On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Movie Review
In the iconic film Mean Girls (directed by Mark Waters), “Cady Heron” played by Lindsay Lohan moves from Africa to Illinois to attend a public high school. She learns from her new friends, Janet and Damian that high school is strictly divided into groups. There is one group called “The plastics”, by Cadys new friend Janet, that Cady comes to find out aren’t “so fetch” after all.
According to Janet, Regina George played by Rachel McAdams is the leader of “The Plastics”, but as the movie progresses and her character develops we see she's also a teenager with her own issues. By the end of the movie, she seems to become aware of these issues ad work through them, creating a better person out of herself because of it. Cady Heron is seen as an “awkward new girl” when starting at this new school, but as her friendship with “The plastics” continues to grow, we can see this quickly changes. She is friendly and good-hearted, but Cady soon dramatically transforms into the mean girl she never planed on being. When she realizes that she wasn’t pretending to be “Plastic” anymore she was seen to be as “Cold, shiny, hard plastic” by her old friend Janet. Because of this conflict Cady becomes sick with her actions and makes an incredible effort to become a healthier student and person. Gretchen Wieners played by Lacey Chabert is also one of the “Plastics”. From what i can tell, students see her as more shallow than any of the other mean girls, and always desperate for attention. Karen Smith played by Amanda Seyfried, doesn’t seem to have much of an influential character. She’s viewed as friendlier than all the other “Plastics” but lacks in academic areas. Cady becomes very fond of Aaron Samuels played by Jonathan Bennett she sees him as a nice and genuine guy. Cady Heron would do anything to impress Aaron, even intentionally fail her math class to get his attention. but the screen-play writers make it clear it doesn't work out so well in the end, and Cady realizes this decision she’s made can make a huge negative impact on her. Cady has a crush on Aaron but can’t tell “The Plastics” because Aaron use to date her friend Regina. Damian played by Daniel Franzeseis best friends with Janis, and is always by her side. Janis Ian played by Lizzy Caplan, reputation is destroyed by a rumor that she is lesbian. She wants “8th grade revenge” so she sets up Cady to pretend to be a “Plastic” to “ruin Regina George’s life”. Little did Janis know that everything would slowly fall apart, not just for Regina but for all the girls.
“Girl world” falls apart when Regina takes the “Burn Book” to Mr. Duvall’s (Tim Meadows) office to make her seem like she was innocent. She leaves the office to plaster pages of the “Burn Book” around all of North Shore High School. When students saw all the rumors “all hell broke loose in girl world”. The “Burn Book” is a book created by “The Plastics” to start rumors and gossip about all girls at school. Mr. Duvall and Ms. Norbury try to make peace in girl world by calling a meeting in the school gym after all the secrets were revealed from the “Burn Book”. It all ended a couple days after the gym meeting when Cady took the blame for writing all the “Burn Book” rumors.
This film teaches youth that friendship can be extremely difficult. It teaches you to be true to yourself and don’t change for anyone. Each character in this film was well thought out and unique. Although this film is very comedic it also focuses on important themes such as friendship and trust. This teen film/comedy is rated PG-13 for “sexual content, language and some teen partying”. “That is a rating Paramount had to fight for.” Says the director, Mark Waters. MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) wanted to give Mean girls an R rating. This film is 1hr and 37 minutes and is available on Netflix. I would rate this movie a 10/10 because Mean Girls teaches teens about friendship while being a funny film at the same time. Helping your friends survive cliques, gossip and boyfriends is difficult, close to impossible.
