Growing Up Clueless: The 10 Lessons Every Girl Learned From Cher Horowitz

If Regina George had been in high school in 1995, she would have met her match in Cher Horowitz. Cher laid the grounds for what it means to be a quintessential queen bee. She knows that there is no such thing as being half a virgin. You’re either a virgin who can’t drive, or a slut who can.

Before Gretchen Weiners said, “I’m sorry that people are jealous of me. It’s not my fault I’m so popular,” Cher Horowitz said, “Dionne is my friend because we both know what it’s like for people to be jealous of us.” Amen honey, amen.

We all know we were jealous of Cher Horowitz at one point during our adolescence. While we were wearing too much eyeliner, getting braces and stuffing our bras, Cher Horowitz was rocking Calvin Klein and rejecting high school boys left and right.

F*ck army pants and flip flops. Today, it’s all about slutty plaid skirts and pink fuzzy pens. So before you "smoke a doobie" and "roll with the homies" tonight, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we learned from the smartest yet most clueless bitch of our generation.

1. Physical education is a waste of a career and our time.

I’m sure we all remember spending countless amounts of our precious time sitting in gym class, listening to an overweight teacher talk about fitness. And the few times we actually got to play a sport, we got knocked out by a volleyball (okay maybe that was just me).

Cher Horowitz did all of us a favor when she told Miss Stoeger that she 'didn’t even work off the calories that are in a stick of Carefree gum' during physical education. Strive for something greater than physical education, or you will wind up fat and being put in your place by Cher Horowitz.

2. It’s OK to be a virgin who can’t drive.

Cher Horowitz may have dressed like she was DTF, but she knew better. She wasn’t the kind of virgin that people hate, like those who are all like, “Well… am I a virgin? I’m not really sure. Define virgin,” (STFU). Cher wasn’t worried about nothin'. Obviously she wasn’t going to waste her time on high school boys. If their balls just dropped, how could they know what they were doing? When asked about her sex life, Cher proudly said, “I’m not a prude, I’m just highly selective.” Preach.

3. Most men in Gen-Y dress like sh*t.

In 20 Things You Don’t Want To See Your Boyfriend Wear, we set some guidelines for what is and isn’t socially acceptable for a guy's wardrobe (if he ever wants a chance of getting it in). Cher Horowitz knew exactly what we're talking about: “I don't want to be a traitor to my generation and all, but I don't get how guys dress today.

I mean, come on, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants and take their greasy hair - ew - and cover it up with a backwards cap and like, we're expected to swoon? I don't think so.”

4. Having too many clothes can be a problem.

While most of us are too poor to have this issue anyway, Cher taught us that the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. Just looking at her room when she’s trying to pick out an outfit gives me an instant migraine. She should’ve put her money to better use and hired Calvin Klein to choose her outfits for her.

5. The best analogies ever.

Cher explained life through analogies so that we could better understand it. She taught us that finding boys in high school is like searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie and that you can compare someone to a Monet: from far away they’re OK, but close up they’re just a big mess. It all makes sense now.

6. Politics.

Our country is so worried about keeping people out. It’s f*cked up. I think Cher Horowitz could have started a revolution with her analogy about the Haitians and her father’s garden party. All these people showed up who didn’t RSVP, so did Cher kick them out because she didn’t have enough resources?

F*ck no. She made last minute arrangements, and then in the end, she realized the more the merrier. Besides, it doesn’t say RSVP on the statue of liberty, duh. I doubt Lady Liberty would let anyone write on her.

7. It’s important to appreciate your friends.

It wasn’t enough for Cher Horowitz to just chill with her friends in person. Obviously it was so worth it to run up her phone bill, so that she could talk to Dionne on the phone while she was right next to her.

And although Cher was better than everyone else, she recognized that her clique was almost as awesome as her: “And then I realized, all my friends were really good in different ways. Like, Christian, he always wants things to be beautiful and interesting. Or Dionne and Murray, when they think no one is watching, are so considerate of each other.”

8. You shouldn’t make assumptions about someone’s heritage.

When Cher told her housekeeper that she couldn’t understand her because she didn’t speak Mexican, obviously that pissed the housekeeper off. Even Mexicans wish they weren’t Mexican, so since Lucy is actually from El Salvador, that was NOT okay to assume. Oh also, Mexican isn’t a language anyway.

9. Never accept a first offer.

When Cher’s daddy asked her where her report card was, she obviously told him it wasn’t ready. F*cking duh, she wasn’t going to accept a C in debate. She was better than that. She told him “some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy. And I know how you say 'never accept a first offer,' so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations.”  Genius.

10. It’s OK to be Clueless.

Cher totally freaks out at the end when she has this epiphany that she’s basically an idiot. We all feel stupid sometimes, but life is all about messing up and learning from it. How are you ever going to realize you found your Josh if you aren’t a total bitch to him first? Then you’ll never know how far you can push him.

Photos via Clueless