The unexpected complexity of Mean Girls

Released in 2004, Mean Girls has remained one of the most popular movies of the last two decades. On the surface level, Mean Girls is a teen comedy referenced a lot in pop culture, but looking deeper, it is a critique of the stereotypes of teenage girls. The protagonist’s dilemma is straightforward, Cady wants to fit in at her high school. She is granted the chance to join her school’s popular clique the “Plastics”. The plastics embody the stereotypes of teenage girls; they gossip, shop excessively, fight over boys, and wear pink. Although she doesn't intend to befriend them, Cady unintentionally mirrors their behaviors and becomes a mean girl herself. Reflecting on her actions, Cady concludes that all girls in her school are mean girls because they all want to fit in, even if it means feeding into stereotypes. The movie resolves with the girls reconciling and learning to be themselves. At first, the female characters are entirely based on stereotypes of teenage girls. However, the big twist is that the stereotypes are a facade the girls put on to be accepted by their peers. Mean Girls is remembered as an iconic moment in pop culture, but its message about being yourself is one that can be appreciated.

Comments

  1. Deepti AggarwalFebruary 6, 2022 at 6:22 AM

    I really liked how you noticed that Mean Girls subverts the typical high-school-cliques-hate-each-other trope. I always loved Mean Girls for the way that it calls out the internalized mysogyny; it's not a movie about guys being sexist, then the girls banding together in rebellion and "fighting back". It's a movie about how even in tight friend circles, with people you genuinely think are your best friends, there's a culture of competition and animalistic territorialism that might tear you apart faster than the men you're fighting over will.

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  2. UnknownFebruary 6, 2022 at 9:34 AM

    This was really interesting to read. I’ve never thought that hard about the deeper side of that movie, I’ve always seen it as a funny movie with nothing else to it. Looking at it from a new perspective is a very interesting idea.

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  3. VictoriaFebruary 6, 2022 at 11:11 AM

    I loved how you went deeper than just saying the Plastics represent women stereotypes and analyzed that these stereotypes are just a cover up to fit into society’s norms. When you mentioned that Cady realizes that all girls in her school are mean girls, it reminded of the scene where Regina wears a tank top with cutouts in the chest area and Cady’s friends thinks that she’ll make a fool of herself but Regina ultimately starts a new trend because the next day every girl is wearing a cut out tank top. Mean Girls is one of my favorite movies and this made me look at it in another perspective.

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  4. angelinaFebruary 6, 2022 at 11:34 AM

    I've never watched Mean Girls, I was just never interested in it. It sounded like a typical high school/teenage drama movie. I've only seen and heard about how the girls act in the movie as the typical stereotypes in a high school but bringing out a new perspective of seeing why those girls acted the ways they do just to fit in makes me want to watch the movie.

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