Mean Girls (2004)

Switching gears finally to some lighter fare, let’s talk about one of the greatest teen comedies of all time.

A film that takes all the tropes from the past and compresses them into their best elements. It twists them into really clever jokes that play off these old tropes without completely invalidating them.

Mean Girls is not just one of the best teen films of its era, it’s also one of the funniest movies from its decade as well.

A film that feels so relatable to everyone because we have all at one point or another understood the feeling of complete culture shock (especially in high school). It’s a classic teen film with some fun revenge plot sprinkled in for good measure.

What is it about this movie that makes it so fun, so charming and so likable to all age groups, sexes, and orientations?

It’s quoted constantly, everybody is obsessed with October 3rd, it has a Broadway musical that is being developed into its own movie, and there’s even a toaster strudel around it. So what’s the deal?

Pure conjecture, but if we were to guess, we’d have to say it’s because of the high school experience.

We all know the feeling of going to high school and we all remember how amazing it was to exit high school and never go back.

Unfortunately, most of us also remember the feeling when you’re in a soul-sucking corporate job and you realize it’s just like high school.

High school never ends.

This is a film that embraces the suck, empathizes with the people who are in the middle of the suck, and reminds them, it’s only for now, unless it’s not. So it’s on you now. Will you let it suck or will you push against and make a better and more loving space?

Today I was talking to a friend about what this week was gonna be and when I told them one of the walks was from Mean Girls they immediately named three options as to what it could be.

Them carrying Regina Goerge to the field, everybody turning into apes in the cafeteria, or the ending with the teen girls almost getting hit by the bus.

It’s actually none of the above!

It’s this one, when Cady feels on top of the world because she’s the most popular girl in school, then BOOM! She falls in the trash can.

So, why this one?

Well, throughout cinema, we like to use the slow-mo walk to represent how cool someone feels, even though the characters in the scene aren’t as cool as they feel, and that’s the joke.

But in this, they prolong the joke to end on the gag. She feels great, looks great, she is on top of the world, then the trash can feels almost like a representation of high school itself.

No matter how cool you feel you can’t beat high school. The house always wins.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a student, teacher, or whatever, death comes for us all. And by death, we mean the public humiliation of high school itself.

Guess Tomorrow’s Film