"Ugh, As If!"

"Ugh as if!"

Okay everyone, time for me to make yet another pop culture reference in my explanations of a literary classic. This time, I'm going all the way back to 1995, when the cost of gas was just over one dollar per gallon and people were fist-fighting over Beanie Babies, to talk about the movie Clueless. Actually based off of another classic piece of literature (Emma by Jane Austen), Clueless features the story of Cher, a popular teenage girl who decides to play matchmaker for the people at her school before realizing she wants a boyfriend herself, and *Spoiler Alert* ends up dating he ex-stepbrother. Without getting into the weird dynamic that that entails, lets get to the reference. In Gulliver's Travels, the protagonist's first adventure occurs when he washes ashore on the beaches of an island called Lilliput. Once he is on the island, he realizes that its inhabitants are all six inches tall, and to his surprise, that they all have perfect complexions. Then, on his second journey, he arrives on the island of Brobdingnag, where the people are giants, and according to Gulliver, very very ugly. Gulliver's opinion is obviously not based in fact but rather perspective due to his size. The Lilliputians only appeared to have flawless skin because Gulliver was extremely far away and could not see any imperfections in their complexion. Of course, the opposite is true on the island of Brobdingnag, because everyone is gigantic in comparison to Gulliver, their features are exaggerated, and every flaw looks magnified. This dynamic is very much the same for a well remembered line from Clueless. When Cher is talking to her friend Tai, she describes someone as a Monet. What's a Monet you ask? "It's like a painting, see? From far away it's OK, but up close, it's a big ol' mess."