Escapism has always been the greatest tool for the everyday sufferer. You don’t even have to use a word as dramatic as sufferer to describe the people who choose to partake in this activity. For myself, I mainly use books to distract me when life gets insane, while others may use movies, creating art, TV, and even drugs. Though the ways people partake in escapism have changed in some ways, one key principle hasn’t; that no matter what you are going through, something will always be there to help ease your reality.

In the movie “Austenland”, we see this escapism taken to the extreme. The main character, Jane, is tired of her mundane relationships and life, and due to an absurdly unhealthy obsession with Jane Austen she embarks on a stay in the English countryside that replicates Austen’s works to the extreme. This movie embraces all of the overused tropes that Claudia Johnson and Deidre Lynch mentioned in their articles “Austen Cults and Cultures” and “Cult of Jane Austen,” respectively. Each discussed how the want for “old world elegance” has created this form of nostalgia that is unprecedented, therefore forming a consumeristic opportunity that has sent its takers into a frenzy.

Jane’s transplantation into an Austen themed world encapsulates Johnson and Lynch’s thinking to a T. This resort has everything a fanatic could want: the clothes, the activities, and the romance. It is a physical manifestation of the cult surrounding Jane Austen, and represents how the majority of her readers only focus on the romance and balls, the very materialistic and artificial things that Austen was satirizing in the first place. The viewer thinks by the end of the movie that Jane has learned her lesson in believing in these kinds of things, but she ends up falling in love anyway; thus continuing the romance trope that Austen readers seems so obsessed with, and which is what Austen seems completely opposite of.

Written and directed by Amy Heckerling, Clueless takes plot points, thematic undertones, and character traits from Jane Austen’s Emma to give this classic novel an updated twist. Clueless is overwhelmingly nineties in its aesthetic in every sense. From the fashion to the diction to the music, this movie oozes nostalgia which hides how it is an adaption of such a victorian novel.

Let’s start with the main character, Cher. Like Emma, her father is a well-off widow, although Cher’s dad is still working. She believes whatever she thinks is whats best for him, is whats best for him, along with everyone else. Cher’s obsession with makeovers is meant to be the updated version of Emma’s incessant match making, although Cher does that as well. To her, she can do no wrong, and aims to manipulate those around her with her stubborn thinking.

The concerns over money and society are also present in the movie. They use the stereotypical high school popularity hierarchy to establish the importance of high society that was in Jane Austen’s novels. It’s a great way to translate that structure for an updated and modern audience, especially since almost everyone has dealt or witnessed the the popularity contest in high school.

There were some plot points in the movie that were so blatantly taken from the novel that it is hard not to see how Clueless is a take on Emma. When Cher is taking pictures of her friend group, Jacob is literally Jacob, and asks for the picture of Tai, and puts it in his locker! Just like how Jacob had the painting of Heather in his house, but both men only did it because of the women who took the initiative for the art.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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