Cher and Dionne BFFs: Female Friendship, Genre, and Medium Specificity in the Film and Television Versions of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless

Citation

Berridge S (2016) Cher and Dionne BFFs: Female Friendship, Genre, and Medium Specificity in the Film and Television Versions of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless. In: Shary T & Smith F (eds.) Refocus: The Films of Amy Heckerling. ReFocus: The American Directors Series. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 17-35.

Abstract
At the center of both the film and the television versions of Amy Heckerling’sCluelessis the friendship of Cher (Alicia Silverstone and Rachel Blanchard, respectively) and Dionne (Stacey Dash, in both versions). Of all the central teenage relationships featured in the film, this is the only one to occupy an equally prominent space in the spin-off television series, which originally premiered on ABC in 1996, before moving to UPN in 1997 for its final two seasons and ending in 1999. While Cher and Dionne’s friendship remains central in the television version, other key relationships from the film, such as...