Movie 11: Mean Girls (2004)

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Yes, I’m incorrectly tagging this as “chicklit” and “teen angst,” but I don’t feel like making any new tagging categories and those two just might work.

Mean Girls is actually pretty funny. It’s not as cheesy and annoying as it could have been. I already hated “the plastics” as soon as I saw the cover and I didn’t think I could bear more than an hour of them. As it turns out, I could. That’s how good this movie was. Maybe it’s because I’m easily amused, but I really did enjoy the high school humor. I only wonder if the girl who plays Regina’s sister has been scarred for life after the filming.

Lindsay Lohan still looks decent here. Despite her increasing notoriety in the recent years, she’s actually a pretty good actress. I mean, she’s so believable I didn’t laugh at all when her character turns out to be a girl who’s smart enough to get into a calculus class. She should have learned to pronounce “zoologist” correctly, though. I think that’s going to haunt her for life. Not that it’s among her worst problems.

I do wish they had picked younger actresses to play the rest of the main characters. Being only about nineteen at the time, Lindsay can still pass as a high school junior (somewhat), but the others are obviously way too old to be in high school. In fact, I checked the girls’ birthdates and found out that they’re all older than I am, especially the girl who plays Regina. And I was already in college when this movie came out

They are more believable as “the plastics” as Sharpay and her clique are in High School Music 2, though. I don’t know if there’s something about the cameras that the Disney Channel uses that makes all of its shows annoying or if the girl who plays Sharpay is just a terrible actress, but she pissed me off so much every time she appeared on the screen. If I were a director I would pick Regina over Sharpay to be a mean girl any time, old-looking or not.

Another thing that bothers me is the sexual content of this movie. Was it really necessary for that calculus teacher to take off her shirt with her sweater? The way the girls dress bother me. Isn’t there some sort of dress code in high school? I highly doubt a real high school would allow the girls to perform Jingle Bell Rock like that every single year. Then again, this is a movie, not the real world. I get it.

Finally, I just want to point out that the question asked in the final round for the math competition is idiotic. I may not know about calculus as much as I should, but a question about limits can have only what, four possible answers? In the real world, that other girl couldn’t possibly miss a simple question like that. She is the one with the glasses and the unplucked eyebrows. She probably spends all her spare time studying.