Film Review: Mean Girls

I chose to do the film review on Mean Girls because quite simply girls are mean! This movie humorously and accurately portrays the life of a teenage girl in high school. The movie stars Lindsay Lohan(who oddly enough is not the best of role models for girls) who plays Cady. Cady was raised in Africa by her parents who are zoologists in which she humorously applies the thought of survival of the fittest throughout the movie. She goes from being in the Jungle to the Jungle of high school, which is metaphoric in itself. Anyone who has ever stepped foot into a high school can attest to the theory of survival of the fittest. Cady befriends Janis and Damien, who are considered to be pretty low on the popularity totem pole. Janis could be stereotyped as a Gothic, wearing black, black hair, and dark makeup. Damien is the very feminine, gay, lovable friend.

Cady being of above average beauty immediately catches the attention of the popular girls in school. These girls are known as the “Plastics”, which is made up of 3 girls who fit the beauty ideal to a tee, they are pretty, skinny, rich, and dress well. Regina (Rachel McAdams) is the ring leader of the Plastics, Gretchen is basically Regina’s puppy who follows her around, and Karen fits the typical dumb, pretty blonde mold. Janis and Damien encourage Cady to hang with this group of girls, because Janis has her own personal vendetta with Regina who she use to be best friends with in middle school, until Regina spread a rumor she was a lesbian and totally ruined her teenage life. At first all seems peachy within the Plastic group, until Cady starts to like Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron. Everything starts to go downhill after a Halloween party. Regina is supposed to talk to Aaron for Cady, but instead tells him lies and kisses him; it is at this moment that Cady realizes Regina is not a true friend. It is this point where Cady, Damien, and Janis plan to get revenge on Regina in a scheme where she will lose her “man candy”(Aaron), her “hot body” and friends as they put it “army of skanks”. It is interesting to see a sheltered girl from Africa go from being quiet and innocent to almost single handedly ruining several people’s lives including her enemy Regina, through lies and a burn book.

This film portrays just about every aspect we have covered in this course including sexuality, education and the purity myth. But, the major theme covered in this movie was body image, which is also in my opinion the biggest issue girls’ face on a daily basis. You have the Plastics, who are literally Barbie dolls, all the girls are jealous of them and all the boys are in love with them. But, continuously throughout the movie they are unhappy with the way they look especially Regina, who obsessively diets. I could not help but thing how ridiculous she was being at times, but the reality is girls obessess like this everyday. In Meike Schleiff’s story “The Beautiful Cause of Death That Had Me Dying for a While” she talks about how her obsessive dieting almost cost her the ultimate price, her life. She recalls counting calories fanatically and lost a third of her body weight (Red 31). Regina from the beginning of the movie was on a quest to lose three pounds, when she clearly did not need to. At one point they go to Regina’s house where Regina, Gretchen, and Karen immediately run to the mirror and pick at themselves pointing out the flaws they see. Cady watches them almost in confusion and states how she thought there was only such a thing as “skinny or fat”. This reminded me of one of the stories we read in this course by Amy Hunt called “Sleeves”, where she states that “it is absolutely pathetic how girls our age ac as if being skinny is what makes the world go round(Red 3). But, sadly it is the true, she goes on to say she gets to a point where all she can think is “if I were skinny this if I were skinny that(Red 5)”. When you are a teenager being skinny is everything, it is the deciding factor in whether you are deemed beautiful or not.

I think this theme opens girl’s eyes and challenges them to look at the way they view themselves. It is so easy to look at others and see how absurd it is when they pick at their body, but the reality is that all girls do. It is very hard to find a girl that is happy with her body or believes she is thin enough, it seems as though all girls constantly want to lose weight, whether it is 3 pounds or 30. But, when we see girls like Gretchen and Regina call themselves fat, we realize how silly they are and maybe how extreme we have taken it ourselves, and that perhaps we need to take a much better look in the mirror. I applaud this movie for representing this beauty ideal in a satirical way, because that is what it is. Girls have become obsessed with fitting into what society views as beautiful, and it just shows that no matter how perfect you are, you will never be flawless, there is always going to be something you wish you could change.