Mean Girls

Directed by Mark S. Waters

Being mean nationwide 4/23/2004

A few years back, a Washington-area writer named Rosalind Wiseman authored a sociological study/cautionary tale entitled Queen Bees and Wannabes detailing the treatment that teenage girls deliver and endure towards and from their peers—much to the satisfaction of misogynists everywhere (cue chorus of “I told you sos”). Longtime writer and co-host of the fake news on Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey makes a terrific debut as the writer-producer of Mean Girls, a lively high school girls comedy spun off from Wiseman’s words.

In brief, Wiseman depicts your average American group of high school girls as a pack of sociopathic thugs with cliques, ironclad rules, ostracism, horrible gossip, and an ongoing, undeclared war fought by passive aggressives who have no concept of rules. And unlike boys who can be depended upon to utilize a healthy fistfight to clear the air, the girls are more likely to opt for a Hundred Years War strategy of endless attack and counter-attack.

Ms. Fey’s script has Lindsay Lohan (much less annoying than normal, but still spending far too much time with a smug, self-adoring smile on her face) and the daughter of naturalists Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn (the nutty janitor from TV’s Scrubs) who have finally gotten jobs in the so-called civilized world with daughter Cady (Lohan) attending public school for the first time as a high school junior. She quickly makes friends with two of the school’s outcasts, Janice and Damian (she a purported lesbian and he a simply fabulous teen queen), but when recruited by the school’s Queen Bees (referred to here as the Plastics), she is encouraged go undercover and report back on how the elite live. Soon, her morals cast aside, our heroine is scheming, acting dumb, backbiting, playing games, and engaging in catty gossip and rumor-mongering like an old hand (the movie never questions whether this ease proves she was ready to be a mean girl to begin with.

Things escalate until finally the teachers (Ms. Fay saving a terrific supporting role for herself as the math teacher) and the Joe Clark-wannabe principal (Tim Meadows better than he has ever been in his too-long career) reassume control over the mean girls before the school can incur actual body counts instead of just self-esteem casualties. Riding herd over this large cast and the laugh-a-minute screenplay is Mark S. Waters, younger brother of Daniel Waters (only the author of Heathers, the last great high school black comedy).

Besides being just about as heartening a debut as one could ask for, Fey has taken a rather stale genre and produced one of the year’s best American comedies. This is the best movie from a Saturday Night Live alum since Groundhog Day.

Three Stars

–Bill Henry

Related Reading:

Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (with DVD and Writing about Movies Booklet)

Short Guide to Writing About Film, A (7th Edition)

Film Directing: Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)

100 Modern Soundtracks (BFI Screen Guides)

Movie Posters: 2009 Wall Calendar