1 Liz Gorson
English Essay #3
December 4, 2012
Mean Girls & Social Media
With varying degrees of exaggeration, movies ridiculing high school drama have
been around for decades. The 80’s had Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off, the 90’s included titles such as Clueless and American Pie, and more
recently, Project X and Superbad have taken center stage. However, the predominant
high school comedy in recent years seems to me Mark Waters’s 2004 hit Mean Girls. The
film centers around Cady Heron, a new high school student after being home-schooled
and living in Africa her entire life. Cady explores social dynamics as she adjusts to life in
public school and joins the Plastics, the most powerful trio of girls in school. Mean Girls
collected 24.4 million dollars its opening weekend, and the film remains at the forefront
of popular culture eight years later (Haberman). The twitter account @MeanGirls has
385, 340 followers, and multiple other accounts dedicated to the film have several
thousand followers. The Mean Girls Facebook fan page has nearly 4 million likes, and
other fan pages dedicated to quotes from the film, and “which mean girls character are
you?” quizzes have thousands of followers. Thousands of social media users post Mean
Girls inspired statuses and “wear pink” to emulate the main characters on October 3rd, a
current, online trend celebrating “National Mean Girls Day” (Zuckerman).
Considering its popular acclaim and box office success, Mean Girls differs from
other teen comedies in its combination of humorous exaggeration and a darker undertone
2 of teenage relational aggression, a type of bullying focusing on creating insecurities,
damaging a sense of social inclusion and belonging, and harming social relationships.
Serious teen dramas such as Odd Girl Out, Thirteen, and Cyberbully discuss similar
issues, yet Mean Girls’s unique, comedic portrayal of teenage bullying allows its target
audience, girls ages thirteen to twenty, to laugh at situations that would otherwise be
uncomfortable (Bucher). Recognizing the film’s blending of a serious subject and
slapstick jokes, why has this technique had such a lasting impact on our culture? Perhaps
the answer to Mean Girls’s success is the rising popularity of social media websites,
particularly Myspace and Facebook. Eighteen to twenty-four year olds are the fastest
growing portion of Facebook users; this is roughly the same segment of the population
that was the film’s target audience in 2004 (“Facebook”). Furthermore, Facebook
continues to reinforce the social hierarchies and promote the covert bullying that also
enables current high school girls to relate to the film as social media websites
increasingly become part of their daily routines.
The movie’s amalgamation of subtle bullying and overstated scenarios becomes
apparent in one of Cady’s encounters with Regina, the hot-blonde leader of the Plastics.
Knowing that Cady has feelings for Regina’s new boyfriend Aaron, Regina flaunts him in
front of Cady and demands her to “tell him that his looks sexy” (Mean Girls). Cady
imagines a scene in which she tackles Regina like a wild animal, while the other
teenagers in the cafeteria screech, scream, and claw at each other like animals in the
jungle. Immediately after this brief glimpse into Cady’s fantasy resolution to Regina’s
manipulation, she returns to reality and reflects that she is in “girl world.” Cady
succumbs to her power, complimenting Regina’s boyfriend in front of their clique. By
3 including the jungle segment between Regina’s demand and Cady following her order,
the exaggeration of this bullying scene is more easily recognizable to viewers.
Manipulation and subtle taunting is likely present among high school lunch table
conversation, but Mean Girls’s depiction of Cady’s feelings toward Regina uses wildanimal actions to vastly increase the intensity of this situation. The audience can still
relate to the basic elements in these circumstances, but the unrestrained behavior enables
the audience to perceive its ridiculousness and laugh at this scene.
Cady’s reflection upon her cafeteria victimization leads her to the conclusion that
in “girl world” any fighting must be sneaky. Facebook may reinforce this notion,
enabling girls to use subtle derisions and mockery to assert power over others. For
instance, girls can currently use the “check in” feature to constantly update their
locations, or instantly upload a picture from their phones for hundreds of users—and the
target of their aggression—to see. Facebook makes a snarky comment or scheming
picture instantly available to a large amount of people. Instead of just one moment of
provocation as in Regina’s lunchtime demand, the victim can be repeatedly exposed to
this indirect form of taunting unless the user removes the aggressive action. The extent to
which Facebook users can document their lives over Facebook is overwhelming: 750
million photos were uploaded over New Year’s weekend in 2011 and, 2,716,000 pictures
have been uploaded in just 20 minutes in the same year (“Facebook”). Since the site’s
launch in 2004, high school students now use the site more than any other social media
website (Lytle). The near simultaneous releases of Facebook and Mean Girls provided a
beneficial method for the film to maintain its relevance as the site became another outlet
or opportunity for relational aggression.
4 Mean Girls’s representation of backhanded compliments is another highly
dramatic component of subtle bullying that viewers may be able to relate to. Queen Bee
Regina repeatedly compliments classmates about their accessories and apparel, but she is
actually mocking them. For instance, Regina exclaims to a peer that she loves her skirt,
asks her where it’s from, and calls it “so adorable.” When the girl is out of sight, Regina
laughs to Cady and scoffs “that is the ugliest f-ing skirt I’ve ever seen” (Mean Girls).
With this remark, Cady remembers an earlier moment during which Regina had
complimented her bracelet. She then uncomfortably scans her bracelet, deliberately
ignores the flashback, and doubles her efforts toward gaining Regina’s friendship. This is
a pivotal moment in Cady’s relationship with Regina, as she acknowledges: “I could hate
her, and at the same time, I still wanted her to like me” (Mean Girls). Despite the
malevolent actions Regina directs at Cady, the desire to maintain the friendship is still
present. The scene’s humor is demonstrated in the extremeness of Regina’s two-faced
character. Literally, in this scene, the camera angles emphasize Regina’s facial
expressions and blur the background when she’s complimenting her classmate and then
laughing behind her back. The contrast between Regina’s sweet, fake smile and then her
narrowing eyes and smile-turned-sneer is completely evident, allowing viewers to
perceive the dramatic exaggeration of the scenario and to laugh at this contrast.
Alhtough the film premiered almost a decade ago, current high school girls can
still relate to the desires to belong to a friend group despite distrust, backstabbing, and a
knowledge of relational aggression occurring among group members. Facebook enables
teens to publicly express opinions solely for reputation or group belonging. Comments
feigning excitement, appreciation, sympathy, or friendliness on another’s pictures or
5 statuses can easily be expressed online with ulterior motives that can be invisible to those
outside the group. Sweetly disguised insults can be especially easy to proliferate on
Facebook. If they are expressed on a public picture or as a “wall post,” these
underhanded compliments can be seen by many users. Cady reflects that it was better to
be in the Plastics, hating her life, than to be outside the group. Girls may feel compelled
to use Facebook as a way to subtly bully others in order to gain social acceptance in their
group. Facebook promotes this behavior by making friendship cliques plainly visible and
assessable. Before Facebook became the most popular social network in 2009, Myspace
was most commonly used (“Facebook Begins”). Myspace’s unique “top 8 feature”
allowed users to rank their eight closest friends and display this group to the public.
These features potentially encouraged reputation maintenance and exclusion over
development of true, close friendships.
One final bullying scenario Mean Girls exaggerates, while also containing a
morsel of truth, occurs when Regina’s minions turn against her after she breaks one of
their many “rules” of the friendship. Mean Girls emphasizes the implicit expectations and
“rules” behind cliques to remain in the friendship. The most well-known of these rules is:
“on Wednesdays, we wear pink.” Other rules include wearing jeans or track pants only on
Fridays, wearing a ponytail only once a week, and not wearing a tank top two days in a
row. Further expectations are the necessity of the group’s approval before buying clothes
and deciding which boys to show interest in. When Regina wears sweatpants on a
Monday, the Plastics screech at her: “you can’t sit with us!” forcing Regina to leave
cafeteria. An overweight girl calls her “fatass” and the camera zooms to Regina’s
obviously fake, extremely stuffed bottom. The film’s ridiculous rules of the Plastics
6 friendship, her friends exploding at her to leave the lunch table, and Regina’s dramatic
exit casts the bullying in a more humorous light for the audience.
Similar to the rules of the Plastic’s friendship, Facebook can add to implicit
“rules” and general expectations regarding proper behavior to maintain one’s social status
in a certain clique. If these expectations are not met, teenage girls could be subject to
exclusion and ridicule that Regina dramatically endures. For instance, uploading certain
pictures or “liking” certain pages might be encouraged or warrant disapproval. Cliques
may have particular ideas about what is necessary and appropriate to make as a status
update, or girls might feel compelled to create funny, entertaining, or suggestive wall
posts to advertise their friendship and belonging in a group. Some teenage girls may face
the relational aggression apparent in Mean Girls if they do not conform to the standards
and expectations of their friend group. Subtle comments and undercuts define Cady’s
friendships with her clique; similarly, Facebook allows miniscule actions such as a photo
“like” or comment to escalate as a part of covert bullying and pressure to conform to a
social group.
Tina Fey, prominent actress and comedian, based the film’s screenplay off of
Rosalind Walter’s nonfiction self help guide Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your
Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and other Realities of Adolescence. The
film’s real-life inspiration furthers the notion that Mean Girls can relate to high school
girls that are enduring similar, if less exaggerated, experiences with relational aggression.
Social media websites like Facebook may have helped Mean Girls retain its popularity
because current teenage girls can still relate to the covert bullying practices present in the
film. Meanwhile, the film’s original viewers are a rapidly growing segment of Facebook
7 users who can look back on the relational aggression they may have experienced in high
school and be more aware of how these practices could be reflected in Facebook.
However, the maintenance of the popularity of Mean Girls may have darker
implications. If the film’s success is due to its relevance to current high school girls,
perhaps this represents a problem in the amount of relational aggression that girls are
experiencing. Although teenage bullying is by no means a new trend, social media makes
covert bullying nearly inescapable for some victims as they become exposed to more
taunting as soon as they leave school. If these types of relationships are seen as common,
accepted, and the norm among girls, perhaps relational aggression could grow to be more
tolerated, and with dangerous consequences. Mean Girls ends with harmony between all
the high school’s cliques, yet the film’s unique trait of exaggerated humor might cause
viewers to dismiss this outcome as unattainable and unlikely. In this way, Mean Girls not
only reflects a cultural trend in relational aggression due to social media, but also may
shape the future of behaviors that are considered normal for teenage girls to endure
without promoting any change.
8 Works Cited
Bucher, Glen. “Mean Girls.” Comingsoon.net. 2012.
<http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=4519>
“Facebook Begins.” The Sunday Indian. 2011.
<http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/photo-albums/241/>
“Facebook Statistics, Stats, & Facts for 2011.” 18 Jan. 2011
<http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/>
Mean Girls. Dir. Mark Waters. Perf. Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey. Paramount Pictures. 2004.
Film.
Haberman, Lia. “Mean Girls Topples Man.” Eonline. 3 May 2004.
<http://images.eonline.com/news/47354/mean-girls-topples-man>
Lytle, Ryan. “High School Students Increasingly Use Social Media for College Search.”
US News. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/education/bestcolleges/articles/2012/09/28/high-school-students-increasingly-use-social-mediafor-college-search>
Zuckerman, Esther. “How the Internet is Celebrating National ‘Mean Girls’ Day.” Yahoo
News. 3 Oct. 2012. <http://news.yahoo.com/internet-celebrating-national-meangirls-day-155842237.html>