#will edit later if i forget anything although tbf this is basically like a fucking bible already lol

[justanisabelakinnie]

OMG I HAVE LITERALLY BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!! YAY!!! 😍

Anyway, listen guys. I love Mean Girls. It means(pun not intended) a lot to me. I was literally born the year it came out, so I like to joke that it is the same age as me. I also love the memes and quotes that came from the film, and even own a Mean Girls shirt that I wear on Wednesdays and every October 3rd. It is LITERALLY one of my top five movies of all time! Seriously, you guys don’t understand how much I fucking LOVE this movie. It is, like, SO FETCH!!!(sorry I just had to lol) However, as much as I love it, and as much as I appreciate its genuine attempts to expose and deconstruct the internalized misogyny that permeates high school and the way that girls are pitted against each other, I still have to admit…it does not like women. Or at least, it doesn’t like women who aren’t white, cishet, gender conforming, slim, and conventionally attractive, and sometimes, I’m not even sure it likes them either. And let me explain why.

To start, there’s the movie’s horrid portrayal of women of color. All the main characters are skinny, cishet, attractive white women. And what few women of color exists are only negative, racist, stereotypical caricatures. There are the unfriendly Black hotties, who are all lightskin and whom Cady greets by saying “Jambo”, there’s the “I’m from Michigan” girl whom Ms. Norbury assumes is from Africa for no apparent reason, and worst of all, there are the “Cool Asian” girls who sleep with the white gym coach and fight over him, which contributes to the sexualization of Asian women for the pleasure of white men. It’s quite ironic that this movie is supposed to be all about how girls shouldn’t fight over a guy, which it rightfully shows as wrong and takes seriously with the two lead white girls(Regina and Cady), but then it boils down the two Asian girls as catty, slutty bitches who fight over a white guy and plays this for laughs. One of them is even wrongly quoted as saying the n-word in the subtitles, and the movie is full of racist jokes like this in general. And when Gretchen joins the group at the end of the movie, she speaks fake Vietnamese, which is of course, played for laughs as well. There’s also a later scene in the movie where Kevin gently turns Cady down by saying “I only date women of color” and this is played for laughs, as if the idea that a man(even a man of color) would choose a woman of color as more desirable than a white woman is ridiculous and worthy of mockery. Yes, Gretchen is also portrayed as being manipulated by a skeezy guy, Karen is a “slut” who kisses her cousin, and Regina has sex with Shane Oman, but none of them are reduced to these traits the way Trang Pak and the other Cool Asian girls are, and even if they were, white girls are still widely seen as more pure and attractive and worthy of protection than girls of color, so it would still be worse for the Cool Asians. While I’m glad that the story shows that Coach Carr was a predator by having Principal Duvall say “step away from the underage girls” it’s still played for laughs, and the movie doesn’t give Coach Carr any comeuppance(and no, him fleeing school property isn’t comeuppance, I want to see him get arrested and imprisoned), which I will address further later. If Coach Carr was preying on white girls, I bet the movie would have taken it much more seriously, but because girls of color are innately sexual, they are open to being sexually abused and exploited, according to this movie. Also, Janis is Lebanese despite her actress being a white woman. In the world of Mean Girls, white girls are beautiful, the feminine ideal, and prized, while girls of color are just vapid sluts, wannabe icons, and pushed off to the background. And this is a “fact” that is never once contested, and as a Black girl, that irritates me.

Next there is the horrible lesbophobia. The entire movie relies on the fact that Regina excluded and ostracized Janis for being a lesbian, and now Janis wants revenge, so she uses Cady to ruin Regina’s life and get that revenge. This is not a problem, as it realistically shows how homophobia was a thing in the past and how lesbians and other gay people get excluded and isolated for their sexuality…or at least it would be if Janis was actually a lesbian. But at the end of the movie there’s a random scene where Janis is making out with Kevin, for literally no reason other than shock value. Because of this, the movie gives the impression that bullying a girl for being a lesbian is bad because she might actually turn out to be straight, implying that being a lesbian is the worst thing a girl could ever be. Which is so fucking disappointing because this movie which is supposedly all about female solidarity and how girls shouldn’t cat fight could have sent a message that you shouldn’t treat lesbians like predators or weirdos or outcasts just because they like girls, and that girls should accept other girls regardless of their sexuality. But instead of telling the audience that you shouldn’t bully girls for being gay because it’s wrong to treat being a lesbian as a bad thing, it instead sends the message that you shouldn’t bully girls for being gay because being gay actually IS a bad thing, and you shouldn’t call a girl gay when she isn’t. The scene where Janis kisses Kevin does not even affect the plot. It only exists to assure the audience that “phew, it turns out she’s straight after all!” and ensure that she’s still sympathetic because she’s not actually a nasty lesbian…but what if she was one? Would that really be so bad? Would that justify the Plastics bullying and ostracizing her? Would that make her deserve to become an outcast? Apparently so.

This is a perfect example of queerbaiting. If you’re gonna have a female character who is gender-non-conforming, is ostracized for being a lesbian, hangs out with an effeminate openly gay guy along with a bunch of “art freaks” and no one else, reacts with disgust after kissing that gay guy(who is likewise disgusted for obvious reasons), and is literally NAMED after a lesbian singer, then you’d better do the common sense thing and actually make her a lesbian. The movie constantly shows being a lesbian as the worst thing you could be and the worst insult that you could ever call someone, especially in the big climax scene where Cady snaps and tells Janis that it’s not her fault that Janis is in love with her, which is supposed to show that Cady has really crossed the line, but would have been much more effective if Janis was actually a lesbian, rather than it just being a rumor.

And if you’re one of those people who’s just gonna go “but the whole point is that they only thought she was a lesbian because she’s masculine, wouldn’t that be an unfair stereotype???” Hello, feminine lesbian here. Masculine lesbians still exist, and they are frequently underrepresented in media because people think it is somehow more “progressive” to have a masc female character “subvert stereotypes” by making up for her masculinity and still being romantically available to men. And secondly, there is more to Janis’ lesbian coding than just her not being hyperfeminine, as I said above. They literally named her after a real-life lesbian for God’s sake and her best friend is a gay man(because of course the two queer outcasts at school would find each other). It’s just queerbaiting at this point to make her so heavily lesbian-coded but not an actual lesbian. It’s like the movie was mocking those who might think she’s a lesbian by aggressively forcing her to be straight. It’s irritating and it’s painful. And if you still think that I am making this up and that the movie does not treat being a lesbian as a bad thing, there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene during the Halloween party where Cady sees two random girls making out…and looks at them in disgust. This is never touched on again or called out by the narrative, so the intention is clear that the movie just wants us to think “two girls kissing? Ew, gross! Good thing Janis isn’t one, right?”

But while the movie does characterize masculine women poorly, it also does something similar to feminine women. The movie falls into the typical trap of associating femininity with vapidity, shallowness, materialism, vanity, and meanness. Regina’s redemption is associated with her playing hyper-aggressive sports which is often seen as more traditionally masculine(which I don’t personally agree with but the movie does portray it as such), while Karen and Gretchen stay an idiot and a shallow sycophant respectively, Cady becomes more and more feminine the meaner she becomes, and at the end of the movie she is shown dressing like her old self, but more fashionably. Now, I don’t think that the movie completely shows femininity in a bad light, considering that the Plastics, even after they break up, are still feminine, but I do think that it associates femininity more with being less sympathetic and smart. Especially since near the end of the movie, Janis angrily calls out Cady for being a mean girl, which would be fine if not for the fact that the movie completely glosses over the fact that Janis was also a mean girl as well, and portrays her as totally in the right. When Cady rightfully points out that Janis was also involved in this, Janis ignores it and blames solely Cady, and the movie encourages us to agree with her.

Near the end, during the dance, Cady apologizes to Janis, who snidely asks her if she’s still an asshole, which is teeth-grinding when you remember that Janis was ALSO an asshole, while the movie blames solely Cady for being a mean girl, and never Janis. The entire point of the movie is that all of the girls are mean girls, and here the narrative only blames the Plastics for being mean because they are popular and girlier, while pretending that everything Janis did was entirely justified and acceptable because she is more tomboyish and an outcast. And this isn’t me defending the Plastics, or saying that Janis deserved to be an outcast. But the movie should have held them ALL accountable, and not heralded Janis as a badass hero and an underdog throughout, when the point should have been that NONE of the girls were in the right, not even Janis.

So with that out of the way, even with all its flaws representation-wise, the movie still does a good job of showing toxic teenage girl culture and how girls shouldn’t be pit against each other, right? Except…no. It doesn’t. The movie fails to deliver its main message that teenage girls shouldn’t be in competition with each other, because it fails to properly examine WHY girls are pressured to compete with and undermine each other, and does nothing to critique the patriarchal society we live in that tells women to hate each other, fight over men, slut-shame each other, etc. none of the male characters are shown facing any comeuppance for how they treat the girls and women in the story, Jason isn’t shown learning to be a better person and respect Gretchen, Coach Carr, as said above, gets away scot-free with grooming and quite possibly raping two underage girls, Regina’s dad is barely in her life(though he does show sadness and disapproval at her actions), and the other male characters aren’t shown as being sexist or held responsible for any misogyny or leading the girls to have any internalized misogyny at all. This movie doesn’t show any of the social forces, or the types of sexist messages from men, that would lead girls to do things like backstab each other for boys, compete for male attention, dumb themselves down to not intimidate men, or develop eating disorders. Instead, the movie simply blames the women themselves and acts as if girls act this way just because, or because they feel like it, which sends the accidental message that girls act this way because they’re naturally catty and bitchy and competitive towards each other. Instead of saying “girls feel pressured to fight each other because guys compare them or tell them that they are less than” or something like it, the movie merely asserts that “girls need to stop catfighting and acting petty and cruel and sneaky all the damn time”. It acts like girls are just that bitchy and insecure and constantly crave male validation because that’s simply how girls are, not because society engineers and pressures them to be that way.

One thing I really can’t stand is that popular quote from Ms. Norbury that goes “you guys have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores! It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores!” And how everybody in the fandom praises and celebrates that line and acts like it’s totally revolutionary and empowering. When all it does is imply that men being sexist to women is women’s own fault and something that they brought upon themselves through their actions. It’s victim-blamey “men respect women who respect themselves” type bullshit. It pins the blame of internalized misogyny onto women themselves and acts like we’re the ones who chose to pit women against each other, when in reality it is MEN who pit women against each other, leading to some women internalizing that.

In addition, the scene where Cady is told by Ms. Norbury “you don’t have to dumb yourself down to get guys to like you” would have been more meaningful if the movie actually showed why Cady does think that, like having a guy tell Cady that smart women are unattractive or that she’s intimidating men by being too good at math and no guy will dare date her because of it, leading to her thinking it’s true because she’s naïve and doesn’t know any better. The same is true for the Plastics looking in a mirror and hating themselves, Regina being obsessed with staying skinny, and Regina’s mom having breast implants(which the movie also makes fun of, by the way 😒). But the movie doesn’t show any of that. The closest it comes to that is showing Regina’s little sister Kylie dancing to an inappropriate music video on TV, but she’s so unimportant that it means nothing in the grand scheme of things(and also…it’s played for laughs once more. Sigh). Once again, the blame is placed entirely on the women themselves for acting this way. It’s not like society’s messages breed internalized misogyny in women, no, it’s just natural, that’s just how women are. Women, amirite? Bitches be crazy. #JustGirlyThings. It’s gross.

Once again, Mean Girls is a fun movie. It’s fabulous, it’s fierce, it’s iconic, it has amazing costume and set design and dialogue and an incredible banger soundtrack. And it has great female characters, too! In the main cast, at least. And I love each and every single one of them to death! But is it a feminist film? No way, honey. Nuh-uh. Not in the slightest. I know that this review sounds like I am hating on Mean Girls, but I genuinely do enjoy it. And I genuinely do also think that it really did try to send a feminist message about female friendships and solidarity. It was, after all, inspired by a parental self-help book called Queen Bees and Wannabes, which is all about female social hierarchies in high school. But unfortunately, it fumbled the bag, not just because it failed at its core message, but because of how it writes all types of women negatively, as I stated above. You can adore something and acknowledge its flaws. You can love a work and admit that it’s not perfect. You can enjoy a story without it being the most progressive and revolutionary think piece ever and you’re not less open-minded for loving it. But you still gotta be honest with yourself. And so do I.

I suppose that, for me, Mean Girls would be placed in the “it thinks it likes women, it WANTS to like women, but it doesn’t” category. Because that’s where it belongs. It tries so hard to be a feminist film, but it’s overshadowed by white feminism, lesbophobia, racialized misogyny, and a whole host of other things that prevent it from being the feminist groundbreaker that it tries to be. It’s not as bad as the Barbie movie, but irs still pretty bad. So despite my deep and sincere love for this movie, I can’t in good faith vote yes. Mean Girls thinks it likes women, it wants to like women, but it does not. It especially doesn’t like women like me, probably because it doesn’t consider women like me to be worthy of being liked, or as anything other than a caricature or a negative example of what to avoid. And that’s just a fact that I have to accept. 😞

Does Mean Girls (the movie) like women?

Mean Girld (Film, 2004)

Explain your reasoning in the tags!