“I want my pink shirt back!”

“Mean Girls”

At first I’m thinking, “Another lame 3-word-named high school movie.” (The fact it’s 2-words wouldn’t matter if it fit the category. 3-word-named high school movie: See “She‘s All That,” “Whatever it Takes,” even “Ten Things I Hate About You.”) However in viewing “Mean Girls” I was pleasantly surprised. The rule that movies adapted from books are usually much better, holds true. (Book this movie adapted from: See Queen Bees and Wanabees.) Like in “About A Boy” the title starts you off thinking you know who the “boy” in the movie is that references the title. You think you know that the clique of pretty and petty popular girls are going to be the meanest. In both circumstances you’d be wrong. The “boy” in “About a Boy” turns out to be the man. In “Mean Girls” the meanest girl turns out to be the self proclaimed victim, Janice Ian. Discuss. (Perhaps you think I reference too much “About a Boy.” Both movies are crucial to my sociology and should be studied in sociology classes.) So, Will is to “About a Boy” as Janice Ian is to “Mean Girls.” Janice Ian and our star Cady (pronounced cay-dee.)

Our mean, rich, beautiful princess is Regina George. The school fears her and her two followers Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith. Gretchen is the one with all the gossip who seems sweet and Karen’s the idiot that you can’t take offence to because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. So basically, the only mean girl you have there is Regina. So the mean girls title doesn’t automatically mean- these three! Oh no! The mean girls consist of, yes, Regina George, Janice Ian and Cady. Cady starts off nice because she just came from Africa where she was home schooled to high school. She was thrown in and met Janice who had been stabbed in the back by Regina in junior high. Janice seeks revenge for a false rumor Regina spread about Janice being a lesbian. So Janice and Cady decide to have Cady, (who’s been excepted into the popular clique,) spy on Regina, report to Janice and laugh about all the stupid things she said while sabotaging Regina’s life by stealing her boyfriends, making her friends hate her, etc. Basically, revenge is sweet but hurtful. At the end Cady goes back to being a decent person and Regina joins the Lacrosse team. Popularity no longer matters. People matter. It was smart, funny and cleaver.