Valley Girl Stereotype

I choose to analyze the dramatic irony of the 1995 teen movie Clueless. Clueless revolves around a steriotypical "valley girl" named Cher Horowitz of Beverly Hills, California who seems to be entirely self-obsessed with noted interests in shopping, fashion, and other superficial activities. She also often uses typical "valley speak" throughout the movie, which is used as humor. Although the movie may seem as shallow as the main charecters, the movie actually breaks the valley girl steriotype as Cher discovers her own worth is not rooted in her clothes and address, but in how she helps others. At the beginning of the movie, Cher is just a steriotypical airhead who often manipulates people, such as her teachers, to get what she wants. She is selfish, egotistical, and highly matieralistic. But as the movie progresses, Cher begans to help others even though at first her efforts are somewhat misguided. She decides to help a new student, a social outcast named Tai become popular. This is something that share does for another person and not her self, which marks the beginning of her charecter development. Although helping Tai be popular is highly shallow and still goes with the stereotypical valley girl's preoccupation with social status, she does it for someone else, which begans to break the selfish valley girl trope. As the movie continues, Cher makes time to make others happy, like her father and continues to do good deeds, making her increasingly selfless. In the movie's climax, Cher realizes that her happiness is also important and makes an effort to be a less shallow person as she realizes that she is not truly happy in materialism.
The movie breaks several valley girl stereotypes by effectively satirizing the SoCal culture. One of the most important comedic moments in the movie, before Cher's change, she is shown showing Tai how to adopt the Valley Girl persona. She tells Tai that an important part of fitting in is to not only care about your apperance, but also your mind. She tells Tai to read one book for personal reasons every week. This moment effectively breaks the valley girl mold before the charecters even come to terms with it themselves. It proves that the girls of the valley are not only concearned with the superfitial, but also with their own intellecual development when they are still actively acting out the valley girl stereotype. Clueless accomplishes the massive feat of proving wrong a pervasive stereotype in American culture through the use of satire.