If you were to ask a high school or college class how many people have seen “Gone With the Wind”, “An American in Paris”, or “Singing in the Rain” how many people would answer yes? One or two? Maybe three? Of course that is to be expected when you are asking people that grew up in the nineties about old and decrepit movies from as early as 1939. If you were to ask the same class how many people have seen “Mean Girls”, almost everyone will answer yes and then go on to quote the best scenes: “Made out with a hot dog! That was one time!”, “I’m sorry people are so jealous of me, but I can’t help that I’m popular” and my personal favorite, “She doesn’t even go here!”
If you are a social martian and for some reason are part of the .00001% of the American teenage population that have not seen “Mean Girls”, here are the basics. Cady Heron moves from Africa (where she was home-schooled) to the cutthroat world of a typical American high school. She befriends the Queen Bee and her minions under false pretenses and secretly tries to overthrow the leader of the “Plastics” Regina George all the while learning that high school is wilder than Africa ever was.
Don’t let the title fool you, this is not your typical air-headed high school comedy. The proof of that is simple- seven and a half years after the release of “Mean Girls” people still quote it, everyone knows it, and its popularity has grown exponentially whereas most films just dwindle into oblivion. Most “classics” are defined as such because of their artful black-and-white cinematography, dramatic plots, larger-than-life acting and being nothing short of a work of art. What “Mean Girls” lacks in art, it makes up for by being relatable to almost every high school student and in being funny as hell. “Mean Girls” is the true modern classic (and I mean, that's just like, the rules of feminism!).
Although, Mean Girls is hilarious, it isn't very deep. So how, you may ask, does it relate to deep intellectual theorists like Barlow, Habermas, Putnam, and the like? Well, to be perfectly honest it doesn't. Putnam's idea of social capital and paying it forward do not apply to Mean Girls mainly because the social scene in Mean Girls is completely skewed. This is probably because everything Cady and Regina did was conniving and cruel and had nothing but malicious intent behind it, and on the off chance they did do something kind, it was not for the greater good; it was so they could use it as leverage. Girl cattiness in its purest form.
Although, Mean Girls is hilarious, it isn't very deep. So how, you may ask, does it relate to deep intellectual theorists like Barlow, Habermas, Putnam, and the like? Well, to be perfectly honest it doesn't. Putnam's idea of social capital and paying it forward do not apply to Mean Girls mainly because the social scene in Mean Girls is completely skewed. This is probably because everything Cady and Regina did was conniving and cruel and had nothing but malicious intent behind it, and on the off chance they did do something kind, it was not for the greater good; it was so they could use it as leverage. Girl cattiness in its purest form.
