25 fun facts you didn’t know about your favorite teen movies

Clueless – A major cultural impact

Clueless was and remains a cultural phenomenon. Like Mean Girls, it left a lasting impression on the way teens talked and dressed, and it’s still commonly referenced to this day. For a teen comedy about spoiled adolescents in California, that’s a pretty big feat!

To help promote the film upon its release in 1995, the studio released an information booklet called “How To Speak Cluelessly.” Anyone who has seen the film knows how inventive some of Cher’s (Alicia Silvertstone) and Dionne’s (Stacey Dash) lingo was. For example, Cher calls a girl “a full-on Monet“: like the paintings, she looks pretty from far but up close, she’s “a big ole mess.”

The movie was so influential that much of the invented lingo for the film actually became a part of real teen slang at the time. Terms like “As if!” and “Totally buggin’!” weren’t just for Cher and her gals anymore!

Besides the slang, the clothing was another major point of conversation in Clueless. Cher, Dionne, and Tai (Brittany Murphy) rocked some killer outfits, with lots of plaid, mini-skirts, platforms, and hats. While you may think a movie so focused on fashion would have an outrageous wardrobe budget, costume designer Mona May didn’t want the teenage girls to look like models, she wanted them to look like mall rats.

She wanted the girls of Clueless to be fashionable, but authentic. So for all the outfits, she spent only $200,000. That may sound like a lot, but for a movie with so many fashionable looks, it really isn’t.

In fact, the biggest wardrobe expense was the yellow plaid outfit Cher wears in the opening scene. It was designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, and Alicia Silverstone got to keep it, along with all her other outfits. Jealous, anyone?