The Director of Clueless Finally Explained Where ‘As If’ Came From
Besides Mean Girls, is there any film that’s as universally loved as Clueless?
The classic 1995 comedy, which tells the story of what it was like to be a material girl growing up in a material world a.k.a. Beverly Hills in the 90s, has something for everybody to latch on to. Ditzy characters with a lot of heart, fierce fashion, and some of the best quotes to ever be said on a movie set.
But wait, did you know that one of the movie’s most iconic lines is also an homage to queer culture?
As if!
No, really, it’s the phrase “as if!”
Here, let Clueless’ writer-director Amy Heckerling explain.
“At that time, which was like early 90s, ‘as if!‘ was floating around in the gay community, and I thought it was really a multiuseful, multipurpose word. I thought it would be a good thing for teenagers to be saying,” Heckerling revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, adding, “Some of the people I knew were already beyond ‘As if,’ so they were just going with ‘Zif!”
Can you imagine Cher and Di saying “Zif” to each other? As if.
So glad Amy trusted her intuition on that one.
[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]
