Mean Girls has got to be one of the defining movies of an entire generation.
Unfortunately, while a lot of it is pretty much timeless, some aspects of the movie just
don’t hold up anymore.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the best and worst things about Mean Girls.
It's not much of a secret that our current political and social climate is kinda complicated.
And you could actually argue that the polarization of society we see today was predicted by Mean
Girls.
In 2018, the movie’s writer Tina Fey told Variety:
"The movie was about relational aggression among women […] But now that behavior has
really metastasized across our society, and you see it everywhere.
You see it in people being horrible to each other on social media.”
In fact, the tumultuous times we live in have had an influence on the Mean Girls musical
adaptation for Broadway.
This version of the story includes a scene in which Regina tells Cady that people don’t
need to apologize for being a badass — only for tearing other people down because of it.
According to Erika Henningsen, who plays Cady Heron in the musical, this is an updated version
of the movie’s message meant for the modern age.
“That is to fetch.”
“Gretchen, stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen.
It’s not going to happen!”
Weight gain is a major plot point in Mean Girls — and for all of the wrong reasons.
In an attempt to make Regina George "lose" her popularity status, Cady, with the help
of her friends Janis and Damien, convinces Regina to consume Swedish nutrition bars that,
unbeknownst to her, make people rapidly gain weight.
Cady's plan to ruin Regina's "hot bod” in this way is a little more than problematic.
When Regina does end up gaining a significant amount of weight, she’s shunned from her
lunchroom table for wearing sweatpants on a Monday, even though they're all she’s
got that fits.
In other words, the movie suggests that weight gain has the potential to ruin a girl's social
status.
While this may be a sad truth in reality, it's still awkward to see it weaponized by
what is supposed to be the movie's hero.
Mary Jane Fort is a name you probably haven't heard before.
But as the mastermind behind Mean Girls' costume design, it’s one you really should know.
“She has two Fendi purses, AND a silver Lexus.”
“I hear her hair’s insured for ten thousand dollars.”
Fort began with countless hours of research — flipping through high school yearbooks
and magazines.
But with the film being set a year after when production took place, she also had to look
into the future to predict upcoming fashion trends.
Fort also wanted the Plastics to appear more put together than other characters.
In order to achieve this look, she mixed in the tidy fashion elements of the mid-1900s.
In 2014, she told Nylon:
"In the '50s your nails were done, your hair was done, and your dresses were impeccable.
So it was a little bit of a combination of the future and the past and gave it a contemporary
feel.”
One of the prime examples of racial stereotyping in Mean Girls happens within the first couple
of scenes, where Janis is shown explaining the school's social hierarchy.
“Cool Asians, Varsity Jocks, Unfriendly Black Hotties, Girls who eat their feelings…”
Any non-white group is called out by their race, a tactic called "othering" that is often
used to define white skin as the "norm."
Perhaps the most memorable example of racial stereotyping, however, comes as part of a
gag in which Coach Carr and Trang Pak, a Vietnamese student, are caught hooking up in a storage
room.
Later, both Pak and another female Vietnamese student are depicted fighting over Coach Carr.
According to a study on Mean Girls published by The Popular Culture Studies Journal, these
scenes help to perpetuate a colonial fantasy in which a white man has control over the
intimate behavior of Asian women.
Mean Girls director Mark Waters has held an affinity for actress and comedian Amy Poehler
ever since her early days on Saturday Night Live.
So when it was recommended that she join the cast, he was nothing short of thrilled.
Yet, according to Waters, Paramount Pictures was unsure about casting Poehler in the film.
He explained to Vulture:
"They'd been burned on some Saturday Night Live movies […] so they didn't want many
Saturday Night Live actors in Mean Girls, because then it might feel like an SNL movie
and people might shy away from it.”
Fortunately, his reasoning with the studio proved to be a success.
Poehler was cast as Mrs. George, the wildly inappropriate yet somewhat charming mother
of Regina George — despite being only seven years older than Rachel McAdams, who was cast
as Regina.
In a 2015 interview with PopSugar, Amanda Seyfried - who plays Karen in Mean Girls - explained
how the movie had a negative impact on her career.
“At first I did Mean Girls and I was like, pigeonholed as this dumb blonde.”
“And I feel like I’m just now getting the respect I’ve been wanting for so long.”
The issue of unintelligent female characters in movies goes beyond Seyfried's typecasting.
All too often, women are depicted as dim-witted for a cheap laugh.
“So if you’re from Africa… why are you white?”
Maybe Mean Girls could be forgiven on this point, though — after all, it is a product
of the time it was made in.