The Mean Girls is a teen comedy about a girl called Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) , who joins an new high school after moving to United States. Cady was homeschooled her whole life because her parents were research zoologists in Africa. They were in Kenya but the location is not specified.
Cady meets Janis and Damian who befriend her and tell her about all the cliques and people in the schools especially the plastics. They are the most popular girls in North Shore. During lunch, Cady is harassed by a jock in the cafeteria. Seeing the the plastics defend her and invite her seat at their table. The leader of the plastics, Regina (Rachel McAdams) compliments her. The rest of the plastics, Heather and Karen invite her to the group. They tell her the rules of the group. The most iconic rule being “on Wednesdays we wear pink.”
Janis encourages Cady to spy on the plastics since she has a grudge against Regina. Cady accepts and borrows a pink shirt from Damian. She starts to hang out with the group. She develops a crush on Aaron Samuels. When she tells Heather about it she is warned not to date him because he is Regina’s ex boyfriend. Later at Regina’s house, they open up the burn book, where they write insults and half truths about their schoolmates and the faculty.
Cady, Janis start plotting against Regina and tricking her secretly. They give her calorie increasing chocolates and convince her that they are skinny chocolate. They tell her boyfriend about her affair in the janitor’s closet. Some of the plots end up backfiring on them. An example is when they cut holes in her t-shirt which Regina wears with confidence and ends up starting a trend.
They do end up turning her friends against her. When Regina finds out she leaks all the contents of the burn book to the whole school which causes a school wide fight among the girls. Later they notice that three names were not in the book; Cady, Heather and Karen and turn against them. All the girls in the school were gathered in the auditorium and made to apologize to each other except Cady who runs away. She later apologizes to people and joins the math club. During prom Cady wins the prom queen and divides the crown with the rest of the school including Regina who is now in a wheelchair.
Mean girls has relatable themes for teens. It is an iconic 2000s movie with quotable lines. It came at a time where teens were struggling with bullying, eating disorders, body issues and other various issues. People continue to watch it till now because most still struggle with the themes shown in the movie. We still struggle to fit in new environments.
