Cleverly described by director Mark Waters as “Clueless meets Heathers,” the 2004 smash hit Mean Girls parodies the painfully realistic high school drama of teenage girls, sure to leave a smile on the faces of adults and adolescents alike.
After spending the majority of her life homeschooled in Africa, sixteen-year-old Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) finds herself lost and ignorant within the halls of North Shore High, a fictional public school set in Evanston, Illinois. Cady (pronounced like Katie), initially falls into the traps of classmates, but begins to learn the ropes fairly soon after her arrival--after spending several lunches spent in the girls’ bathroom, of course.
After befriending classmate Janice Ian (Lizzy Caplan), Cady succumbs to the power of “Girl World,” by means of Regina George (Rachel McAdams) and her loyal followers, “the plastics”. Janice convinces Cady to hang out with the plastics in order to sabotage their popularity for her personal revenge. Cady plays the role convincingly; so convincingly that she eventually stops pretending and becomes “plastic” herself.
It’s easy to empathize with the confusing friend circles of high school, the rises and falls in popularity, and the manipulating and backstabbing ways of teenagers; that’s what makes Mean Girls so effortless to relate to. And with comedic characters like Damien (who’s “almost too gay to function”) or Kevin G (a self-proclaimed mathlete/rapper combo,) you can’t help but laugh at the familiarity of it all.
The first time I saw Mean Girls I wasn’t in High School yet, so I idolized the characters rather than empathized with them. As I grew older and watched the movie again, I saw strange and uncanny similarities between Cady and Regina’s lives and my own. The reality of it all makes the movie intriguing, but the clever dialect and witty humor is what won over audiences everywhere. The total worldwide gross for Mean Girls is $129,042,871. Clearly, the proof is in the punch.
Not only is the dialect in this movie captivating, Mean Girls is easily the best quotable movie of the 21st century. Most teenage girls would understand what I meant if I said something was “grool,” or laugh if I slipped “she doesn’t even go here!” into normal conversation. You’d remember the name Glen Coco and associate it with four candy canes, and remember that you can’t “just ask people why they’re white.” Mean Girls has become a concrete part of the lives of young people today; quite like second nature. The mass acceptance and appreciation of Mean Girls is incomparable to anything of its kind, creating a loyal band of followers—an “army of skanks”, if you will.
So if you’re in the mood to be cleverly entertained, grab the popcorn and the butter (“is that a carb?”) and enjoy a film that’ll leave you saying: “That was so Fetch!”