Mean Girls

Mean Girls
File:Mean Girls movie.jpg
Directed by	Mark Waters
Written by	Tina Fey (screenplay) Rosalind Wiseman (book)
Produced by	Lorne Michaels
Starring	Lindsay Lohan Rachel McAdams Lacey Chabert Amanda Seyfried Daniel Franzese Tina Fey
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	April 30, 2004 (United States)
Running time	97 min.
Language	English
Budget	$17,000,000

Mean Girls is a 2004 film written by (and co-starring) Tina Fey. It stars Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert and featured several Saturday Night Live cast members, including not only Tina Fey but also Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. It has been praised as being Lindsay Lohan's true break-out role.

Director Mark Waters described the movie as "Clueless meets Heathers," the latter of which was written by his brother, Daniel Waters. Mean Girls is based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls. Similar to its inspiration Clueless and Heathers, the film was a surprise sleeper hit, and generated much discussion upon its release on high school cliques and bullying, despite the film being a light-hearted approach to those subjects.

Plot

Cady Heron (pronounced Cay-Dee) was born in the US but raised up by her parents in Africa. At age 16, she moves back to the US and attends North Shore High School in Evanston, Illinois, her first public school, since she was home schooled all her life. On the first day, she is surprised by all the rules and restrictions that have been placed on her. She struggles to fit in on the first day but eventually meets two students, Janis Ian and Damian, best friends who decide to show Cady around. They offer her insight into the cliques and hierarchy of the school.

One of the groups is known as "The Plastics" – a group of popular in the school – Karen Smith; Gretchen Weiners; and Regina George. Karen Smith is known as the dumb one, Gretchen is the one who is known for knowing everyone's business, and Regina is the "Queen Bee." Janis hates Regina with a passion, which Cady later finds out stems from the fact that Regina spread rumors about her sexuality. One day, Cady is invited to sit with them, and then to eat lunch with them for the rest of the week, although she initially refuses. However, Janis Ian and Damian convince Cady to eat lunch with the Plastics to report back to them everything the Plastics say and do. For example, Cady is introduced to a book known as "The Burn Book", in which they make detailed profiles about the other girls in their school.

At the same time, Cady develops a crush on Aaron Samuels, who is a senior in her 12th grade calculus class. Gretchen and Karen find out about the crush, and tell Cady that Aaron was Regina's ex-boyfriend, and therefore off limits. Although Gretchen promises to keep Cady's a crush a secret, Regina finds out. Rather than telling Cady that Aaron is off limits, Regina offers to help Cady win Aaron. As a result, Cady begins to talk to Aaron more and more during their calculus class, so that he invites her to a Halloween party. At the party, Regina finds Aaron (after promising to talk to him about Cady), and kisses him, while Cady watches. This causes Cady distress, and she decides to leave the Plastics. Janis, however, stops her, convincing Cady to keep hanging out with The Plastics. Together they plan to try to ruin Regina's life, therefore extracting revenge, by trying to take away the things that make her popular – her attractive physique, her boyfriend and her friends.

Initially, their plans fail, but after some time, things begin to go their way. Regina wishes to lose a few pounds, and so Cady gives her "Kalteen" bars, which are supposed to help someone gain weight, under the guise of them being diet bars. Cady also begins to talk to Aaron once again, pretending that she is horrible at math (when in actuality, she is quite good and is asked to join the Mathletes several times). Finally, Cady is able to manipulate Gretchen and Karen into getting angry at Regina, so that eventually Regina is kicked out of the Plastics. However, while Cady was working hard to get back at Regina, she ended up getting sucked into the life of being a Plastic: she begins to act exactly like Regina; much to Janis' displeasure.

After the Plastics kick Regina out of their group, Cady automatically becomes the most popular girl at the school. She loses her friendship with Janis and Damian, who now hate her just as much as they hated Regina. Cady throws a small get together at her house that becomes a huge party. Slightly drunk, Cady tries to make a move on Aaron, but sees through her, calling her a "clone" of Regina and rejecting her advances. Regina also happened to see the scene take place between Aaron and Cady, and realizes that Cady has been ruining her life. Regina decides to now ruin Cady's life. She gives "The Burn Book" to her principal at school, Mr. Duvall, and frames the Plastics for writing it. However, before she hands in the book, she makes numerous photocopies of its pages. Handing these out to the whole school, all the girls start to riot against each other.

Outraged, Mr. Duvall starts a workshop, where the girls receive an attitude makeover. Cady's math teacher, Ms. Norbury, is asked to take charge of the workshop. The girls are made to confess the bad things they have done and said about their peers. Janis, still angry at Cady, tells everyone about how Cady, Damian and herself thought up a nasty plan to ruin Regina's life. Regina gets mad and walks out of the school and Cady attempts to say sorry, but Regina refuses to accept her apology. Regina is then hit by a school bus, but survives.

The following day, rumors about Regina's accidents starts to float around school. There was a rumor that Cady pushed Regina in front of the bus which makes Cady's own parents distrust her. At school, Cady ends up all alone with no friends. She enters her math class later that day to discover that her math teacher, Ms. Norbury, was taken away because of accusations of her being a drug seller was found in the book. Also in the Burn Book was a page about a coach of the school, Coach Carr, having an affair with two of his students which turned out to be true, which forced the school to check each accusation of the book. Cady decides to step up and admit that she wrote the book (although she only wrote the rumor about Ms. Norbury selling drugs). She gets into a lot of trouble, and Ms. Norbury punishes Cady herself by having her join the Mathletes.

Although Cady is grounded by her father for the rumors about Regina and for her failing grade in math (since she dumbed herself down to get Aaron's attention), she leaves her house to attend a Mathlete competition. At the same time, the rest of the school prepares for the Spring Fling, a school dance, similar to junior prom. At the competition, Cady comes to some realizations about life, and manages to win the competition in the last minute. This is a turning point for Cady as Ms. Norbury forgives her. After the competition, The Mathletes attend the Spring Fling, where Cady is announced as Queen of Spring Fling. Cady thinks she doesn't deserve the title after all she has done and breaks her crown into small pieces to give to other students. She then makes amends with the Plastics, Janis and Damian, and Aaron.

The following school year, The Plastics break up with Gretchen joining a different clique, Karen presenting the morning weather announcements (her supposedly only talent) and Regina taking up lacrosse. Cady is now dating Aaron (who attends Northwestern) and is friends with everyone in the senior class.

Cast

Actor	Role
Lindsay Lohan	Cady Heron
Rachel McAdams	Regina George
Lacey Chabert	Gretchen Wieners
Amanda Seyfried	Karen Smith
Tina Fey	Ms. Sharon Norbury
Lizzy Caplan	Janis Ian
Daniel Franzese	Damian
Jonathan Bennett	Aaron Samuels
Tim Meadows	Mr. Duvall
Amy Poehler	Mrs. George
Rajiv Surendra	Kevin Gnapoor
Ana Gasteyer	Mrs. Heron
Neil Flynn	Mr. Heron

Reception

In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young girls watch it like a reality television show. It is much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing." Characters and behaviors in the movie are ostensibly based on Upper Darby High School in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, as well as on the book Queen Bees And Wannabes.

Three years after its original release date in 2004, Mean Girls is still one of the top downloaded movies on iTunes.

Box office

The movie was declared an instant success after its opening weekend made the film $24.4 million and the #1 film in America at 2,839 theaters. Due to strong word of mouth, Mean Girls had a long life at the box office and finished its run with $86,058,055 in the United States. The film was later nominated for the prestigious WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Trivia

• The movie Janis and Damian are watching when Cady, distressed from the Halloween party, bursts in, is Friday the 13th Part 2.
• Amy Poehler is only 5 years older than Rachel McAdams, who plays her daughter. Although Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams are portrayed as classmates, McAdams is actually 10 years older than Lohan.
• A couple of years ago, Regina made everyone sign a petition saying Janis was a lesbian. Ironically there is a lesbian singer/actress named Janis Ian.
• During Cady's house party, she caught Jason and Gretchen making out in the bathroom. Originally she was supposed to be performing oral sex on him. But it was changed to maintain a PG-13 rating.
• A sequel is mentioned by Tina Fey three times in the commentary of the DVD, about the "junior plastics". It is rumored to be called Frenemies. There is a listing on IMDb for Frenemies which will open in 2008, however it is unknown if this is in fact, the sequel to Mean Girls.
• Lacey Chabert was the only choice for the role of Gretchen.
• Tina Fey admits that she was drawn to Jonathan Bennett to play Aaron Samuels because of his strong resemblance to her Saturday Night Live castmate Jimmy Fallon.
• Amanda Seyfried, who plays Karen in the film, originally auditioned for the role of Regina, but producer Lorne Michaels felt she may be better suited for "the dumb one."
• When Cady first arrives at school, Jason asks her "is your muffin buttered?". The line was originally "is your cherry popped". But it was changed to maintain a PG-13 rating. Also if you pay attention to Jason's mouth when he says it, you can see that his line was dubbed.
• Tim Meadows broke his wrist prior to shooting the movie, so Mr. Duvall's carpal tunnel syndrome had to be written into the script. The writers never picked up on the fact that Mr. Duvall has the cast on for a full school year in the movie, much longer than one with carpal tunnel syndrome would require.
• In the "Burn Book", the Plastics wrote that Amber Delessio made out with a hotdog. Originally she masturbated with a hotdog. But this was changed to maintain a PG-13 rating. Also if you watch Cady's mouth carefully when she reads the paper you could see her line was dubbed.
• During the gymnasium confessional, Tim Meadows says "Who has a lady problem that they'd like to talk about?", a reference to his character "Leon Phelps" on SNL.
• The gym confessional was filmed at Malvern Collegiate Institute.
• The term "fetch" has caught on out of irony, as a sarcastic criticism of new trends.
• On the DVD case, Cady is said to be 15, but she says that she is 16 in the movie.
• In the US, the film was originally given an R rating, due to its sexual material. Director Mark Waters edited down the content, so the MPAA would give the film a PG-13.
• Writer Tina Fey has said her original draft for the film was partially an homage to teen sex comedies of the 1980s, including "wall-to-wall titties" because several of the female leads had nude scenes. After Lindsay Lohan was cast the studio decided to make the movie more kid friendly and ordered a PG-13 rating, removing the scenes containing nudity and sex.
• The original script called for Rachel McAdams's Regina character to appear topless. In order to seduce Aaron away from Cady, she removed her top in a car and allowed him to feel her bare breasts. Regina made sure Cady would appear at the right time so she would witness the act. This was later changed to ensure a PG-13 rating.
• Also cut after the first draft was a scene where Amanda Seyfried's Karen character strips off her shirt and bra to go topless on the school's live newscast. Since she believes her breasts can predict the weather, she landed the job as the newscast's weather girl. Karen thought her breasts detected a tornado nearby and to get a more accurate prediction she ripped off her top, exposing herself to the entire school. There is no nudity in the completed movie.
• Ranked #12 on Entertainment Weekly's list of 50 Best High School Movies.
• Tim Meadows states in an interview that he doesn't know his character, Mr. Duvall's first name. However, a nameplate on his desk shows the name 'Ron Duvall'. Also, when Joan the secretary finds all the girls fighting over comments in the Burn Book, she exclaims "Ron, they've gone wild, the girls have gone wild!"
• During the scene with all the girls in the gym, the two Cool Asians fight with the caption "Nigga, please." On network TV, the caption is changed to "Girlfriend, please". The Vietnamese phrase was: "Lam on di may khong dam dau" which means "No way, please!" or "Oh please, you wouldn't do that."
• The place where the math competition was filmed is Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. After the competition, in the parking lot, University College (part of the University of Toronto) can be seen in the background.
• In the ending scene where Regina is shown playing lacrosse, she checks two girls to score but checking is not allowed in girl's lacrosse.
• The scene where the girls are walking through the mall was filmed at the indoor Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke, right near the food court, although it was supposed to be Old Orchard Mall, which is an outdoor mall.
• Walker Brothers' Pancake House, which Cady wins tickets for at the end of the movie, is a real restaurant in Wilmette, IL, near New Trier High School, and a popular hangout area for students from New Trier.

External links

• Official website
• Mean Girls at IMDb
• Mean Girls at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mean Girls at Box Office Mojo