“Pre-teens are my people, I speak their language."
Brooklyn 99’s Gina Linetti has a middle-school approach to life.
“I’m incorporating emoji into my speech to better express myself. Winky face."
She’s a queen of social media. "If I die, turn my tweets into a book!"
Her main passion -- and the basis of her entire self-image --
is what most adults would call a hobby: dance.
"This dance will be performed in four movements, each one expressing
one aspect of my personality."
The kind of adult stresses that torture her colleagues pass her by,
“There’s more to life than scores and book learning?"
while social hierarchies and interpersonal drama
cut straight to her core.
“Oh my god, is everything okay with your family?”
“Family, what? No, this is serious. Floorgasm just came by
and danced me out of the group."
And when she interacts with actual middle-school kids,
she immediately grasps and invests in their problems.
"Mackenzie is in the bathroom right now freaking out because Kelsey S.
made out with Hayes even though she knows Brianna's into him."
"I have to be there for her."
But just when it might seem tempting to write her off as an immature,
head-in-the-clouds slacker,
“Why do you have so many lycra bodysuits?"
Gina will surprise her colleagues with a moment of profound wisdom,
an ingenious solution only she could devise,
or the reveal that she’s been their secret puppetmaster all along.
"The g-hive is real. I can't believe you did it.
Gina, you're a legend."
So this overgrown adolescent’s hidden talents lead us to ask:
what if all of life really is just like middle school,
and Gina’s the only one who’s switched on enough to see it?
“The commissioner race, like all of life,
is a popularity contest, and Olivia is sitting at the hot senior table
whilst you are eating lunch alone."
Here’s our Take on how Gina Linetti’s middle school mentality
is her superpower, and what we can learn
from regressing into her mindset.
"Terry, ditch the shirt. I'm ready to learn."
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“You two are obviously the alphas.”
“How did you know?” “I know so much."
Pre-teens on the cusp of adolescence are typically testing boundaries,
easily distracted, and more interested in social dynamics
and extra-curricular activities than structured academic pursuits.
“Say it to my face.” “I did. You were looking at your phone.”
“Oh. Cool. My b.”
Gina Linetti is the embodiment of this middle-school mentality
"Breakups are cartoony thumbs down. They make people feel
face-with-Xs-for-the-eyes."
Her main interests are social media and celebrity culture --
she takes comfort in Oprah’s legends ball and sending out prayers
to Beyonce, Rihanna, and Cardi B.
"Dear Beyonce, Solange, Rihanna, someone cool that's white, Cardi B,
please bless this flush. A-women."
The only authority she truly respects are psychics.
“Psychologists are just people who weren’t smart enough to be psychics.”
And she’s obsessed with dance -- not as a serious professional pursuit,
but as a lens through which to understand the world.
"We should've been speaking your language." [dance music plays]
The language of… Dance!"
Unlike Rosa, who was a classically trained ballerina in her youth,
Gina doesn’t treat dance as a discipline to be developed with hard work;
she views it as a natural grace and state of being that’s been
bestowed upon her by a higher force.
“Look at me, I’ve had no official dance training.
Yet here I stand, a miracle of movement."
What most epitomises Gina’s middle-school phase, though,
is the value she places on social currency.
The importance of popularity is at its peak during middle school.
“Lame.” “That kid gets it.”
Gina achieves her social currency in three main ways: through influence,
mystery, and adaptability.
While Gina’s job as the precinct’s civilian administrator would seem to put
her low on the professional totem pole, she exercises an influence over the team
that far exceeds her official rank. She understands that gaining authority
over the boss, Captain Holt, heightens her standing within the 99.
And Gina frequently gets his ear and becomes his advisor
thanks to her confidence and unique situational insights --
even acting as an unconventional teacher to him.
"And she, in turn, is teaching me to trash talk. The hospital called.
Your test results came back positive. You're a stage five dumbass.
"Oh! You have come so far."
With other colleagues, Gina asserts her status through a caustic tongue
and withering put-downs.
"Amy, I wish I could do lunch today, but I'm currently out of town."
In Yiannis Gabriel’s paper, “An Introduction to the Social Psychology
of Insults in Organizations,” he talks about how insults can help
establish a pecking order within an organization.
“Who says papa? Are you a lil’ French boy?”
Most of all, she understands that projecting confidence is key
to maintaining a dominant position of influence.
"All men are at least 30% attracted to me.
My mother cried the day I was born, because she knew
she would never be better than me."
The second way Gina establishes her social currency is through mystery --
Gina places such value on cultivating mystique that she even
names her baby “Enigma."
"If it's a girl, how about 'The Enigma'? Oh, my God, I already thought of that,
and then if it's a boy, it could just be 'The Enigmo.'"
Research shows that lying peaks in the early teen years
as young people strive for autonomy.
“I was born for politics. I have great hair and I love lying.”
And when it comes to the story of Gina’s life
(or the many lives of Gina Linetti), we never quite know which
of the larger-than-life threads we hear to believe.
Was she really engaged eight times? Does she truly know THE Papa John?
The colorful mythology of Gina reminds us of the many legends
the students in Mean Girls buy into about their queen bee, Regina George
(who, though in high school, also utilizes many of these
middle-school social tools to rule): "I hear her hair is insured for $10,000."
"I hear she does car commercials. In Japan."
The third way that Gina gains social currency is through adaptability.
Gina is a highly adept social butterfly, adjusting to fit the hierarchy
of whatever room she enters. “Enchantea.”
When Rosa can’t engage with the intellectuals at Captain Holt’s party,
she brings in Gina, "I feel like I'm the Paris of people."
whose eccentricities immediately attract the fascination of these academics.
“Complete overlap of ego and id. It's been theorized,
but I never thought I'd see it."
When she leaves the 99, this middle-school genius
for social currency pays off even more concretely in the world-at-large.
Her talents for exercising influence, creating a cult of oneself,
and transforming oneself to fit the audience turn Gina
into a bona-fide social media mogul, with millions of fans in her G-Hive.
“Over one million people living their lives according to the Gina-mandments.
They’re like the ten commandments only there’s more and they’re better.”
“I grew up forging report cards. If people knew how smart I was,
it would have been harder to control them.”
A major upside to Gina’s obsession with social currency is that it
enables her to read people. She’s kind of a social genius.
“I’m fluent in face. I can tell you what the jury’s thinking at any given moment."
I see an eyebrow twitch, I’m like 'Oh.'”
There is a common misconception that people become more perceptive
as they get older, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
In 2017, Ohio State University found that while adults were better
at remembering information they were told to focus on,
the kids picked up on a wider array of information.
This apparent lack of focus may be what leads Gina’s colleagues
to underestimate her, but it’s also a weapon she wields to great effect.
It’s like Gina sees life through a wide angle lens.
“He yelled at me when I asked him the same question about Jay-Z
three times in a row.”
“Whoever takes this IT job is going to have to deal
with Hitchcock asking him how to log into his email every single day."
Gina sees environments like her workplace as collections of people responding
to each other’s moods, temperaments and goals.
And this is exactly what all professional, social
and familial situations are -- yet it’s striking how few people manage
to keep this perspective in mind.
"Life is chaos, success is completely arbitrary, and confidence is everything."
Gina can instantly diagnose what’s going on beneath the surface,
thanks to her powerful emotional intelligence.
"Amy, the lesson I wanted to leave you with is to just be yourself."
The fact that Gina is so perceptive reveals the world around her is a lot
more like middle-school than we like to acknowledge.
Take a look at her co-workers: all of their essences can be understood
through familiar youth types. You’ve got Amy Santiago,
the straight-A student desperate for approval;
"I have been waiting weeks to bust this bad boy out. [sniffs] New binder smell."
Jake Peralta, the cool kid whose actual life is a mess;
"See? It's impossible to find anything in here.
It's not my fault."
Rosa Diaz, the bully with a heart of gold;
"I'll pay for that."
and Boyle, the weird, overly sensitive kid
"I'm making him a goat stew."
-- all of whom circle around the adults in the room:
the stern, disciplined Captain Holt and the kind, encouraging
“proud mama Hen” Sergeant Jeffers.
Gina gets this, and uses it to act as a kind of effortless puppetmaster.
“On it. I’ll take him to Housewares and ask him the difference between
a skillet and a frying pan. That'll buy you six hours.”
Gina shows how honestly stripping people down to their psychological cores
allows you to thrive in social spheres.
"Your folly was in treating them as children."
"Of course, we should've been treating 'em like adults."
"No, wrong again. They're not children. They're not adults. They're animals."
She’s revealed to have been the driver of elaborate plots all along,
like a secret mastermind who’s always a few steps ahead.
"It's loading! We got internet!"
"Alright, I guess my work here is done, guys."
But despite her cold-hearted, “mean girl” front,
"I'm the bully around here. Ask anyone."
Gina frequently uses her powers of social intelligence for good,
showing that she’s a genuine people person who cares for others.
"I got Rosa to feel her feelings too? Inadvertent Gina Moment. Two for one.
Come in, my babies. Come in."
She knows exactly what to say to get people out of bad moods,
can figure out what’s bothering them, and comes up with
the most thoughtful gifts.
“I took that Cheddar, and I made you this special
'Rosa’s gonna make this cold her bitch' care package."
When her colleagues are in trouble and nothing else is working,
she swoops in and solves their problems.
"The precinct will not be shut down." "There was a swell of online support
orchestrated by an organization called 'Gina-zone.'"
"I think you mean Ginazon."
It’s not all plain sailing for Gina, though.
"IT says the internet is down." "What?! Nooooooooo!
I just clicked a link that said 'Balloon Boy grew up hot.'
Now I will never see those pictures!"
Middle school is a particularly challenging time,
and there are plenty of moments when Gina acts exactly like
the negative cliché of how you’d expect a middle-schooler to act.
"How was I supposed to know there’d be consequences for my actions?”
There is very little in her life that she takes seriously.
She’s selfish. She goofs off. She’s directionless,
bordering on nihilistic. “We’ll all be dead so soon.”
And for all that she’s perceptive, intuitive, and socially skilled,
she can also be stuck, defensive and unsure how to harness
her full potential to be the success she knows she can be.
"No doubt. No doubt. Gina culpa."
Gina has the classic middle-schooler’s insecurity and hypersensitivity
to others’ opinions.
Her swaggering bravado can mask something of an inferiority complex.
“Detective. Can you imagine what that word sounds like to someone
who’s not a detective? Discriminatory.”
She can’t stand the idea of blows to her status, which is why
she hates herself for getting involved with Charles,
whom she sees as a clear social inferior.
“But I committed a horrible sexual blunder and am no longer wolf-worthy.
My spirit animal is now this.”
Gina’s intense shame over this fling is way out of proportion
to the situation, as no one else in the 99 even really sees the hierarchy
that’s so important in her mind.
Likewise, she places too much importance on protecting her reputation.
"Nobody can ever know that we had sex, alright? I have spent years cultivating
a reputation as someone who sleeps with bike messengers or better."
Instead of seeking help when she’s struggling,
she hides any weakness or vulnerability that she fears could make her appear
as less than a superwoman.
“I was missing Iggy and I wanted to see her.”
“Well, you could’ve just told me.”
“Yeah, but I was embarrassed. "I thought I’d be incredible at being
a working mom as I am at everything else I do.”
Her habitual lying and her clear narcissism --
"The only reason I didn't tell you is I don't value you as people,
so it's like, why be honest?"
-- are tendencies which often compensate for low self-esteem,
feelings of inferiority, or lack of confidence in who you truly are.
“It’s gonna be Fib City, population: Gina Clooney.”
Preston Ni writes in Psychology Today that, “Since, deep down, [narcissists] don't
believe their real selves are worthy, scheming and manipulation are resorted to
in order to succeed.”
It’s typical of teens to rapidly change interests and behaviors,
like they’re trying personalities on for size.
And sometimes it feels like Gina’s still window-shopping for her identity.
"I mean, I could do basically anything. I could come up with a new form
of cryptocurrency called GinaCoin, make millions.
Could write a YA novel about literally anything, I think,
and make millions."
She may be bold and brash, but this shape-shifter would also
rather create exciting stories around herself than risk exposing
her full, authentic self.
“After my initial design they said it couldn’t be done."
"Cut to the Freedom Tower as you see it today.”
Crucially, becoming a mother is a key turning point that helps Gina graduate
from some of these adolescent hang-ups.
The new Gina learns to open up and share her real-life struggles.
"Juggling things is hard. I feel like a failure. I feel like a Coulier."
She takes work more seriously, helping her colleagues on cases,
match-making for Rosa and coaching Captain Holt in his bid
to become police commissioner.
“You are gonna kill these dinosaurs.”
She starts thinking about long-term decisions and considering her future.
“Yeah, listen, I have a daughter now. When she grows up I wanna be doing something
that makes her proud.”
And when she leaves the 99, she blossoms into the extremely successful,
in-demand professional queen she was born to be.
“In the beginning there was nothing. And then God, a woman, said,
'Let there be Gina!'”
The thing about the middle-school mentality is that much of it
shouldn’t end with middle school. Middle school was designed as a bridge.
“It’s time for me to move on."
It’s a window of time when personal growth, spiritual development
and social interactions are paramount, before those periods when the long-term,
concrete concerns of young adulthood start to dominate.
“Pizazz is who I am! Would you ask the sky to stop being blue?”
Where depictions of high school may focus on relationships, puberty
or the increasingly adult stresses of adolescence,
and those of earlier childhood may focus on world-building, early friendships
or chaotic play, middle school on-screen is often more existential --
a window into characters’ interior lives.
The middle schooler isn’t focused on achievement, but development.
They’re not thinking about the long-term future,
but about their essential identity -- who they’re trying to be now
and what their philosophy of life is.
“I don’t want stability and a paycheck. I wanna take a risk.
Quote: 'A bird can never learn to fly if it doesn’t leave the nest.'”
Gina Linetti gets that these priorities -- focusing on the now, being yourself,
and understanding the social organism -- don’t have to disappear
just because you get older.
"It's a party for Gina. It absolutely has to be splashy, Terrence."
"Terrence, would you jump into a pool without water?
No, the splash is what keeps you alive. Splash is life."
And she proves that this mentality can help you win in a lot of
very adult endeavors.
“You’d be my landlady? You’re Gina. Your lifelong dream is to be on wife-swap.
You call gum the dentist. You think Ray J is a national treasure.”
Gina’s doing pretty well for herself -- and she clearly feels very satisfied
with her life (and herself).
“The only thing I’m not good at is modesty, because I’m great at it.”
So it makes perfect sense that Gina should be the first main character
to leave the precinct.
"Tonight I realized that my talents are being wasted at the Nine-Nine."
This exceptional individual who exists on her own plane knows
she has to spread her wings and find a bigger world for herself.
"So you really didn't learn anything?"
"No, but I hope you did. Can't school Gina. Gina schools you.
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