{"id":43473,"date":"2024-06-01T08:05:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T12:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=43473"},"modified":"2024-06-01T08:28:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T12:28:50","slug":"the-importance-of-christian-in-clueless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/01\/the-importance-of-christian-in-clueless\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Christian in “Clueless”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It was 1995 and I\u2019d seen \u201cClueless\u201d five times by now. My dad had rented it from the video store for us and I\u2019d seen it a lot over the course of a weekend, even though I didn\u2019t care much for it. It\u2019s a fine movie, but it never managed to click with me like \u201cHeathers\u201d or \u201cMean Girls\u201d ever did. From these viewings, though, I did pick up a few things.<\/p>\n

Number One: I definitely<\/em><\/strong> was going to be a good husband to Alicia Silverstone. I\u2019d be supportive of her career, and even not be a geek around other celebrities.<\/p>\n

Number Two: Christian is definitely not in to women.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know a lot at the age of twelve. I didn\u2019t really know what the idea of being gay was, nor did I really know a lot about the LGBTQ community, but I knew that Christian definitely was not someone who was in to women. From the moment he steps on screen with his jacket behind his shoulder (after Cher\u2019s terrible incident with slimeball Elton), it\u2019s pretty obvious even though the usually savvy Cher never actually picks up on it until it\u2019s way too late.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The thing about that idea though was because Gay wasn\u2019t really something we made a big deal out of in my house. We didn\u2019t ignore the concept of being gay and the whole issue of sexuality, but it was never really a topic that my parents drew huge attention toward. It was just something we confronted as normal, and something that was a part of every other facet of life. If we asked questions, then they\u2019d often address our curiosity about as unbiased and neutral as possible.<\/p>\n

My mom, in particular, made it all sound so normal and mundane that we were too focused on trying to enjoy the movies or entertainment rather than pick apart sexuality. We watched \u201cThe Birdcage\u201d and though we were very aware that most of these characters were gay we cared more about them being so charming and likable. The same went for the protagonists in \u201cTo Wong Foo.\u201dAs for \u201cClueless,\u201d most of it was based around the whole boy\/girl dynamic. Cher was looking for a guy, her friend Dee was committed to another man, and then midway we meet Christian.<\/p>\n

Played very well by Justin Walker, Christian is a reasonable and nice enough guy who notices Cher, mainly because he\u2019s noticing that she\u2019s trying to get him to notice her. Whether or not he\u2019s ever really in to her is ambiguous but there\u2019s no doubt he finds some kind of connection to her that makes them grow in to friends and party pals. Even when they\u2019re at a party and he\u2019s drawing attention more toward male partiers, she can\u2019t quite grasp the obvious.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And he\u2019s not the \u201cobvious\u201d gay caricature, but more someone hiding in plain sight as was a lot of the cases in the nineties. As it became less and less taboo to come out, there was less \u201cqueer coding\u201d and more just outright admitting to sexuality, so Christian does appear driving a classic car, listening to oldies, and somewhat fawning over Cher. But the more they grow comfortable with each other, he reveals a lot more aspects about himself and Cher still never really gets the hint. Christian is an important aspect of Cher\u2019s story because he does allow her to grow and realize in many ways that she\u2019s just not seeing what\u2019s so plainly obvious, not just in her efforts to help others, but in her relationship with Josh.<\/p>\n

Yes, he’s a plot device but he\u2019s also very much the most important plot device in \u201cClueless,\u201d the character who is much more open about his admissions of who he is than Cher is. Though Cher has always been about celebrating herself and not apologizing, she comes full circle after experiencing someone who is much more than someone interested in Cher\u2019s body. I dare say he\u2019s definitely the most important character in \u201cClueless.\u201d And in a decade that took a long time to warm up to and introduce LGBTQ characters without \u201cqueer coding\u201d or writing them as comic relief, that\u2019s quite indicative in how \u201cClueless\u201d has managed to remain a classic, in spite of being so drenched in the decade.<\/p>\n

Oh, and, Alicia Silverstone was going be a great wife and mother of my kids. I, as a twelve year old, didn\u2019t mind thinking that far ahead for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was 1995 and I\u2019d seen \u201cClueless\u201d five times by now. My dad had rented it from the video store for us and I\u2019d seen it a lot over the course of a weekend, even though I didn\u2019t care much for it. It\u2019s a fine movie, but it never managed to click with me like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,3375,219,1401,2123],"class_list":["post-43473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pcthugs","tag-adaptation","tag-alicia-silverstone","tag-comedy","tag-lgbt","tag-lgbtq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43473"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43479,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43473\/revisions\/43479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}