Mean Girls

Mark Waters - Director
Rosalind Wiseman - Author

Tina Fey - Screenplay writer/ Ms Norbury
Lindsay Lohan - Cady Heron
Rachel McAdams - Regina George
Lacey Chabert - Gretchen Weiners
Amanda Seyfried - Karen Smith
Lizzy Caplan - Janis Ian
Daniel Franzese - Damian
Jonathan Bennett - Aaron Samuels
Tim Meadows - Mr Duvall


The self proclaimed rulers of their High School: The Plastics.



Mean Girls is a movie that most people will be able to relate to in some way. Most everyone who's attended high school has had to deal with cliques. High school cliques and how women in particular treat each other cruelly make up the meat of the story here. Generally when two guys don't like each other, they punch each other in the face. When women don't like each other, they will gossip, lie, and and act subversively to destroy the image of their enemy. Mean Girls takes place in this environment. I was reminded of a truism uttered by Ralphie in the movie A Christmas Story: "In school, you were either a bully, a little toadie or one of nameless rabble of victims." That is the often the case in reality, and it is certainly the case with Mean Girls.

The movie opens with Cady's first day of school. Cady is sixteen years old and has been home schooled until this point. Oh yeah, and she's also lived in Africa until now since her parents are zoologists. Cady is a fish out of water, both regarding school and american culture. Cady is quickly befriended by a couple of outcasts named Janis and Damian. They point out the cliques within the school, and the hierarchy which is led by The Plastics: the prettiest, most popular girls in school, led by Regina George whom Janis claims to be the embodiment of all that is evil in the world.

Regina, of course, notices Cady and brings her into her world of trends, makeup and snobbery. This is a thinly masked attempt at bringing Cady under her control; after all, the pretty new girl from out of town poses a threat to the status quo. Janis, who has a personal beef with Regina, convinces Cady to sort of work undercover within the Plastics as kind of a joke which eventually turns into a plan to ruin Regina's life. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne said " No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." This is The Moral of The Story.

Mean Girls rises above the average teen comedy movie. The screenplay, written by SNL regular Tina Fey, is genuinely funny without being degrading. The cast gives a fine performance, particularly Lohan who brings an earnestness and charisma to the screen. I generally dread watching "teen movies," so I was pleasantly surprised to get to see one that didn't require me to check my brain at the door. Mean Girls is a fine and dandy way to kill a couple of hours.

Mean Girls earns 3 wombats out of 4