Clueless Wiki
Clueless Wiki
Advertisement
Tai-Frasier-1

Tai Frasier is a character in the 1995 film, Clueless.

The shy girl was turned into a beautiful swan. Cher and Dionne decide to give her a makeover. With a change of hair, makeup and clothing, Tai gains confidence and a sense of style. Originally Tai fell for skater Travis, but Cher tried to set up Tai with “it boy” Elton to boost her popularity. After a “near-death experience” at the mall, Tai obtains an overly confident attitude that ultimately poses a threat to Cher's social status. She also develops a crush on Josh and asks Cher to help her get him. By the end of the film, Tai regains Cher's respect and friendship and begins to date Travis.

Tai likes to use tech, and inter reacts with animals in her spare time to stop her becoming bored. She speaks with a South American accent.

Tai's role in the TV series is significantly smaller than in the movie, and she had been dropped altogether by the second season. Brittany Murphy did appear in the episode "Driving Me Crazy" as a character named Jasmine.

Appearance

Tai is a transfer student who arrives at Bronson Alcott High and instantly stands out due to her differences in appearance and attitude to the other students. Much of the film centers on Cher's "project" to make Tai attractive and popular, and, after this fails, her subsequent realization that it is Tai's personal substance that is important rather than her looks or popularity. And from the looks of it, she has dark wavy red hair and dark eyes. Before popularity, she wore plain shirts and baggy jeans, but when popular, she started wearing cute and trendy clothes and makeup.

Relationships

Travis Birkenstock

Tai forms a rapid bond with slacker Travis Scott after meeting him in the school cafeteria. However, Cher feels that a "loadie" boyfriend would hamper her attempts to bring Tai into the popular clique; consequently, Cher makes extensive efforts to set Tai up with the wealthy and popular Elton. However, this backfires when it emerges that Elton is more interested in Cher. These misfiring matchmaking attempts, coupled with Tai's rising popularity following an incident at the shopping mall in which she is held over a balcony, drive a wedge between Tai and Cher. Cher ultimately realizes that she cannot force Tai to become something she is not and that Tai would be happier with Travis in her life. By the end of the film, Tai has patched up her differences with Cher and apparently begun to date Travis, who is her date to Mr. Hall and Ms. Geist's wedding.

Role In Clueless (film)

(Brittany Murphy in the film, Heather Gottlieb in the series) Cher now decides that the ultimate way she can give back to the community would be to "adopt" a "tragically unhip" new girl at school, Tai Frasier. Cher and Dionne give Tai a makeover and initiate her into the mysteries of popularity. Cher also tries to extinguish the strong mutual attraction between Tai and Travis Birkenstock, an amiable skateboarding slacker, and to steer her toward Elton, a rich snob whose father is a music-industry executive.

Her second matchmaking scheme backfires when Elton rejects Tai and makes an attempt to seduce Cher. Matters worsen when Cher's "project" works a bit too well and Tai's popularity begins to surpass Cher's, especially after Tai has a "near-death" misadventure at the mall that helps to skyrocket her to fame at school. Other classmates, including Dionne's and Cher's longtime rival Amber, soon gravitate toward Tai, and Cher finds herself caught in an "alternate universe", having been demoted from queen to courtier at high school.

The events afterward reach the crisis stage after Cher fails her driver's test and can't "renegotiate" the result. When Cher returns home, crushed, Tai confides that she's taken a fancy to Josh and wants Cher to help her "get" him. Cher says she doesn't think Josh is right for Tai, and they quarrel, ending with Tai insulting Cher for being a virgin who can't drive. Cher, left all alone, begins to think she has created a monster in her own image. Feeling "totally clueless," she reflects on her priorities and her repeated failures to understand or appreciate the people in her life. Most of all, she keeps thinking about Josh and Tai, and wonders why she cares about them so much.

After much soul searching (which includes a solo shopping spree around various Beverly Hills boutiques), Cher realizes that she has fallen in love with Josh. She begins making awkward but sincere efforts to live a more purposeful life, even captaining the school's Pismo Beach disaster relief effort. A scene near the end of the film finds Cher and Josh stumbling over how to admit their mutual feelings for one another, culminating in a tender kiss on the stairs of her home.

Mr. Hall and Miss Geist get married; Cher's friendships with Tai and Dionne are reaffirmed and solidified; Tai and Travis are in love and Cher wins a $200 dollar bet, catching the bouquet at the wedding, embraces Josh and they kiss, affirming their relationship with each other.

Image Gallery

Tai Frazier (film) / Gallery

Advertisement