Headscratchers / Mean Girls

Headscratchers for Mean Girls.

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Gretchen's intelligence

• Just how smart or dumb is Gretchen exactly? She seems to lack social intelligence ("I can't help it that I'm popular" Regina wouldn't have said this because she would've known that the crowds reaction wouldn't be approving) and comes off as slightly ditzy but the WMG assumes that she's a Teen Genius and Obfuscating Stupidity in order to fit in.
  • She could be either, since the film never directly states that she gets good grades or whatever. This troper's personal interpretation is that she comes across as someone who is booksmart to a degree - she has an excellent memory for gossip and "knows everything about everyone", and a good memory usually means one can do well on tests without having to cram as much in studying. The non apology she gives is pretty dumb, but then even the actual Dumb Blonde of the group Karen gave a sincere one. One could interpret her as possibly street smart in that she knows when to keep valuable information about Regina hidden and when to use it; perhaps revealing things to Cady wasn't Sanity Slippage, but the suspicion that Cady could be a threat to Regina's Queen Bee status, and this information could help knock Regina down a peg.
  • She probably though that the crowd was obligated to catch her and they would be punished or scolded for letting her fall.

Kalteen Bars

• Why didn't Regina look up Kalteen Bars on the internet? This was 2004, not the 70s, after all, and she is rich, so I'm sure she has access to the web, although not to the extent teens have nowadays.
  • I guess it really boils down to "she could never think Cady was capable of doing that". Regina could have cross-checked Karen because the latter could have confused Kalteen Bars with a part of a healthy diet out of sheer idiocy, but with Cady the only explanation would have been a malicious intent, and Regina just didn't seem to even suspect it in her.
    • Note the way Regina reacts when she finds out the truth about the kalteen bars, and realises what Cady was doing all along. It's possibly the most enraged we see her in the whole film. If Regina had any suspicions about Cady’s intentions, she wouldn’t have been so furious.
  • There was a bit of a holdover in the mid 2000s that only nerds and losers would spend their time on the internet. It's not necessarily that Regina didn't have access to the internet, but she would have grown up without it being some omnipresent force in her life and just might not use it. Note how the Burn Book is a physical book rather than an online thing.

Cady's secret favorite plastic

• Is it just me, or is Gretchen secretly Cady's favorite plastic member? I feel like our protagonist is intimidated by Regina and doesn’t bond with Karen but deeply cares for Gretchen. Maybe she feels sorry for her or can relate to her self-esteem issues. This gets noticeable in the four-way call, where Cady affectionately calls her friend „Gretch“. I feel like Cady has a soft spot for Gretchen and they have a deeper, more genuine connection than Cady has with any other plastic.
  • She seems to bond with both Gretchen and Karen. After Regina snaps "god, Karen, you are so stupid", Cady tries to comfort her. And after she saves the Jingle Bell Rock performance, Karen hugs her and says "that's the best it ever went". Cady also thinks Karen being told that Regina called her a slut is "a little harsh". And it's Karen that Cady appears to be hanging with in the end. I think Cady did become friends with all three to her own extent; she was terrified of Regina but still craved her approval.
  • Cady doesn't seem to have a problem messing with Gretchen's mind to make Regina think she's mad at her, which really wreaks havoc on the poor girl's self esteem. And even when she sees this, Cady doesn't appear to feel guilty about it. Granted that could be lingering annoyance from Gretchen snitching about her crush on Aaron and thus kicking off the whole mess in the first place.

Gretchen and Karen's "friendship"

• Why does this page assumes that Karen and Gretchen are really close to the point of being Heterosexual Life Partners ? Karen is willing to talk shit about Gretchen during the four way call ("Oh my god, she's so annoying"). And when Karen is genuinely upset at Regina calling her stupid, Cady is the one who comforts her while Gretchen only cares for Regina. Sure, this is Gretchen being the Professional Butt-Kisser but I think the movie is lacking scenes where the relationship between Karen and Gretchen is portrayed as a real friendship.
  • She only says Gretchen is annoying so that Regina won't suspect she's on the phone with her, and Gretchen doesn't judge Karen for her stupid comments and Karen is generally kind and supportive to Gretchen. They easily have the least catty friendship in the movie. Also, Karen really wasn't that upset about being called stupid - Regina was the one who stormed out of the room, Karen casually admitted to Cady she's failing most of her classes. It's obvious Gretchen would try to pacify Regina in that situation over Karen.
  • And when Karen admits to making out with her cousin, once Gretchen realises she doesn't know her mistake she calmly explains it to her (Regina probably would have laughed, mocked her and dissed it behind her back). Karen is also the only one who catches Gretchen after her 'apology', and it's Gretchen she apologises to in her own. And once the clique starts imploding, Karen and Gretchen side with each other.
• Why did Aaron even want to tutor Regina? I mean, he has to know himself that he sucks at math and even of he had a crush on her, why would you blame yourself in front of your crush? I simply don't get it.
  • You mean Cady. Aaron is clearly competent enough at math that he is passing. Note that Cady asks Aaron to tutor her. She's his friend and needs his help, and he's a Nice Guy, so why say no? And yes, his crush on her might have had something to do with it.

Aaron's character shilling

• Does it annoy anyone else the way the movie assumes Aaron is a nice, pure, wholesome guy, untouched by the nest of vipers that surrounds him? He dates Regina twice when she's at her most tyrannical; all she has to do to get him back is tell him she didn't break up with him the first time; he only breaks up with her when he finds out she's been cheating on him. He apparently has no problem with the kind of person she is; he tells Cady that Regina's just "more up-front" about being an asshole than most people. She asks him why he's friends with Regina and he snaps back, "Why are you?" — like that's a good answer instead of casting them both in the same light. And then when Cady turns into Regina he acts like she's betraying his doe-eyed faith in her. Oh, but "all he cares about is school and his mom and his friends" — that's why he sucks at math but thinks he's good enough to tutor someone else, he omg does his own laundry, and we never even meet any of his friends outside Regina's circle. For a movie that's supposed to be about how girls are a super special girly kind of mean to each other, they could have done better than including a male character who's basically a hypocritical honorary Plastic and mysteriously never gets called out on it.
  • This troper never saw Aaron as anything close to plastic.
    • Yes, he dates Regina, and he's an idiot for taking her back a second time over such a flimsy excuse. But he could genuinely care for her, or it could be the fact she's smoking hot and he's a teenage male. The reason he asks Cady why she's friends with Regina is because she's just spent the last ten minutes bitching about her, and yet calls her a friend. It's pretty realistic writing for a male teenager, they don't tend to bitch like us females.
    • “Us females”? Speak for yourself. Boys/men can be just as bad, it’s just that society doesn’t call it bitching.
    • Was that supposed to be a joke, especially coming from a female (nice that you can't just say girls or women, too)? Guys bitch every day like girls are supposed to be 5-7 days a month. Even Aaron did it. But yes, only teenage boys, well-known for their good sense and high moral values, are capable of that. Girls never do it (like Cady and Janis and Ms. Newbury). The ones who do it like myself simply don't exist. Except you, probably. The most realistic thing about Aaron this Troper has found is that he knowingly continues dating a sociopath because she's attractive and puts out freely.
  • I saw Aaron the same way I saw Gretchen. Although Gretchen did take part in the burn book, she was not really a “mean girl”. She just wanted to be in Regina’s orbit. The movie didn’t treat her the same way it did Regina too. She wasn’t mean to be a nasty person like Regina and neither was Aaron. He wasn’t perfect either, but simply not on Regina’s level.
  • Aaron liked Cady for who she was, not the plastic she became. What's so wrong about that?
  • And lastly, are you serious? Aaron's a nice guy, that's why he offers to help Cady out when she starts to fail; by this point all he knows is that her test scores are lower than his. Maybe he's not the greatest at maths, but it's clear that he doesn't know she's failing on purpose until she tells him. And if you're referring to the original screenplay, it's not just implied he does his own laundry, but he does his mother's too. Sorry, but that's pretty impressive for a teenage boy. We don't meet any of his friends because Aaron has a relatively small role in the film, and there was honestly no need to show them either.
  • "He liked Cady for who she was, not the plastic she became" is obviously the movie's intention, but it's completely undermined by the fact that he's apparently fine with the way the "Plastics" behave. He never objects to any of it until Cady's the one doing it. "You are just like a clone of Regina" — a line said in disgust by a character who... has dated Regina twice. And the reason it's important to show him caring about school, his mom and his friends is that we're told those are the things he cares about. Instead we get him sitting at Regina's lunch table listening to her talk about her cranberry juice diet.
    • Cady and Damien liken being in the plastics to "being famous" or "being on the cover of Teen Us Weekly". Add that to the fact that Regina is HOT and you have "Hotness + Fame = Profit". Yeah, it's shallow but hello, teenage boy. It's obvious that people toed the line around Regina just so high school wasn't hell on earth every day so dating her would be the best possible way to keep her being nice to you, of course, and make everyone else think you're a legend ("omg he's DATING Regina!"). He obviously liked Cady for the fact that she was generally the opposite of Regina but also isn't about to say no to Regina and risk her wrath.
    • Keep in mind that he says this after the second time they broke up. Getting burnt twice by Regina probably hammered in the lesson for Aaron that Regina isn't that great of a person. Now that Cady is increasingly emulating Regina, especially so soon after he broke up with Regina, it viscerally repelled him. Teenage boys aren't the deepest or smartest of creatures, but they can learn, even if it takes a while. Aaron is no exception. Whether you think he is shallow or not, at least he was not malevolent like the plastics were at the height of their power.
    • It's probably important to remember that he does say that Cady is a CLONE of Regina. She's not being herself anymore, she's essentially someone else. Aaron didn't really seem to have an issue with Regina being mean, but he respected the fact that she was genuinely mean and didn't try to hide it or pretend that she was someone other than herself. That's not to say that Aaron has the best girlfriend picking skills, but again, teenage boy. When he realized that Cady was just like Regina, it was jarring, partially because Regina played him, but also because he knew that Cady wasn't initially like that, and she was just acting that way because she'd allowed herself to be "corrupted," for lack of a better word. She was fake, and here's the kicker, PLASTIC.
  • To be fair, Aaron is a high school boy who likely doesn't take relationships very seriously. Yes, he remains faithful to whoever he's dating, but maybe he realizes that high school relationships aren't a big deal.
  • That being said, Aaron is a male satellite love interest for Cady, so going into detail about his motives and personality is pretty pointless. He exists for Cady to love and as more of a driving force to the plot than an actual character, and he doesn't really matter beyond that. To be frank, he dated Regina to cause Cady wangst and chews her out over becoming like Regina because it helps drive Cady into being the likable girl she was before. If you were to remove him and exchange him for a shirt that Cady and Regina both liked, the plot would pretty much be exactly the same.
  • What confused me is that he makes it clear from the start he knows what kind of person Regina is, yet instantly believes the over-the-top lie she tells him about Cady, and lets Regina flaunt their relationship in Cady's face even when Cady's supposedly a creepy stalker (had it been true, he'd be wise to be more subtle). My impression is that Aron may be a good guy, he's just not very bright and/or insightful. Otherwise, the above comment.
    • Well there's no indication he actually believed Regina's lies about Cady. He's shown talking to her as normal afterwards and shows no signs of being wary about stalking or whatnot. He wouldn't offer to tutor her if he was creeped out by her. He most likely thought that Regina was just being jealous and bitchy about another girl liking him. Since Regina immediately made a pass at him, that's probably what he thought.
  • I think it may have been as simple as a matter of plot contrivance. He's handsome enough to be a status symbol for social-climbing Regina and nice enough to be a reward for the secretly-decent-after-all Cady, and those are the only two traits he needs to serve his function in the film. He only needs to have enough self-awareness to be able to reject Cady for plot reasons once she's gone Plastic. He's basically a Sexy Lamp. This movie was primarily about Girl World and girl interaction. As people have pointed out, the deleted laundry scene would have given Aaron a bit more depth, but it would have distracted from the story the movie was actually trying to tell and possibly made it out of character for him to make the decisions necessary for the plot to advance.
    • While this troper may conveniently be sweeping it under the rug, teenagers are just like adults in that they're complex enough that at some point, they're going to be inherently hypocritical. In every high school "popular" clique, there's usually a couple kids that are "nicer" but still play into the clique's catty and exclusionary structures. In particular, high school students can often be afraid to question their own friends, even if they know that things they do are wrong (or, in the same vein, are incapable of seeing the true impact of the way they are). Aaron may genuinely believe that Regina is more than just a bitchy mean girl, because that's what he or anyone else that age would tell themselves. In fact, one of the messages that COULD have been focused on in this movie is how bystanders like Aaron come into play — they're semi-aware of people's bad actions but turn a blind eye to the impact, thus empowering the person more when they don't consciously intend to.
  • Aaron wasn’t that different from Karen and Gretchen. The movie didn’t really demonise those 2 either. Aaron only had an issue with Cady changing so much around Regina. She wasn’t being herself.
  • Cady notes that one of the weird things about Regina is that even when you hate her, you still want her to like you. Just because Aaron despises Regina doesn't mean that he won't come running when she crooks her finger.

Janis the villain

• Does anyone else think the bitchiest person in the movie was actually Janis? Nothing major really seemed to be going on in the school cliques until she started trying to bring Regina down. The Plastics even mention they hadn't used their burn book for ages. She seemed to use Cady as the puppet to exact the revenge she wasn't brave enough to do herself, she had to send the kid who barely knew what school was to do it all then at the end reveals it all in a way that makes Cady look worst!
  • I mean, this isn't some big revelation. Janis says this herself at the climax: "At least me and Regina know we're mean!"
  • I think the point wasn't that anyone was the most rotten apple of the bunch. The point was probably more that they're all a bunch of socially maladjusted pricks in their own special way.
    • ^ What that person said. The moral of the movie is obviously that we've all felt victimised by others, and in our moments of weakness we've all tried to make ourselves feel better by being mean in return. This is shown in the assembly scene with Tina Fey and the Maths Tournament scene. Janis, Gretchen, Cady, Regina, pretty much every girl in the movie is mean to the others because they're insecure about their ability to make friends/self-esteem. That's what teens do.
    • That moral really doesn't hold water when the true mastermind behind such petty revenge gets off scot-free and even applauded while her socially naive pawn gets thrown under the bus.
  • I don't think Janis is the bitchiest person in the movie, but you make some good points. She does use Cady for revenge and doesn't express any real remorse or get comeuppance for it.
    • Everyone knows the bitchiest person in the movie is the "you can try Sears" lady.
  • The problem with Janis is that the narrative doesn't criticize her like it does the other girls. Cady especially gets read the riot act for her Face–Heel Turn, Regina has to discover that everyone hates her, and even Gretchen gets her comeuppance. Janis meanwhile gets cheered for what she did, and the only time she's called out for her behaviour is glossed over.
    • Yes, this is a genuine headscratcher: why did everyone in the school vilify Cady but cheer Janis, despite the latter openly confessing to them all to being the mastermind behind all the terrible things that they are vilifying Cady for? Doesn't make much sense to me.
    • I think Janis is crafty in her speech. She attributes the really nasty things to Cady - "she made out with her boyfriend and convinced him to break up with her" (which is actually deceptive; Cady just told Aaron he was being cheated on) and the funny stuff to herself - "we gave you foot cream instead of face wash". And possibly everyone was so sick of the Plastics that they directed all their hate at Cady and Regina, and were glad that Janis brought down the clique?
    • Part of it may also be that Janis is already an outcast. She's been the weird one, the loner, the freak, for years, so people expect her to do things like that and even if they did shun her it wouldn't make any difference. But Cady was a Plastic, part of the elite. The slightest crack in her facade is an excuse to pounce, and the effects of the school turning on her are far more visible.
    • Part of that could be due to Regina being hit by the bus. Since rumours quickly spread around that Cady pushed Regina, that may have given a lot of people a valid (in their minds at least) reason to feel that way - first she's plotting to ruin Regina's life, and then she attempts to murder her when the truth comes out, and all of this is for no real reason (remember, they didn’t know about the Cady/Aaron/Regina situation). Regina was widely disliked and maybe the rest of the girls liked seeing Janis giving her a taste of her own medicine, but Cady (supposedly) pushing Regina in front of a bus? That goes way over the line of petty teenage revenge and into homicidal violence. Even if Regina had personally victimised all those girls, they still never wanted to see her get killed. Cady (supposedly) attempting to murder her is a whole different level of evil.
    • Moments before Regina's hit by the bus, she screams that everyone says Cady is a 'homeschooled jungle freak who's a less hot version of her'. Whether or not that's fully true is unclear (it may be Regina being hyperbolic, or even just a lie), but if the other students did gossip about Cady in that way, it's possible that they wanted Cady to be taken down a peg or two. When you combine Cady's role in the whole burn book saga and Regina's downfall (factoring in that a lot of rumours spread quickly that Cady pushed her in front of the bus) - they're given the reason they've been looking for to knock her off her pedestal. It’s even possible that the rumours about Cady pushing Regina were started and spread by the same students who were tired of Cady, to get her ostracised by the rest of the school.
    • Janis was arguably the worst victim of Regina’s bullying. It’s possible that the student body saw Janis’s plan as her getting back at Regina, whereas with Cady there would have been no motives other than malice (they didn’t know about Cady’s feelings towards Aaron before Regina publicly took him back).
  • THANK YOU! I honestly thought I was the only person who believed that Janis was the one at fault. Besides using Cady to spy on the Plastics, she's also constantly and purposefully mispronouncing her name, even after Cady corrects her. Frankly, I hated Janis more than Regina.

Why didn't Principal Duvall suspect Regina?

• When Principal Duvall was talking to the Karen, Gretchen, and Cady about the "Burn Book" because Regina told him that their names weren't in the book, why didn't he suspect Regina could've been in on it too? He clearly knows that she's friends with Gretchen and Karen, and recently Cady.
  • Regina had been publicly kicked out of the Plastics at lunch. That would be big news for the teachers to discuss. And Regina was the last person added into the Burn Book so that matched up with her getting kicked out.
  • Well Regina did put on a good show of being upset about it. Duvall probably didn't think that she would be manipulative enough to turn in a book she primarily wrote in an attempt to frame her former friends. Alternately he did question her for a while - and then called the other three into the office, possibly not wanting them in with Regina because, as was already said, she'd been publicly kicked out of their clique.
• Principal Duvall is talking to Gretchen, Karen and Cady while Regina is out in the hallways throwing photocopies around. Why did no one care who it was that leaked the Burn Book, the principal literally says he "hope[s] no one else does see it"? Why did it not open up suspicion to Regina, who wasn't in the office with those three but was friends with them?
  • Like he said, why would she call herself a fugly slut? Besides, this movie is rife with cliques breaking up, so he could easily have thought (correctly) that Regina was no longer in with the plastics.
  • He probably would have suspected Regina under normal circumstances, and I'm sure he realised what she'd done after that whole scene. But remember, by the time he left his office all hell had broke loose. It didn't matter how the girls had seen the burn book, it just mattered that they had and he had to deal with the aftermath.
  • That was my issue too. Don't most schools have security cameras in the hallways? Why didn't Regina get busted for spreading all of the things they said?
    • Later schools maybe. But not really in 2004. Maybe the odd security camera outside to stop students misbehaving on the grounds, where teachers can't get to them. But since Tina Fey wrote this inspired partially by her own high school life, she definitely wouldn't consider CCTV in the hallways.
  • Also, if her intention was to frame her own friends, why make photocopies of the pages of the Burn Book in the first place, especially after she just claimed she found it in one of the stalls?
    • If she just gave the Burn Book to Principal Duvall, the other students would never have seen it, making her revenge completely pointless. Someone else could have easily made photocopies of the book before Regina found it in a stall in order to spread around what bitches Cady, Gretchen and Karen were.
    • Her revenge was in two parts: first she plants the book with the teachers, making it look as though the other three were responsible. THEN, she spreads the photocopied pages over the whole school. So with Cady, Karen and Gretchen in the principal's office as the prime suspects, this would have the effect of making them the most hated people in the entire school. She didn't care if the principal suspected her of anything - she wanted to destroy her former friends' reputations.
  • There is another aspect: after the dust settled, a bus hit Regina shortly after Janis humiliated her during the apology exercise. It's likely that since she had to spend some time in the hospital, long enough for her to nearly miss prom if not for Regina's sheer stubbornness, Duvall figured that she was punished enough since while she caused the riot, all of the girls were guilty of fighting to the point that several suffered minor injuries. Suspending her on top of giving her mandated medical leave would be on the grounds of "cruel and unusual punishment" and her parents might have sued if he had done so, saying it was kicking their daughter while she was down.

The epilogue

• Is anyone else kinda bothered by the epilogue? Karen, Regina and Cady all sort of do their own thing but Gretchen "finds a new clique and a new queen bee to serve". So, she's just as bad as she was before? How is that a happy ending?
  • It's realistic. Even with a school-wide "epiphany assembly", there are people who will still not "get it".
  • Wait until she gets to college. She'll probably fare a little better.
  • She is at the very least following someone that is not a bitch.
  • Trang Pak does seem like kind of a bitch, since her friend claimed she was scamming on her boyfriend, but Gretchen isn't going to magically get over her self-esteem issues over the course of a year and some people do genuinely like being the Beta Bitch in a friendship group. As long as Trang Pak isn't constantly chipping away Gretchen's self-esteem the way Regina in, she's probably slowly making her way towards being in a better place.
    • On that point, it's a small but telling detail that in Gretchen's last scene with the Asian clique, she is shown wearing her beloved white gold hoop earrings that Regina forbade her to wear. This may be a hint that she is gradually learning to come into her own, albeit in baby steps.

Why would Regina lie about Cady's bracelet?

• Rather insignificant detail, but what is the point in Regina telling Cady her bracelet is cute and that that girl's skirt is adorable if she hates them, but then never tells them she secretly hates them? She's supposed to be bitchy, so wouldn't it make more sense for her to outright tell the girl "that skirt is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen", or actually mean it when she says it's adorable? It doesn't hurt anyone for her to lie like that, and it doesn't do anyone any good, either, so what's the point?
  • As pointed out above there really wasn't anything happening with the cliques until the plot kicks in. This may have been one of the hints that Regina wasn't really as outwardly bitchy as she was made out to be. Cady would recognize the dis to her bracelet but that girl would never know the difference. Why alienate the people you are trying to control.
  • Theoretically, OP has a point, but there's no reason for Regina to be the queen bee of the school if no one listens to her. She doesn't just tell the Plastics that the skirt is ugly; she probably spreads the word around. Then the rest of the school's female population follows suit, and eventually this girl's vintage skirt is reviled and mocked, but she'll feel confused because even though everyone else hates it, she still likes it, and if Regina George liked her skirt, doesn't that mean it's cool? Doesn't it? Cognitive dissonance and low self-esteem results. It's psychological warfare.
  • There's a deleted scene that takes place during the dance in the girls bathroom, between Cady and Regina where Regina basically gives her blessing (as much as Regina can muster) about Cady/Aaron. She explains that when she was a kid her parents tried to give her old dollhouse to charity, Regina responded by throwing the dollhouse down the stairs thus destroying it. She says that she would rather it be broken than give it away, and that she had been treating Aaron the same way. I think this thinking goes along with why her character would give empty compliments.. She sees her "taste" as superior and her style as the best, when she encourages people to wear pieces she perceives as "ugly" she is keeping the attention on her and her "better" wardrobe. She is incapable of sharing, even sharing the attention of other student liking her clothes. Maybe a WMG but still.
  • Regina is just being vapid and fake. It probably gives her a real surge to tell the girl that the skirt is nice and then immediately tell Cady how ugly it is.
  • And it's pretty much established that it's just her way of doing things - she generally prefers sneakiness to being upfront.
  • Thepoint of that scene — as established by the immediate flashback to the bracelet compliment — is that Regina is so fake that even people she calls her friends can't trust that she's being sincere. If she'll publicly compliment someone's skirt and then immediately diss it in private, she's probably done the same to others, possibly including her friends. She is insincere, untrustworthy, and loyal to no one, and that's what Cady realized when she witnessed that.
  • Regina wants to be popular and liked. Who would like a girl who openly bullied everyone?

The mathletes

• Why does anyone care if Cady joins the Mathletes? They keep saying it's "social suicide" but in a school that size, who even notices four people who are good at math?
  • In every school, there seem to be a group of five or six people that get picked on even worse than everyone else. Mathletes = easy targets.
  • Plus the ringleader of the Mathletes seems to be Kevin G, who is a bit of a Jive Turkey. If Cady were in the Mathletes, it would probably be assumed she was one of his friends.
  • And in the early 2000s, acting dumb was considered cool. The Mathletes were thought of as geeks, and intelligence wasn't really praised until a few years later.

The Kalteen Bar Trick

• I understand that Cady was Becoming the Mask and acting like a bitch, but how is tricking Regina into eating bars that make her gain weight "bitchy?" I mean, this is Regina that we're talking about, and considering how she treats people in the movie, she kinda deserved it.
  • First this fight doesn't really involve Cady so nothing she does to the Plastics is in any measurable way justified. However the main reason her actions are shown as "bitchy" and wrong is that the entire moral of the film is that when you Pay Evil unto Evil all you do is start a Cycle of Revenge. There's an entire speech explaining that when Burn Book is revealed and the school utterly erupts. So even if Regina did deserve it Cady had no right to exact revenge that wasn't hers and ultimately Janis simply causes a larger problem by seeking revenge deservedly or not.
  • Two wrongs don't make a right. While Regina was in the wrong for deliberately making a pass at a boy she knew Cady liked, that doesn't justify Cady a) splitting the couple up, b) tricking Regina into gaining weight or c) manipulating her friends into turning on her. And Cady's speech towards the end says that ruining Regina's life did not improve her own at all.
  • Not to be a Debbie Downer, but there are serious implications to making a girl of Regina's age think she's gaining weight uncontrollably even while she's actively trying to diet. Cady's prank could have very easily driven Regina to a serious eating disorder. That's beyond merely bitchy. Thankfully, this is a lighthearted comedy so it didn't take that dark turn...but in real life, it very easily might have done.

The Plastics' popularity

• I don't get it. Janis says that "the Plastics think that everybody is in love with them, but actually, everybody hates them." If this is true that nobody likes Regina and Cady, why did Regina always win the Spring Fling and why did Cady win the Spring Fling that year if people didn't like them?
  • "I'm voting for Regina George, because she got hit by that bus." "I'm voting for Cady Heron, because she pushed her." Love, hate, and popularity are complicated. Widely loathed people can still be popular or famous, and attention is still attention whether it's positive or negative. That was part of the theme of the movie. As stated on the main page, "The whole movie is arguably a Deconstructive Parody of [the Alpha Bitch trope], demonstrating how a girl can be so simultaneously loved, feared, and hated by the rest of the student body."
  • Cady says as much in her narration. She says that she both hated Regina and still wanted her to like her. So as much as the school may have feared or hated her, they still craved her approval. And Janis is the one saying that everyone hates them, and she's got a personal vendetta against Regina.
  • Much like power, popularity is where people think it is. The Plastics's popularity is memetic. While many people might despise them, they might think they're the only ones that think that way.
  • In the compilation of clips where students describe Regina right after her introduction, they all seem to be impressed by her (one girl even straight up says that Regina is flawless). Even the girl who says Regina punched her in the face said it was awesome. It's very likely that even though she may be disliked, people are still in awe of her.

Cady not admitting her mistakes in front of the other girls

• Am I the only one who didn't have a problem with Cady not admitting to starting a rumor that Ms. Norbury sold drugs in front of the other girls? Now I can understand Cady confessing in private, but in front of the other females? That's a very stupid thing to do. Why is it that Cady refusing to confess to starting a rumor about Ms. Norbury treated as such a big deal?
  • I was literally just thinking about this today. As much as I love this movie, some of the ways it tries to be like "Omg look at what a horrible person Cady has become and how everything is her fault" are total BS. Ms. Norbury, knowing full well what Cady wrote in the Burn Book, asks her during the gym assembly whether there's anything she'd like to own up to, and she says "No". Ms. Norbury says, "I'm really disappointed in you, Cady." I'm sorry, but unless you're an attorney interrogating a witness or suspect in a courtroom, if you ask a high schooler, in front of at least a hundred of her peers (many of whom already hate her) and several teachers, whether she did something that could get her suspended or even expelled, you deserve to be lied to.
  • Ms Norbury didn't know that Cady wrote that specific thing about her. She just knew that Cady was lying about something. And Cady could have said yes and then asked to speak in private. But she just pretended she had done nothing wrong at all.
    • Norbury knew Cady started the rumor from the moment she saw the Xerox of the Burn Book page—before she even knew that there was a Burn Book and that Cady had been accused of writing it. Her look of realization was from remembering her "pusher" conversation with Cady and making connections. For Cady's part, she was still trying to figure out a way to convince people that she wasn't responsible for the Burn Book (since, well, she wasn't). She was between a rock and a hard place, things were happening fast, there wasn't a lot of time to think, and there really wasn't a response that wouldn't end in even more hurt feelings. She didn't do the right thing, but panicking and freezing is a pretty realistic reaction to the situation, and in the end, her conscience got to her.
    • No, she did know she wrote that specific thing, or at least was involved in it getting in the Burn Book; and she was fishing for a confession. And "could have said yes and asked to speak in private" doesn't cut it. First of all, who thinks clearly enough when put on the spot like that to think of such a solution? Second of all, Ms. Norbury was just as capable of asking the question in private instead of creating that situation; so let's place that burden where it belongs. The bottom line is, in that particular situation, lying was at the very least a completely excusable course of action, if not outright justified. It certainly wasn't the Moral Event Horizon the movie made it out to be.
    • Given that even Regina is eventually redeemed, one can argue that there is no such thing as Moral Event Horizon in Mean Girls Universe (and if there is, Cady had probably crossed it earlier). And I concur with the previous troper: it is unlikely that Ms Norbury knew that it was Cady who had written that thing in the diary.
    • It isn't "unlikely that she knew"; she did know that Cady either wrote it or spread it as a rumour. That's why she fished for a confession, and why she said she was disappointed when Cady wouldn't own up. Anyway, the point is that it was made out to seem like a horrible thing that she lied — not technically a Moral Event Horizon (which is irredeemable by definition; please excuse the imprecise use of it earlier), but it's still clearly portrayed as an awful thing that's supposed to emphasize how cowardly and dishonest she's become. It is true that she'd become cowardly and dishonest, but that scene was a horrible way to try to highlight that, because in that particular situation lying was absolutely excusable.
    • She certainly did fish for a confession, but not necessarily for the confession. As in, recall that everyone at school had something to be sorry for, and that was the entire point of the exercise. Cady, whereas, pretended to have done nothing wrong, which is, frankly speaking, rather improbable, drug rumor or not. Ms. Norbury didn't have to be fishing specifically for that particular confession to be disappointed in Cady for not opening up and owning up to anything at all.
  • And remember that Regina had been publicly kicked out of the Plastics at lunch? Perhaps Ms Norbury was hoping that Cady and the girls would discuss their reasons for that happening.
• When the October 3rd scene comes up, later during that day's class Aaron Samuels asks Cady if she wants to go to the Halloween party that night. Which means Halloween is not on October 31st, but October 3rd in the movie.
  • It's actually much later in the month than that. During that sequence, Cady says they first spoke when he asked her what day it was. Then she says "two weeks later, we spoke again". This means that the party is closer to Halloween.
  • Plus, Halloween (or any other holiday) parties don't always take place on the holiday itself. A lot of times they don't, for instance if the holiday falls on a weekday, or people have other plans with family/friends on the day itself.

Cady's speech

• Why did the principal have a problem with Cady's acceptance speech at the Spring Fling ("You know, some people just take the crown and go.")? If anything, he should be applauding Cady's for apologizing because of all the drama (even an investigation!) that the Burn Book caused.
  • This troper assumed it was a joke about people making some big moral speech to a crowd at the end of a film.
  • It was a parody of the trope where people make a public speech about the Very Important Lesson they learned. In real life, this trope is usually internal and might take place sometimes after the event itself, but a private, personal revelation does not make for a very satisfying conclusion to your teen comedy. The principal was Trope Savvy enough to recognize it.
  • Remember Gretchen's "I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me" speech? Given the Alpha Bitch Cady had become beforehand, he had good reason to worry she might say such a thing too.

Principle Duvall's injury

• When Principal Duvall calls Cady, Karen, and and Gretchen to his office about the Burn Book he has his wrist bandaged up with no explanation of how he got it. Huh? How did he sprain his wrist?! We never saw him injure it!
  • He has a cast on his wrist throughout the whole film. Tim Meadows got hurt before filming, so they wrote it in. In his first scene he holds up his wrist and says "my carpal tunnel came back" to Ms Norbury.
    • This troper believes that they shouldn't have even had to explain it. In real life, people sprain, break and strain things in ways that aren't always relevant to the "plot," and it always strikes me as odd when people in movies don't randomly run into things, step on their own shoelaces and, yeah, have injuries that have nothing to do with the plot. It was, however, clever for them to mention that it was a condition that can be recurring — the movie takes place over at least six months and he is seen to have the cast on in both September and closer to Spring.

Regina's accident

• How was Regina not dead from the bus hitting her while going so fast? For that matter, how did the bus driver not see her and/or not even try to slow down?
  • Vehicles have to slow down in school zones.
  • The only way to explain it is that the accident we saw wasn't what actually happened. Cady just psyched us out like she did with the 'junior Plastics' at the end. And you should know that the bigger the vehicle, the harder it is to slow down. So if a girl runs out onto a previously empty road, a bus won't stop right away when the driver hits the brakes. That's kind of why we have crossings and traffic lights - so drivers can prepare to slow down.
• This troper has a hard time believing Regina's spine could have healed enough to allow her to play sports.
  • We don't know how badly she fractured her spine. There are guidelines on when, and under what circumstances, professional athletes should return to play after a spinal injury, so apparently spinal fractures aren't necessarily a death sentence for playing sports.

The Burn Book

• At the point in the movie where the burn book is "revealed", Cady hadn't been at the school for a full academic year. So why was everyone so willing to accept that she'd written everything in the book? Ms. Norbury questions her about why she didn't turn the others in and Cady says she's trying to not gossip any more, but even the students seem to take it as fact that this new girl not only knew about minor things that happened years ago, but also had access to copies of previous years' yearbooks that she could just cut up without anybody caring.
  • Cady admitted to it publicly. And they're teenagers. Maybe if they took the time to think about it, they'd realise that. But we see Cady getting shunned by the school right after the incident - meaning it was still fresh in everyone's mind. And she ends up getting voted queen of the Spring Fling, so some people probably did realise.
  • At that point the teachers may have just been glad that someone had taken responsibility for the book. Even though logically Cady wouldn’t have had the knowledge or resources to write everything, they may have overlooked that just because they were relieved that the whole burn book saga was over.
  • If they did question Cady about how she got the resources for the book, maybe she just came up with some excuse that she’d been given copies of old yearbooks after asking her friends for them, and that she’d heard rumours or gossip around the school.
• When the teachers found out about the burn book the girls were all at school. Would it have been difficult for the teachers to source handwritten work from the Plastics, and match up the handwriting from the work to the book? It would have gotten all the girls in trouble, but it would at least have meant that Cady wouldn’t have taken full blame.

Regina's father

• So what exactly happened to Regina's dad? We meet her mom but never her dad and he's never even brought up. My headcanon is that at some point he left her or died and that was her Start of Darkness, but of course that's just a guess.
  • We did see Regina's dad in the movie. When she's dressed up for Halloween, he's there looking sad at how skimpy her costume is. I'll assume - given that the mother doesn't appear to have a job or at least works part time - that he has a very important high paying job that means he's often away on business or doing other things that pay for their Big Fancy House and Regina's car and expensive wardrobe.
  • It's obvious from his expression that he is distressed by Regina's behavior, but it seems like he also has no idea how to raise a teenage girl or say no to her. Rather than learn, he's completely abdicated that responsibility to Regina's mother, who herself seems to vicariously live out an ideal adolescence through Regina. It's not a great recipe for raising an emotionally mature teenager.
  • Gretchen lets it slip to Cady at the Christmas talent show that Regina's mother and father don't sleep in the same bed anymore. This would be around 2 months after we see him in the Halloween scenes, it’s possible in that timeframe the two of them decided to separate, or that any issues between the two of them escalated to the point that it threatened their relationship.
  • Given we see Regina’s mom being incredibly encouraging and enabling of Regina’s lifestyle, whereas her father (from the instance we see of him looking upset at Regina’s Halloween costume) maybe doesn’t approve, could that have been a cause for argument between them?

Gretchen in public school?

• Why would the inventor of Toaster Strudels need to put his daughter in public school? Surely the resident Rich Bitch would be just one of many in some ritzy private academy?
  • Plenty of kids with rich parents go to public schools. It might be because the parents do want to save money (even if you're rich, a good private school can still be rather expensive), though sometimes the kid goes to public school for the general environment. More exposure to different types of people and whatnot.
  • In some areas of the country, public schools can be just as good (and just as expensive as, due to a combination of taxes and books) as private schools.
  • This movie was apparently set in the North Shore of Chicago, an area known for very wealthy residents and some of the best public schools in the nation. Private schools in that area are not significantly better than the public schools, and if the parents don't want to ship the children off to boarding school...it makes a great deal of sense that Gretchen goes to public school.
  • Many of the top schools in America are actually public schools—only 10% of American kids actually go to private schools (and not every who goes to a private school comes from a rich family) while 87% go to public schools (the remaining 3% are probably homeschooled or something). Also, statistically-speaking, public school teachers make way more money than private school teachers.
  • There's also a bit of a difference between being wealthy and being well-known (I mean, do you know who invented Toaster Strudel?). The child of a famous person is likely to attend an exclusive school not only because they can afford it, but for a level of privacy and personal safety. At public school, everyone knows Gretchen's rich, but no one's likely to bug her for her dad's autograph in the hallways.
  • It's equally possible that Gretchen simply asked to attend public school because that's where all her friends are.

Cady's accent

• Why does Cady speak English with a perfect American accent when she's spent her entire life in Africa?
  • Cady didn't spend her whole life in Africa, just all of her school years. She could have been five or six when she went over, so English isn't a problem. As for the accent, she could have picked that up from her parents.
    • As a Britain-born Oop North and raised in Spain for my schooling years, I can tell you people do tend to lose their original accent after a while. Just chalk it up to Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
    • When she was in Africa she spoke the native language when talking to others. However she still spoke English with her parents at home. She learned how to speak English first and so she kept her accent from speaking with them.
    • But English is a lingua franca in South Africa and other parts of the continent, a dialect that is very different from Midwestern American English. If Cady spoke to anyone other than her parents, it would rub off eventually. Not Even Bothering with the Accent, I say.
    • As a Filipino-born American, having come to U.S. at age 12, my accent actually changes depending on who I'm talking to. The natural accent I came with remains intact when I'm addressing family or other Tagalog speaking Filipinos. My accent becomes more Americanized when I talk to my friends out of habit, having forced a more Americanized accent when I first arrived. Because I managed to force my way into an accent, after the first few months upon my arrival, I naturally switch between the two accents, and now it's a subconscious thing with me. That being said, assuming Cady's parents had native English speaking coworkers, what could have happened was that she spoke a certain way with her parents' coworkers, while she spoke another way to the African children she played with. Or another possibility is that she mimics her parents' accents when they reached the United States, having caught on that her parents' accents are more common in the country than the South African accent she had developed. With that possibility, it could be that she naturally a South African accent, and then after forcing an American accent, it eventually would become her natural accent. While how long it would take to change her accent is difficult to pinpoint, as everyone's different, it is believable that she speaks with the accent she speaks with in the movie because it's probably a forced accent.
  • Maybe she didn't have a lot of friends in Africa and she mainly spoke to her parents? If she spoke to them in English most of the time (and from what we see of them in the movie, we could assume that) then that's how. And she could have watched a lot of American television and movies and picked the accent up that way.
  • Fun fact - Charlize Theron grew up speaking Afrikaans but didn't learn English until she was in America, and so had an American accent whenever she spoke English. Cady speaks in a different language to the 'Unfriendly Black Hotties' clique (forgive me, I don't specifically which language) so perhaps she was bilingual and spoke English just with her parents. As her speech patterns would have been influenced by them, she'd have an American accent.

No dresscode at school?

• How did the Plastics get away with wearing such short skirts in high school? I didn't go to a particularly conservative school, but we still had a dress code. (Moreover, how did all the girls get away with cutting cup-revealing holes in their blouses when most schools will call girls out for letting their bra straps accidentally slip down their arms?)
  • I noticed that when Ms. Norbury asks who has felt victimised by Regina, the teachers and even Mr Duvall raise their hands too. So it might be that Regina is so effective as an Alpha Bitch that even the teachers don't question her. As for the cut blouses, we only see them wearing the clothes like that for one afternoon - so maybe the teachers did forbid them. It's just that they didn't have replacement tops they could change into that day.

Janis and Damian should've intervented

• Don't you think that it would have been better if Janis and Damian set up an intervention for Cady and told her about how she's essentially allowed the popularity to get to her head? I mean the infamous What the Hell, Hero? scene with Cady, Janis, and Damian rubbed many fans of this movie the wrong way since it made Janis come off as a hypocrite. An intervention would have made Janis much more sympathetic.
  • This is more tied to the difference in attitudes towards Janis's character between the 2000s and more recent times. In the 90s and 2000s, there was a real rejection of traditional gender norms - where the motto was that it was empowering to be a Tomboy or non conformist. So to a 2004 audience, Janis would be seen as sympathetic because she's not girly or plastic like the others (Real Women Don't Wear Dresses was a bigger deal back then than today). Yes it would have made Janis more sympathetic but that wouldn't have been the mindset of the writing back then.
  • And to be fair to Janis, this is the one part of the film where she is somewhat in the right. Cady turned down the chance to go her art show because she had a thing with her parents. She got out of the thing with her parents so she could have the party. So from Janis's perspective, it looks like Cady either a) lied about the Madison thing to avoid spending time with her friends or b) didn't invite her friends to the party so as not to harm her Queen Bee image. Janis for once had a reason to feel majorly snubbed, since Cady was forgetting her old friends for the sake of popularity.
    • Original asker here: I’m not saying that Janis was in the wrong to call Cady out. In fact, it was nice to see Cady get some Tough Love because of the horrible thing she did to Ms. Norbury. I’m just saying that since the narrative never called Janis out on the mean things she did (while she was a hypocrite for calling Cady out for her bad deeds), it did a big disservice to character, hence a lot of fans’ hate for her character. Thanks for the answer, though.

What Cady should've done

• Once Cady became the new Alpha Bitch couldn't she just make it a rule that "plastics are pretty and smart?" She could easily make an exception for Karen for being part of "The old rules". The result is Cady can now be open about her math skills, "no hypocrisy, I'm smart too" and the plastics are more exclusive than ever.
  • Sadly at that point of the movie, Cady pretty much abandoned who she truly was because she was happy that she was a major influence and she had so much power. You're also forgetting that Cady dumbed herself down just to get Aaron Samuels to talk to her, thus abandoning her "nerd" persona. Also, nobody would have taken Cady "pretty and smart" rule seriously, even if she did make an exception for Karen.
    • Agreed. The group rules may be flexible, but they still have to kinda reflect the original group values, of which academic success was not seen to be a major part. And that there's a real resilient demand for these values is actually proven by the fact that the Plastics recreated themselves as a group even after all the protagonists have graduated. If it had all been as straightforward as "the queen bee makes the rules, period", Regina would have never been kicked out in the first place.
  • And didn't things happen rather quickly once Cady was the new Queen Bee? Regina is kicked out, Cady has a party immediately and Regina enacts her revenge the very next school day. So that portion of the film happened in a week at most.

Coach Carr and Cool Asians girls

• I know some teenagers wouldn't understand the serious implications of a teacher and student/minor relationships. The Plastics, Damien, Cady didn't take the situation seriously when they knew the Coach was making out with them. However, what do the girls in the Cool Asians clique see in Coach Carr? He's old enough to be their father, not physically attractive, nor does he seem to have a charming personality. I just figured teenagers would more likely to agree to the relationship if the teacher was young and/or attractive at least?
  • People have their own preferences or things that turn them on. We don't see enough of Coach Carr beyond his goofy health class snippets to confirm otherwise, but maybe he was very good at seducing impressionable younger girls. It only seemed to be two specific girls, and maybe they both had a preference for types like him? Maybe they were turned on by the idea of it being such a taboo? Maybe he came onto them and they felt they had to reciprocate? It could be any number of reasons.
  • It's either just a gag, they could've slept with him for better grades (maybe so they don't have to walk an extra mile for PE or something) or Coach Carr blackmailed them. (unlikely since they "fight" over him").

No dating exes

• Why does Regina have a rule that no one in her coterie can date her exes? Is it just an If I Can't Have You… type thing (i.e if she can't have a relationship with some guy, none of her friends can either)?
  • In a deleted scene, Regina tells Cady that she had a dollhouse when she was younger; despite her not being interested in it, she threw it down the stairs to break it because she didn’t want anyone else to have it. Anything that’s ever been hers either has to stay hers, or no one else is allowed it - boys included.
  • Take into consideration that Regina is the Queen Bee, an image and reputation that she wants to maintain. If she broke up with someone, and then they dated one of the others in the clique, it would reflect as though the other members were more desirable than Regina.

Who saw Cady ‘push’ Regina?

• During the scene where Cady and Regina are arguing right before the latter gets hit by the bus, it’s possible to see several girls in a crowd that’s followed them out. Notably, Janis, Gretchen and Karen are at the front of the crowd, and would’ve had the best view. Could any of those three have been responsible for the rumour that Cady pushed Regina? Janis was already on bad terms with Cady, and Gretchen and Karen had just found out that they’d been manipulated by someone who they considered a good friend.
  • Rumors develop organically as they spread. At any given point in its propagation, a misinterpretation, a misheard word, or a slight embellishment can make a rumor mutate into a form very different from the truth. It doesn't necessarily require deliberate deception from an eye witness for people to get the wrong idea.

Other

• During the phone call scene, how were Cady and Gretchen able to hear Karen and Regina, but Regina wasn't able to hear them on the other line(s)?
• During the apology scene, why did the girl in the wheelchair fall back to be caught by the rest of the girls? It would’ve been a big health hazard, and for the staff to allow it was pretty irresponsible.
• So, how did the girl that wanted to make a cake of rainbows and smiles get there? Did news of the riot and confession meeting get out somehow?
  • Perhaps she has a friend who goes to that school and they texted her about the riot/confession meeting.
  • The musical answers this as the girl was there for a track meet that was meeting the day the Burn Book got released and just happened to wander in.
• How does Aaron not know he’s bad at math? Surely he must be getting tests back with grades that tell him otherwise.
  • We only really hear that from Cady’s perspective, and she has a notable talent for the subject. It’s possible that Aaron’s test scores were enough for him to get passable grades, but compared to Cady he’s nowhere near as good at it.
  • Does Aaron actually claim to be good at the subject during the film? By the point he’s tutoring Cady, all he knows is that her grades are worse than his, he doesn’t know that she’s failing on purpose. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just helping out a friend who he’s been lead to believe is doing worse than he is.
• Mrs. Norbury mentions that all the working out shown in Cady’s math work is all correct, it’s just the answers that are wrong. Would Cady not at least get partial credit for showing the correct working methods to the math problems?

Cady's teachers

• If Cady has Spanish on her class schedule then why does one of her teachers yell at her in German lin the "dumb rules" montage?
  • Perhaps she was in the wrong classroom.

Musical-Specific Headscratchers

• So, in 'Stop', Damien makes a big deal about his summer fling, Phillip having to kiss a girl onstage as part of his role in 'Anything Goes'. However, at arts camp, Phillip apparently played the Beast in 'Beauty And The Beast' a role that would presumably have involved him having to kiss whichever girl was playing Belle, so why is Damien making such a huge deal over the girl playing Hope Harcourt?
  • I assumed Damien and Phillip weren't involved when arts camp started, and Damien wasn't as invested in the relationship when Phillip was kissing the girl playing Belle. By the time Anything Goes rolled around, Damien was super into Phillip and thus more prone to being jealous.

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