, but Christian becomes increasingly uncomfortable and decides to leave (with Cher left wondering what she did wrong).

Cher’s “date night” with Christian gone wrong:

COLLABORATIVE CONFLICT CONVERSATION AND OWNING THE FEELING

The failed matchmaking attempt between Tai and Elton on behalf of Cher created some tensions in Tai and Cher’s relationship. Tensions reached a boiling point after Cher failed her driving test, and Tai tells Cher that she has set her sights on someone else – none other than Josh. Cher begins to feel uneasy because she has begun to harbor feelings for her former stepbrother as well (but doesn’t know it yet). Because of Cher’s disapproval with Tai’s crushes once again, Tai insults Cher with some harsh words.Fast-forward to Travis’s skateboarding competition. Both Cher and Tai meet up and a collaborative conflict conversation takes place to resolve their conflict. Tai initiates the conversation the correct way by asking Cher if she would like to talk for a minute instead of immersing Cher into the conversation without her consent. The text presents the following guidelines for initiating a collaborative conflict conversation (Verderber, 373-374):

1. Mentally rehearse what you will say before confronting the person Observing how Tai goes about initiating, you can tell that she’s been thinking about this for a while and knows what she wants to say.2. Recognize and state ownership of the conflictTai immediately beings by addressing the situation and saying, “I have been in agony the past week and I can’t even believe that I went off the way I did.” This is an example of owning the feeling, and stating that she was wrong. 3. Describe the conflict in terms of behavior, consequences, and feelingsTai both owned the feeling and described the conflict in her statement. Cher reciprocates by saying, “I have been going down a shame spiral. I can’t believe I was so unsupportive of your feelings for Josh.” Cher also expresses her regret over the entire Elton fiasco.4. Do not blame or ascribe motivesNeither of the girls blame or accuse each other for what happened and focus on resolving the conflict, which they do.5. Keep it shortBoth girls effectively take turns and keep the conversation short and sweet. Upon resolving the conflict, they both cheer on Travis at his skateboarding competition and Cher realizes that Tai was meant to be with Travis all along. Cher now embraces Tai and Travis’s blossoming relationship.

Tai and Cher make up:

EVALUATION/CONCLUSIONWhile Clueless is an overly-dramatized and comedic take on high school life (both in behavior and the kinds of relationships that exist), I found that I could relate to it because similar things happened in high school to either my friends or myself due to poor communication skills. Of all the characters in the film, I could relate to Tai’s character the most through her personality and in struggling with my self-perception during those years (which I think many others can relate to as well). One of the things I liked most about the film was how each character made things right again. By the film’s end, all the characters realized where they went wrong in their communication instead of perpetuating poor choices and behavior. Each of them, especially Cher most of all, undergo a metamorphosis (a “makeover” of the soul) and walk away with a happy ending of their own.Thanks for reading!

WORKS CITEDClueless. Dir. Amy Heckerling. Paramount Pictures, 1995.Verderber, Kathleen S., and Rudolph F. Verderber. Inter-Act:

Interpersonal Communication Concepts, Skills, and Contexts. 13th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 45-374. Print.