Alright, look. I’m not a kiss scene connoisseur. As a lot as I really like a very good rom-com binge, I can’t provide you with an in-depth breakdown of the place “Clueless” stands in relation to different films’ smooches. Nevertheless, there are two issues I can let you know:

1. The concept of a college-aged man kissing his 16-year-old ex-stepsister could be very, very bizarre (though I additionally wish to remind everybody that Cher tells her father, “You had been hardly even married to [Josh’s] mom and that was 5 years in the past,” lengthy earlier than she develops emotions for Josh — the road is straightforward to neglect, however does lots of heavy lifting to ascertain that the pair by no means had a sibling-like relationship).

2. The kiss is a bit awkward. No approach round that. However that is a very good factor.

Now, if Paul Rudd’s agent wished to make use of “Clueless,” a teen film, to skyrocket the actor as much as film star standing (or an eventual “Sexiest Man Alive” award), it would not harm to place him as some suave heartthrob — at the very least in idea. In spite of everything, it is easy to see how an agent would possibly assume that teenage women could be a teen rom-com’s largest viewers — and in the event that they fell for the good-looking male lead, they’d preserve going to see his new films.

That being mentioned, if Josh had swooped in with a clean kiss, the scene would’ve been way more uncomfortable. A suave, assured kiss necessitates previous expertise. All of the sudden, Josh would appear extra romantically skilled and the gulf between him and Cher would widen, making the entire thing far more disturbing. By that very same token, the film’s awkward kiss implied that Josh was comparatively inexperienced. The enjoying discipline may not have been even, however the energy imbalance wasn’t practically as extreme.