Mean Girls is a 2004 movie directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey. It is a teen comedy film staring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried. The movie was adapted from a self-help book entitled Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman.
PLOT
The movie follows sixteen-year-old Cady Heron as she goes to Northshore High School in the United States after spending her entire childhood in Africa with her parents. In her second day of school, Cady meets Janis Ian and Damian Leigh who tell her about the various cliques in the school and warn her to avoid the "Plastics" which consist of queen bee Regina George and her friends, Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith.
On lunch time, Cady is approached by Jason who asks her perverted questions and the Plastics defend her. The Plastics ask Cady to sit with them for lunch for the entire week. Cady tells Janis dan Damian about this and Janis convinces her to spy on the Plastics for her personal revenge.
Although reluctant at first, Cady ends up hanging out with the Plastics and she learns about the Burn Book which is a scrapbook made by the Plastics filled with photos and offensive comments or rumors about other students. In the mean time, Cady catches a feeling for senior Aaron Samuels, however Gretchen tells her that he is "off-limits" because he is Regina's boyfriend. Although Gretchen promises to not tell Regina about this, she ends up telling her anyway. In a Halloween party, Regina tells lies about Cady to Aaron and kisses him in front of Cady.
Feeling bertrayed, Cady decides to fully commit to Janis's plan. Cady, Janis, dan Damian plot a revenge plan to take down Regina George's legacy. Janis prepares foot lotion for Regina disguising it as a face gel while Cady gives Regina a nutrition bar that makes her gain a lot of weight, lying that it will help with her weight loss plan. In the school's Winter Talent Show, Cady is set to perform "Jingle Bell Rock" with the Plastics and before the show starts, Regina asks Gretchen to switch side with Cady and scolds her after the show, leaving Gretchen feeling humiliated. After cracking Gretchen up, she tells Cady that Regina is cheating on Aaron with Shane. Janis and Damian set up a plan so that Aaron can find out about this, but failed. Eventually, Cady ends up spilling the secret right in front of Aaron causing him to break up with Regina. At the same time, Regina gains a lot of weight and break one of the Plastics's rules, Gretchen scolds her and says that she can't sit with them. Regina's reputation is now ruined.
Being the new queen bee, Cady holds a house party but doesn't invite Janis and Damian. After failing to make Aaron falls for her in the party, Cady gets involved with a fight with Janis dan Damian who feel disappointed by her. Janis tells Cady that she is not pretending to be Plastic anymore, she is Plastic.
Regina finds out about Cady's bertrayal and decides to put up a revenge. She writes a page about herself in the Burn Book and tells the principal about it, claiming that she doesn't know who write it. The principal calls Cady, Gretchen, and Karen to his room as they are the only people whose pictures are not present in the book. Meanwhile, Regina drops copies of the Burn Book's pages in the school hall, causing chaos among the girls of the junior class. To resolve this, the students are bought into the gynmnasium where Mrs. Norbury guide them to apologize to each other. Janis confesses that she makes Cady befriend Plastics because she has a crush on Regina, the students cheer for her. Regina storms out, followed by Cady who tries to talk to her. Regina refuses to talk and ends up getting hit by a bus in which she survives but fractured her spine
Cady decides to make everything right. She takes full responsibility of the Burn Book, causing her peers to hate her and her parents disappointed in her. To make up for that, she joins the Mathletes team in state championship finals. She manages to answer a tiebreaker correctly, bringing victory for Northshore. Returning to the Spring Fling dance, Cady is elected Queen. She shares her feeling about her experience and apologizes, claiming that her classmates are amazing in their own way. After that, she decides to break the Spring Fling tiara and shares it with the other candidates and the other girls in the crowd. She rekindles her friendship with Janis and Damian, she also makes up with Aaron.
By the end of the movie, the Plastics has broken up. Regina recovers from her injury and joins the lacrosse team to channel her anger in a positive way, Gretchen finds a new clique to join, Karen uses her 'special ability' to be the school's weather reporter, Aaron graduates from high school and goes to college while starting a relationship with Cady. In the last scene, Cady watches the new junior Plastics as she imagines them being hit by bus like Regina.
REFLECTION
Mean Girls consists of a lot of theme and moral values, but in this reflection I would like to discuss about the theme of peer pressure as a high school student in the movie. This theme is delivered through the portrayal of high school cliques and Cady learning how to survive the 'girl world.'
The theme of peer pressure can be seen when Cady is force to be just like the Platics in order to fit in. Once she starts to befriend them, she changes a lot of the things of herself. She starts to dress up differently, moving from a simple t-shirt and jeans attire to fancy shirts, dresses, and skirts. She starts to put on make up and style her hair the same way Regina would do. Even her way of speech changes, in the beginning Cady talks just like a normal high school students but as she becomes closer to the Plastics, she starts to incorporate slangs and phrases that Regina and her friends would use such as "coolness" or "fetch."
We also see that Cady is pressured to act like the popular girl because she wants to be close with his crush Aaron. She lies to Aaron that she is bad at math so that he would tutor her, even though she is actually very good at math. She even refuses to join the mathletes because like Regina and Janis say: "it's social suicide." Being good at math is typically associated to being smart and in high school, being smart often means being a nerd which doesn't have any place in the social ladder. Cady doesn't want to lose her popularity so she stops trying at math which actually results in her grades decreasing.
The peak of conflict happens when Cady is able to dethrone Regina, she is now the new queen bee. This is when Cady is become fully absorbed by the pressure and expectation around her as the popular girl. Her outfit looks even more like Regina, the way she walks, talks, and acts, they are all resembles Regina. She even cancel a night-out with her parents in order to throw a house party. Unfortunately for her, this is when everything goes down.
In the house party, Cady reveals to Aaron that she has been lying about being bad a math. This makes Aaron mad and states that Cady doesn't seem like the girl that Aaron knew anymore, that she has changed. When Cady meets Janis and Damian, they are disappointed at her for the same reason. Janis even says bluntly that Cady is not pretending to be a plastic anymore in which she says this iconis line:
"Hey, buddy, you're not pretending anymore. You're plastic. Cold, shiny, hard plastic." - Janis Ian.
Eventually Cady looses both her friends and her crush just in the name of peer pressure. As the chaotic event of the burn book incident happens, she realizes that she also loses herself because she follows people around. She realizes that she has to be responsible and learns her lesson. At the end, she becomes herself again: joining the mathletes, not caring about prom, reconciling her friendship, and finally gets to be with the boy that she wants.
High school is full of peer pressure and expectation. Everyone wants to be cool, everyone wants to be popular and you have to fit to a certain criteria to be that way. However, we don't always have to be cool and popular the way high school students think, we don't have to change ourselves in order to fit in. Cady Heron learns it the hard way that falling for peer pressure may lead to losing herself and she now knows better not to do it anymore.
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