Mean Girls (2004): Before We Watch
The Great-Power Politics of being a girl in high school
In the 2000s, to supplement my graduate school funding, I supervised a sorority house. I was known formally as a “House Director” and informally as a “House Mom” (so many stories, all for another time). A Mean Girls DVD was always ready for repeat viewing in our basement TV Room. What did the sorority sisters think about this vicious comedy about the poison lurking in young female friendships?
We all live in a world that we didn’t ourselves create. We make our way as best we can within the structures and expectations that shape the kinds of choices we can make. Making our way can be a zero-sum game, elevating ourselves at the expense of others. Or empowering one can mean empowering us all.
Both Great-Power geopolitics and high school popularity contests ask of us two questions: What will you do to get influence and power? And if you get any of it, how will you use it?
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With Savor the View, we’ll watch, think, and talk about movies and the things that matter. A special welcome and thanks to our regular crew!
Each Monday, I share brief, spoiler-free remarks and questions to frame viewing a movie on our own.
Each Thursday, I share post-viewing questions to poke at the issues, ideas, quandaries, inspirations...whatever...that movie might have summoned (spoilers, ahoy!).
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Overview
Mean Girls (2004): It takes a village. Saturday Night Live (SNL) creator and producer Lorne Michaels produced Mean Girls, SNL writer and cast member Tina Fey wrote the screenplay, and Mark Waters directed an ensemble of veteran and rising comedic stars.
2004 featured an eclectic array of noteworthy films, from Oscar winners like Sideways and Million Dollar Baby to cult classics like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Napoleon Dynamite. Mean Girls poised Lindsay Lohan for adult success after a childhood on set. Unfortunately, though, hindsight reveals the struggles that would await her.
Mean Girls is reimagined in 2024 – and we’ll check out that version next week. But for now, consider how well this film does (or does not) stand on its own in our current moment. Not least because, whether or not fetch became a thing, Oct. 3 absolutely did. And there’s even a real-world Burn Book.
The universal/general
In this film, how do we understand high school, friendships, feminism, and power? Does any of this mean something about the world beyond high school?
How much of the characters’ choices are purely coming from a personal moral compass? How much from the constraints of the circumstances/world in which they find themselves?
The specific/unique
What are the rules of high school? Who are the winners and losers? What does it mean to win or lose? Does it have to be a zero-sum game?
What is it with high schoolers in the Chicago suburbs? How do these teen-agers compare to those in The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?
The viewer is always present
Which characters do you find sympathetic? Which do you not? Do you find yourself being judgy? Is that a good or bad thing?
Some films age well, some do not. How well does this 2004 film hold up in 2024?
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