The process of transformation preserves more of the important ideas and concerns than it alters.
             Amy Heckerling's teen film Clueless, a modernised version of Jane Austen's classic novel Emma, strongly parallels Emma's story in conditions of character progress and accomplishment. Although Emma was produced in 1816, and ideas and issues are relevant for that time, the responder is able to recognise the exact same concerns in Clueless. The universal themes of money, love, friendship, class and self awareness take place in both the film and the novel displaying that the process of the transformation preserves more of the important ideas and concerns than what it alters.
             Amy Heckerling has preserved character traits of Emma and similarities between her and Cher (the main character of Clueless) can be seen as early as the opening of the film. Emma Woodhouse is part of a rich, expensive civilization, of a large and heavily populated village (called Highbury) as is Cher in a modernised Highbury, upscale Beverly Hills USA. Cher and Emma are both spoiled, high class snobs who are looked upon with esteem and popularity by most. Cher is very similar to Emma who is convinced that she knows what is best for everyone and attempts to arrange her friends lives to fit her personal vision, despite the warning of her neighbour Mr Knightley "Mr Knightley, in fact was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma, and the only one who ever told her them" (11).
             When Emma attempts to match make her new friend Harriet Smith with vicar Mr Elton, Mr Knightley advises Emma that Mr Elton is a superficial man who will choose a bride based on looks rather than personality. Mr Knightley's warning proves true as Emma's matchmaking attempt goes comically awry when Mr Elton proposes to Emma rather than Harriet. Emma later convinces herself that she is in love with Frank Churchill- a self delusion which is short lived a...