Mean Girls is a screen play written by Tina, Fey, from Saturday Night Live. It's about Cady Heron, a girl who was home schooled in Africa for the first 16 years of her life, and then returns to America, and enrolls in public high school. Cady is totally un socialized, and high school is like an entirely different world for her. Often throughout the movie she compared the high schoolers to the animals from her homeland. The titled Mean Girls is used as a fairly accurate description of the four main characters.
On Cady's first day of high school, she is understandably overwhelmed. The subcultures and cliques are a totally new concept for her. The film shows a very exaggerated version of high school. The cliques in it are very definitive. When Cady meets Janis and Damian, and they take her under their wing, they draw out for her exactly who is who by their location in the cafeteria. In real life high school cliques aren't quite as cut and dry. Many kids belong to more than one "group" and do not feel the need to be confined to one solitary clique.
One of the major staples in the movie was a scrapbook type book, The Burn Book, that Regina, Gretchen, Karen, and Cady (collectively known as "The Plastics") created. This book had pictures of majority of the other girls that they went to high school with and had less than stellar things to say about them. Granted, yes high school girls can be critical of each other, and yes downright mean. No high school girl is ever quite as vicious as these girls (although after the movie came out I'm sure it was an inspiration to many, and burn books were made). The film make girls seem way worse than they actually are. Especially the girls in this movie. They are all privileged and beautiful. And do not seem a tiny bit insecure for the most part, so them finding the need to put down others for their own benefit is slightly difficult to believe.
One of the more humorous potions of the movie is the sex education class that is offered.
Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers.This is an exaggerated version
of the sex ed classes that we offer our youth. We want them to stay abstinent, and fail to tell teens the real, dangers of sexual intercourse. We choose rejecting the subject over educating them on sex, and the responsible way to, 'do it.'
One of the unique features about this story is that since Cady is new to the whole environment, she is very susceptible to falling into culture. She is a math genius. When she develops a crush on one of the boys in her class, she pretends to be bad at math, in order to have something for her to ask him for help with. This goes with the old theory that guys do not like smart girls. Fortunately, she eventually breaks out of this idea, and fulfills her potential as a student, and also goes on to join the Mathletes. However for that short period of time she is displayed as a girl who will do whatever she needs to in order to get the guy. At one point in the movie, she was even throwing herself at him sexually. I did find some truth to this. Girls, especially younger girls do things like with the theory that if they get a guy to hook up with them, this guy will in turn like her.
In the movie, there is a stereotypical party scene. Serious binge drinking, people and going off into rooms together
to hook up. Never in my life have I been to a party remotely like that (okay maybe a frat party.. but that's different). These party scenes show teenagers as irresponsible. It's also slightly disappointing. I remember when I was younger seeing movies/scenes like this and expecting that to be what high school parties are like, and they weren't anything like this.
In my thoughts this movie would horrify parents of any teenager. It shows them that teens are vindictive whores, who will do whatever they need to in order to get what they want, and they don't care who they hurt along the way. It shows that teens will pretend to be people they are not, and be what/who they believe others want them to be. The movie actually ends well. It teaches a lesson on what the general 'meanness' can do to a person.Cady learns a lesson which goes along with the famous Dr. Seuss theme:
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
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