Ten years ago this week, Mark Waters’ Mean Girls was released in theaters. It was instantly a critical success, is still beloved, and has gone on to be something of a cult hit in the ensuing years, periodically playing at repertory and midnight screenings across the country. I haven’t spoken to anyone who dislikes Mean Girls. Some even call it one of the best films of 2004 (perhaps not a difficult task; despite a smattering of greats, 2004 was a notoriously bad year for films).
Movies about teenagers are common, but good movies that deal with the actual concerns and language of teenagers are frustratingly sparse. It seems that we’re currently living in a cinematic landscape that is so heavily inundated with vague comic book archetypes and bland magical fantasies that finding real, human teenagers is an unexpected delight. 2014 was a year that saw the release of Divergent, a teen fantasy about a young girl who wants to join a futuristic paramilitary force, despite their obvious bullying and her obvious inclination for gentleness. This is a movie (along with many others, I’m not just picking on Divergent) that panders directly to the teenage impulse to believe that you are the most important being in the universe, all thanks to some recently-revealed natural quality you already possessed and didn’t have to work for.
Mean Girls deals with real teenage concerns using flip wit, intelligent characters, and no small amount of actual joy. It’s a film about teenagers that doesn’t bother to pander to teenagers. Screenwriter Tina Fey made a comedy that seems close to her heart. Mean Girls feels personal and personable. Many real-life teenage girls are concerned with status and reputation, and while the characters in Mean Girls are clearly exaggerated, they also feel like complete human beings. We look at Mean Girls today, and it almost seems like a delightful fluke. The fun and relatable exception to the hyperactive would-be teen heroes of so many other damn movies.
So no wonder so many people like Mean Girls. It’s bright, brisk, and funny. The characters may be broad, but they feel grounded. And when making a film about teenagers, this seems to be very rare. This is why the films of John Hughes are considered to be classics today. Back in the 1980s, people merely liked them. Today, we can see them for how dynamic and rich they actually were. Yes, I favorably compared Mean Girls to the canon of John Hughes, and I would place Mean Girls next to something like The Breakfast Club any day. It’s like a John Hughes movie with Mark Waters’ talent for flip camp mixed in; there is definitely an ultra-pink, winky layer of satire bubbling under the surface of this and of all Mark Waters’ films (be sure to catch the maligned Vampire Academy someday).
It also may be difficult to recall, now that she has the stink of bad public behavior and tabloid-ready antics hanging about her, but I 2004, Lindsay Lohan (only 17 at the time) was poised to take over the world. Lohan is still, to this day, a daring and talented actress, whose luster has only been dimmed by substances, rehab, plastic surgery, public tantrums, and crazy parenting. When she made Mean Girls, Lohan was still at the height of her powers. She showed nothing but promise.
And it’s easy to see why. Lohan was a beautiful, sparkling screen presence. She had an ease and affability of the girl you always had a crush on in high school, but were always too afraid to talk to. She seemed so nice and capable. In Mean Girls she plays an innocent who had never been to a proper public school (she was home-schooled by her missionary parents in Africa), and you can buy that she is innocent, cultured, intelligent, and – get this – interesting. Mean Girls is about how the catty, status-obsessed mindset of the modern teenage girl can easily and unfortunately overwhelm the natural instincts that most teenagers actually do have: that of being smart and friendly. Lohan is friendly in this film. She smiles. She is robust both in character and in body.
The following year, Lohan would star in Herbie Fully Loaded, but by then, her off-screen antics were getting more attention than her work. By 2007, she would try to play “edgy” in stinkers like Chapter 27 and I Know Who Killed Me. In recent years, she’s starred in increasingly smutty and low-profile (and awful) movies like The Canyons, and tales of her notorious unreliability have taken precedent over her acting. I am still rooting for Lohan, mostly because of films like Mean Girls. It’s been ten years, but her promise remains. Someday she just may pull herself out of the last decade of near self-ruin and display her already-in-plain-sight talents again. Hang in there, Lindsay. You can still make it.
Mean Girls was also a film about, well, girls. Hollywood has an embarrassing habit of behaving surprised and shocked every time a female-centric film is a hit. Bridesmaids was huge?? Whoda thunk it?? And while fewer female-centric films are hits than their male counterparts (how many superhero films are about women? that’s what I thought), this is no sign that people are not interested in seeing them. Here’s what you do, nameless male-populated Hollywood machine: hire funny, smart, talented women. There are many of them, probably not getting paid as much as you, working at the studio. They have good ideas too. And while a male did direct Mean Girls, Tina Fey famously wrote the screenplay. It’s a screenplay that deals with female characters, girl concerns, and Platonic female relationships with other females. And everyone likes it, male and female. It wasn’t lightning in a bottle. It wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t some ineffable formula that you hadn’t tried before. It was just a good film.
So a decade after the fact, Mean Girls is still as great as you remember. It works because of its earnestness and charm. Its ease. Its wit. The affability of its lead actresses; Lohan is great, but credit should also be given to Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried for playing the cats so well, and to Lizzy Caplan for playing the embittered Goth.
Mean Girls. Still fetch, even ten years later.
Witney Seibold is the head film critic for Nerdist, and a contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
