#mean girls

[carricfisher]

Mean Girls dir. Mark Waters | 2004

[these-violet-delights-fic]

There's a difference between "story contained [problematic element] because that was a common cultural element of its time" and "story contained [problematic element] because that was part of the point the story was making".

Sokka growing past his misogyny is part of his character arc.

Regina George, and the rest of the school, calling Janis a dyke (not a pyro like they do in the movie musical) shows how girls are bullied specifically homophobically if they don't follow societal ideals of what is proper for them (you know, in the movie about high school cliques and how kids bully each other).

It's like how many adaptations of classic works, even more faithful ones, will nix certain lines because of the dissonance in values and what was considered acceptable even 30 years ago. There's a line Maxim de Winter says in the novel "Rebecca" that caught me off guard when I first read it (like, I reread the line to make sure I read it right, and yeah, the racism really was just that casual) that, to my knowledge, is exorcised in adaptations. This is because it's more an element of the time period the work was created in than an important facet of the character. The original audience would have taken it as a moment of perfectly fine or perhaps off-color humor, whereas a modern audience would be more likely to deeply judge Maxim for this fault.

As always, it depends on the work, but knowing which edges to sand down and which to keep is an art.

this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social caste system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

[nowadayz]

MEAN GIRLS 2004, dir. Mark Waters

[bestpolyshipbracket]

Best Polyamorous Ship Group 2 Round 3

[thebunnymen]

I hc that Peter had a burn book where he would write all the most embarrassing and shameful things the marauders would do when he was mad at them and once he became a death eater he showed it to Reg and they would have sleepovers giggling over it and no one can change my mind

[frogs00]

[maybeimamuppet]

A PITCH

mean girls muppet movie

you might think cady is the token human but it’s actually karen

[greatbananaboat]

fetchen you’re so gay 🥰

they're so in love 🤭

[brunettesparklejumpropequeen]

What’s in the past stays in the past xx

[tiredistic]

buff Regina am I right?

[cxndiedvi0lets]

He admits on pressing on her and blocked me because hes a fucking pussy and he admits to liking little girls. You can even check his nsfw account to express his "preferences' @serialkilluh-1996

[karlie-xox]

Oh wow 😱

Good girl, Becky! 💙

Megan Thee Stallion in Seoul, Korea

[darlistq]

[hasthecityrearranged]

So many stars tonight

Charlie Burn as Cady Heron, Mean Girls West End 2024: @mttztrading