‘Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white...’
Because I was an absolute loser as a teenager, I was initially put off watching Mean Girls because of its feminine title and pink DVD cover. When I did eventually watch it (having been cajoled by a couple of more enlightened male pals), I realised that I had been foolish to dismiss Mark Waters’ film. Mean Girls is a film that takes girl culture seriously and approaches its disparate list of characters with empathy and warmth. It’s also genuinely funny and taps into the universality of adolescence in a way that not many other films in the teen comedy subgenre have since…
Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) moves to North Shore High from Africa, having been homeschooled her entire life. Taken under the wing of Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damien (Daniel Franzese), a pair of outcasts, Cady slowly begins to learn about the hierarchy of North Shore High School. At the top are the Plastics: queen bee Regina George (Rachel McAdams), her second-in-command Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) and Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried) – a beautiful idiot. When Cady is invited to sit with the Plastics at lunch, Janis and Damien persuade her to pretend to be their friend in order to dismantle them from the inside. Inevitably, however, Cady takes to her role with a little too much enthusiasm. The cast is rounded out by Tim Meadows as the bewildered principal of North Shore, Tina Fey (who also wrote the film) as the wise but beleaguered teacher Ms Norbury, and Neil Flynn as Cady’s loving father.
While there are many elements of Mean Girls that have aged beautifully since it was released in 2004, the casting is surely the thing that has aged the best. McAdams and Seyfried were complete unknowns at this point and have both gone on to have long and storied careers. Fey and Amy Poehler (who plays Regina’s ‘cool’ mum) are two of the most influential comedy writers and performers in America and Lohan… well… she’s Lindsay Lohan. It’s an incredible cast and the result is a once-in-a-lifetime, lightning-in-a-bottle feeling that you only get in teen cinema once in a generation (Superbad was the next prominent example).
Based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman, Tina Fey’s screenplay is packed with memorable one-liners and great characters. Director Waters personally attended or watched remotely every audition for every part and this dedication pays off in spades. The reason that people remember many of the minor characters in the film (some of whom only have one line) is that they are all perfectly cast. It’s one of the many things that give the film its longevity.
We recently screened Mean Girls for the Doncaster Film Club and we were shocked at the deep level of devotion displayed at the screening. Not only did people turn out in their droves (71 tickets sold, thank you very much), they also almost uniformly showed up dressed in pink and with their favourite quotes to hand. You could tell that most of the audience could recite the dialogue back at the screen and this is a testament to how effective Fey, Waters and their cast were at capturing the teenage experience.
Mean Girls will always be a rite of passage for generations of teenagers to come. I can’t wait to sit and watch it with my daughter. Quite simply, one of the best teen comedies ever made.
