Coming of Age Films—Mean Girls

I pointed out that last week’s film, 2003’s Thirteen, wasn’t a big audience draw. Move to just the next year when Mean Girls [2004], which was made for about $17 million, grossed over $130 million. Every teen went to see it—and many adults as well.

Written by Tina Fey, Mean Girls tells the story of a high school clique of popular girls—that other students refer to as ‘the Plastics’—and the new girl, Cady, who just moved to town and is anxious to fit in.

Cady’s backstory is interesting—she’s never gone to school in America. Her parents have been missionaries who’ve worked abroad and home-schooled her. The family has just come back to the States from Africa, so one of the side bits in the film that results from this is that she doesn’t know American customs… it’s like she’s dropped down from a different planet.

Cady makes friends right away with a couple of ‘alternative’ students who are definitely not in the popular crowd but who are genuine human beings. But when she’s approached by the Plastics to join their group, she begins to drop the two friends who’d been nice to her right from the start.

Take a look at the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDU84nmSDZY

In many ways, the film is full of stereotypes, like the sweet, innocent girl and the bitchy popular girl. But take a look at the dialogue in this script and you’ll see what makes those stereotypical characters interesting. It’s what they say and do that makes them seem fresh and original.

There’s also the character of the teacher who really cares about the students. As a writer, you want a character like that in your story to act as a sort of sane sounding board to some of the chaos and lies that are flying around in the high school.

When Cady realizes that the Plastics are really horrible, she spies on them for her two nice friends—the idea being to bring them down. But guess what? As she gets closer to these popular girls she becomes pretty plastic herself and sort of drops those friends.

She does realize what she’s done [of course] and works to bring the Plastics down for good… but stuff happens and things spiral out of control.

Mean Girls is a fun film that is really well written. It shows that the most stereotypical situation in the hands of a witty writer can work. And remember what I said at the beginning about the film appealing to both teens and adults? It’s important to realize that if you can do that, you’ve increased your audience base dramatically. In the case of Mean Girls, teens watched it because it was so what they were going through in high school. And adults watched it for the nostalgia factor. Everybody had a good time.

And sometimes, that’s all a movie needs to be—a witty, sharp, evocative good time where we can enjoy the popcorn and Milk Duds.

Copyright © Diane Lake

10Oct21

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