MEAN GIRLS, the real ones, were first introduced to this witness back in first grade, waiting at a bus stop. A baleful sprite called Barbara (my lifelong best friends know who I’m referring to) took an instant hate fixation on me, and kept it up all thru grade school, joined in maliciousness by sister pixies who went by human names like Gail and Nancy. Met again many years later they’d shed sadism for sweetness, with no apparent memory of awfulness barfed out of absolutely nowhere. Poor troll Barbara was about as pleasing to the eye as Rumpelstiltskin, but Gail and Nancy were a couple of the prettiest girls in school. They were the Sixties suburban middle class grade school version of the high school taunt gauntlet and dim bulb divas re-imagined by Tina Fey in her script for the hit 2004 comedy. Imaginatively directed by Mark Waters (The House Of Yes, Freaky Friday), it was a breakout piece for several talented actresses and even after a few decades of social media devolution holds up its hydra-heads as a laugh-stocked 97 minutes worth of “fetch“.
“You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks Unfriendly black hotties, Girls who eat their feelings, Girls who don’t eat anything, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active band geeks...”
‘North Shore High School’ in Evanston, Illinois. New junior ‘Cady Herron’ (Lindsay Lohan, 17) has not only been home schooled but has spent twelve years in Africa with her parents, research zoologists. Avoiding leopards, vipers and tse tse flies on the veldt was a cinch next to navigating North Shore’s predatory social strictures, mating rituals and tribal conflicts. A bumpy start yields two comrades, outsiders ‘Janis Ian’ (Lizzy Caplan, 21) and “too gay to function” ‘Damian Leigh’ (Daniel Franzese, 25). They give Cady the low-down on the assorted cliques, with emphasis placed on the devilish hotties dubbed ‘The Plastics’. Chirpy ‘Gretchen Wieners’ (Lacey Chabert, 20) and dopey ‘Karen Smith’ (Amanda Seyfried, 17, feature debut) are beeyatch kittens to lioness sex bomb ‘Regina George’ (Rachel McAdams, 24) who treats the cowed student body as her personal dart board. Intrigued by the cute and naive newcomer, The Plastics set about making her over, while Janis and Damian plot to use Cady as an infiltrating agent. Then Cady has a gaga attack over ‘Aaron Samuels’ (Jonathan Bennett, 22), who happens to be Regina’s ex. Life the manboats!
With her old SNL boss Lorne Michaels producing, Fey based her screenplay off Rosalind Wiseman’s non-fiction self-help book “Queen Bees and Wannabees” and fleshed it out with her own battle-scarred memories and pointed observations. The shoot took place in Toronto, ostensibly for budgetary reasons—or was that because it was safer than Illinois?
Consistently funny—snarky asides, cute stuff, physical gags, teen terminology (of the time) and spot-on sliverings of recognizable cliques—with an underlying message on the tolls exacted by casual cruelties, hurting others as pastime, group sport or twisted rite-of-passage. The supporting team peppers quick bits from a host of savvy players, and the main lineup is a dream squad. The “Jingle Bell Rock” sequence is a gem, a generation-crossing moment of giddy silliness—who doesn’t know that song? And if they don’t, do you really want to talk to them? As in, like, seriously.
“In the real world, Halloween is when kids dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can dress up like a total slut and no other girls can say anything else about it.”
As someone who for years was aware of the whole Lindsay Lohan phenom but had never seen her youngster hits (The Parent Trap remake, Freaky Friday) or been interested in her over-publicized issues and sloppy nose dives, it’s a neat revelation to watch her in this; smart, winsome, disarming. Chaplain, Leigh and Bennett are sharp as the friendlies, and Fey is a sly fox as a calmly droll math teacher. The Plastics are, fittingly, perfect. Seyfried is jolly-dumb and fresh, with no inkling of the danger vibe she’d vixen up as Chloe or her sensitivity as used & abused Lovelace. Chabert is the picture of natural cuteness marred by fragile neediness; her classroom meltdown over Caesar & Brutus is choice. The show wouldn’t work without a hive queen who wasn’t just a knockout but sufficiently convincing as a threat, and McAdams makes Regina irresistibly hateful and impossible to take your eyes off. Brains, talent, hilarity, beauty—there oughta be a law. Watch those Swedish diet bars. And the stray bus.
The Oscars zone minders usually doesn’t make room for A-quality teen comedies (every year seems to produce at least one good one); Mean Girls did not receive but was worthy of nominations for Supporting Actress (McAdams), Screenplay and Film Editing. The rib & recall tickled public awarded the class clowning, creaming the $18,500,000 price tag with a domestic rake of $86,100,000 (locker #28) and $44,400,000 more in other countries bemused by Americanoid antics.
“Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.”
With Amy Poehler (Regina’s relevance-desperate mama cougar),Tim Meadows (deadpan as the principal), Rajiv Surendra (‘Kevin’, head ‘Mathlete’), Neil Flynn (Cady’s cool dad), Ana Gasteyer (Cady’s flustered mom) and Dwayne Hill (compromised ‘Coach Carr’). Lohan also starred that year in the musical-comedy Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen. It didn’t fare well at the time, but has since been positively reappraised.
* Playing fetch-up—there was a lame TV movie, Mean Girls 2, dashed off in 2011 (Meadows the only returning cast member, Fey not involved). Wiseman revamped her 2002 book into a 448 page 2016 edition (teens getting wilder thanks to the demonic dynamic of social media) and two years later Fey turned Mean Girls into a stage musical. That in turn became a successful flick in 2024, with Fey and Meadows reprising their roles. Lindsay L, 38, did a cameo.
