SUURJ: Seale University Undergraduate Research Journal
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'Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen’: #e
Disempowerment of Women’s Voices in the Film
Mean Girls.
Anna Kaplan
Seale University
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114
“Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen”:
The Disempowerment of Women’s
Voices in the Film Mean Girls
Anna Kaplan, Communication & Media
Faculty Mentor: Julie Holmchick Crowe, PhD
Faculty Content Editor: Julie Holmchick Crowe, PhD
Student Editor: Falen Wilkes
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Abstract
Since its release in 2004, Mean Girls, which depicts high school life in the early 2000s, still reigns
as the premier cult classic lm of the era. Through critical rhetorical analysis of the lm, this re-
search explores the dierent types of “Mean Girls” presented in the lm and how they each use
specic voices to obtain their goals. Looking closely at three archetypes: the “Queen Bee,” the
“Rebellious Goth,” and the “New Girl,” the results found that all three women used particular
voices and personas to increase their social standing or to exact revenge — thus disempower-
ing other women. This portrayal of teenage girls presents a problematic form of feminism that
consists of cacophonous ghting and competition against each other in a way that goes against
the overall interests of women.
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Introduction
“What day is it?” Aaron Samuels asks Cady Heron in their junior-year calculus class.
Cady responds, “It’s October 3rd” (Waters, 2004). Every year on this unocial Mean Girls
Day, internet posts appear depicting this exchange, and this anniversary indicates the lm’s
ongoing cultural relevance. Although Mean Girls was released in 2004, the lm has been
celebrated continually for a decade and a half, underscoring its status as a cult classic. Cult
cinema is dened as:
a kind of cinema identied by remarkably unusual audience
receptions that stress the phenomenal component of the viewing
experience, that upset traditional viewing strategies, that are
situated at the margin of the mainstream, and that display
reception tactics that have become a synonym for an attitude of
minority resistance and niche celebration within mass culture.
(Mathjis & Sexton, 2012, p. 8)
Mean Girls was written by Tina Fey, an actress, comedian, and writer known for her
contributions to Saturday Night Live in the early 2000s, as well as starring in, writing, and
directing many other lms and television shows. Fey conceptualized Mean Girls as a lm that
satirizes and dramatizes the complex social dynamics of teenage girls in high school. Fey notes
that the lm’s relevance has increased as the years have gone by. In an interview, Fey cites
the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements as examples that bolster the lm’s relevance in key
societal issues, years after the lm came out.
[The lm] has metastasized. Calling someone a loser doesn’t make
you a winner [...] It’s so incredibly obvious, but still, apparently, we
need to be reminded. We all do it, on both sides. Once you’re laying
the mud, you’re all the mud. People have connected Mean Girls and
politics. (Setoodeh, 2018)
Inspired by this interview, I set about unpacking what types of characters were presented
to my generation, and further, how these portrayals could have inuenced young girls’
perceptions of high school, other women, and feminism itself.
For this study I asked the following research question: what archetypes of Mean Girls
are presented in the lm Mean Girls, and how do they embody dierent versions of feminism?
Per my ndings, I argue that three characters in Mean Girls used language to inhabit three
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specic archetypes: the “Queen Bee,” the “Vengeful Goth,” and the “New Girl.” While such
characters may seem to symbolize empowerment of young women, as their archetypes subvert
certain patterns in the representation of women in lm, the cacophonous ghting of these three
characters presents a problematic collection of anti-feminist voices that are not celebrated in
the same way as their male counterpart in lm, the Rebel Male.
Literature Review
Before detailing the results of my study, I want to show how my ndings will add
to past and current literature surrounding the topic of the representation of archetypical
Mean Girls in lm. From my research, I identied three major themes in existing critical lm,
communication, and feminist scholarship: feminist lm, male villains versus female villains,
and contemporary Mean Girls in lm.
What is Feminist Film?
Scholars have been critiquing lm through a feminist lens for decades. Feminist critique
rst began to inuence lm critique in the 1970s with the writings of Simone de Beauvoir and
has continued to evolve. Feminist lm critique in its own right emerged during the rise of
second-wave feminism in the 1980s (McCabe, 2004). Janet McCabe writes that “stereotypical
images of women [in the 1980s] aord female audiences little chance for authentic recognition.
Instead they produce a false consciousness for women, oering them nothing but an escape
from fantasy through identication with stereotypical images” (McCabe, 2004, p. 8). This
continued throughout the 1990s as feminist scholars began to rethink the limits of existing
theories in order to develop more sophisticated critiques of female subjectivity, inferiority, and
dierence in lm (Hollinger, 2012). In the twenty-rst century, more labels and tests have been
created to determine what makes a lm a feminist lm, such as the Bechdel test, in which two
named female characters with names must talk about something other than men to “pass” the
test (Sutherland, 2017, p. 619). More recently, scholars have dened a feminist counter-cinema,
where “a representation of ‘woman as woman,’ or a woman’s voice or ‘look,’ no longer serve
as primary impetuses” (Radner, 2011, p. 3). Although feminist cinema plays a signicant role in
lm today, it has only been dened as a discrete category for approximately the past 50 years.
It is necessary to go further back in lm history to compare representations of women and
men.
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Male Villains Versus Female Villains
There have been many iterations of “bad boys” in lm. Many scholars have analyzed
James Dean’s role as Jim Stark in the 1955 lm Rebel Without a Cause. This role established
the “Rebel Male” archetype, which is considered “a new representation of masculinity that
recongured lm style as a whole” (Scheibel, 2016, p. 130). Stark’s promiscuity, appearance,
and continual need to t into the prescribed roles of normative masculinity propelled the
Rebel Male into one of the most researched character types (Scheibel, 2016). Dean’s character
transcended lm and inuenced broader cultural iterations of the Rebel Male archetype,
including the “greaser” (for instance C. Thomas Howell’s role of Ponyboy Curtis in the 1983
lm The Outsiders) and the “rock n’ roller,” such as Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Rossella
Valdrè argues that the male antagonist of the 2011 lm We Need to Talk About Kevin was
either “born bad” or was “shaped bad” (2014, p. 151). This is a classic nature-versus-nurture
argument.
However, very few scholars have aorded similar arguments for female villains.
While rebellious male characters and personas have been celebrated for decades in American
society, there has been much less research on female “anti-hero” characters in lm. Cartoon
female villains were some of the rst iterations of “bad girls,” perhaps beginning when
Disney featured some of its rst female villains, such as Sleeping Beauty’s Malecent (1955).
Over time, female cartoon villains evolved into supervillains and superheroines, rather than
beasts and witches (Wright, 2012). Interestingly, a study conducted with Midwestern female
college undergraduates in 2015 found that women who viewed female supervillains and
superheroines in lm had lower self-esteem and decreased egalitarian gender role beliefs after
watching selected clips (Pennell & Behm-Morawitz, 2015).
In the late 1950s and 1960s, these villainous female characters began to more commonly
manifest as the “Mean Girls” we are familiar with in lm today. In the lm The Devil Wears
Prada (2006), the antagonist, Miranda Priestly, is an older Mean Girl played by Meryl Streep,
who eventually apologizes for her actions. Although protagonist Andy accepts Miranda’s
apology, Miranda is never truly forgiven, and is resented for the rest of the lm, which Waters
argues presents an ageist, unequal representation of female power compared to the lm’s
younger women (Waters, 2011). Jean Sutherland also writes that although Streep’s character is
presented as successful in the lm, she “pays the price in loneliness and isolation” due to the
older woman’s inability to radiate traditionally feminine characteristics (2017, p. 619). While
characters that women portrayed in the twentieth century often fell short of feminism, but
there has been signicant progress in the twenty-rst century so far. However, there have been
very few female gures that can compete with the Rebel Male in terms of societal celebration.
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Contemporary Mean Girls in Film
Lastly, literature regarding contemporary Mean Girl characters in the 2000s is relevant
to this discussion. Female characters in the rst decade of the twenty-rst century may
oer successful and dynamic representations of women but are often still presented as one-
dimensional. Scholars say that early 2000s “chick icks” present a form of “girly feminism”
that promote a form of feminism directly tied to consumerism, making them “free to shop (and
cook),” but not truly free (Ferris & Young, 2007). However, other lms from the period, such as
The Hunger Games, “regure the dominant male gaze […] by focusing on the power and agency
of the female protagonist, legitimizing a female perspective, and encourage a questioning of
patriarchal power” (Keller & Gibson, 2014, p. 28). Amanda Stone argues that Penny, the female
lead in the television comedy The Big Bang Theory often challenges the stereotype of the “dumb
blonde” (Stone, 2014). Through her physical strength and social abilities, she far surpasses her
male counterparts, leading to a representation of a woman who, although inept at the sciences,
still breaks gender norms and is successful (Stone, 2014). Yet although these scholars show that
women can have varying skills and contributions to society, American cinema still neglects to
show an unapologetic woman who acts for herself, not for the attention of men, recognition of
others, or elevation of her qualities above other women.
Regarding Mean Girls specically, the few articles written about the lm primarily focus
on alternative aggressive behavior and its eects on teenagers, or on the gender portrayals in
the lm (Behm-Morawitz & Maestro, 2008, Meyer, 2008). My research will be based on how
the characters in Mean Girls use distinct voices and archetypes within their high school to
deceive others into supporting them or to increase their social standing. I argue further that
Mean Girls does something rare in American lm history: it oers to young women a female
rebel as a dynamic, complicated counterpart to America’s beloved Rebel Male. Nevertheless,
the female rebel takes the form of Mean Girl. While Mean Girl characters appear to act in a
feminist manner through their ability to wield power freely, they often do so with the intention
of either impressing men or tearing other women down. Fey thus presents these young women
as anti-feminist and demonstrates discordant in-group ghting that the lm looks at with
disgust, rather than admiration. Therefore, while the Rebel Male is revered, the Rebel Female is
denigrated.
Theory
I propose to apply Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony to this lm. Investigating
culturally dynamic aspects of language, Bakhtin argues that all written and spoken
communication is generated through processes of appropriation. One such appropriation is
polyphony, or how people embody distinctive and multiple voices or inhabit dierent roles
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in both art and life. People appropriate and use dierent voices, associated with the roles
they play in life, as the situation and cultural community warrants (Jasinski, 1997). Equally
relevant is Bakhtin’s closely related theory of heteroglossia. While polyphony refers to voice
appropriation, heteroglossia refers to language appropriation, and describes how specic
individuals appropriate language to make it their own (Bahktin, 1993). Polyphony and
heteroglossia combine when the speaker creates a specic persona through vocal and gestural
appropriation. For instance, a doctor will “play the role” of doctor in front of patients, or an
attorney in front of clients, exercising polyphony. They use heteroglossia by using medical or
legal terms while speaking to patients and clients—and thus speak far dierently from how
they do at home. (Jasinski, 1997). Jasinski notes that “advocates will, on occasion, speak or
write in an explicitly ctitious or contrived voice” (1997, p. 438). In applying these theories to
Mean Girls, it becomes apparent that the “Plastics”—the elite clique at Cady’s high school—
use voice and language appropriation to develop their own sub-language, which I will refer
to as “Plastic-speak.” This exclusive sub-language, dierent from normal student-to-student
conversation and typied by critique and insult, is used to maintain the dominant position of
the Plastics within the school’s power structure.
The theories of polyphony and heteroglossia have been primarily applied to literature,
television, and lm. In this study I use polyphony and heteroglossia to show how three main
characters, Regina George, Janis Ian, and Cady Heron, use voice and language appropriation
to inhabit dierent Mean Girl roles, and how this appropriation ultimately functions to create
a cacophony of anti-feminist rebelliousness. For the purpose of this research, I will be dening
feminism through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s denition of intersectionality, which calls for equality
for woman of every race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender orientation (2018, p. 75).
Analysis
Mean Girls is set at North Shore, a high school in suburban Chicago, Illinois. The lm
follows protagonist Cady Heron, who has recently moved from Africa, as she transitions into
suburban American life and high school. On her rst day she meets Janis Ian, a stereotypically
“goth girl” who takes Cady under her wing and tells her the ins and outs of North Shore. On
her second day she meets the Plastics, a popular clique commanded by Regina George. Over
the course of the lm Janis persuades Cady to pretend to be Regina’s friend to gain access to
her inner circle and “ruin her life” (Waters, 2004). However, as the lm progresses, the lines of
who is and is not a Mean Girl begin to blur as the role is used in various ways, though mostly
for social advancement.
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The three main roles I identied are the Queen Bee, the Vengeful Goth, and the New
Girl. The Queen Bee is a stereotypical Mean Girl; she is the most popular girl in the school’s
most exclusive clique and sets all the trends. There can only be one Queen Bee, and she wields
her social power to remain at the top. The Queen Bee’s opposite is the Vengeful Goth, a social
outcast with few friends. This Vengeful Goth is the most closely aligned with the Rebel Male,
because of their radical viewpoints and actions. Her keen awareness of the social dynamics
in the school, from an outsider’s perspective, gives her an edge in planning a revenge scheme
to take down the Queen Bee. Lastly, there is the New Girl. The New Girl just moved from
being homeschooled in Africa to North Shore, and therefore is unfamiliar with the ins and
outs of high school social dynamics. She is therefore easy to manipulate because of her lack of
awareness of key social cues. At rst, she is not a Mean Girl, but as other girls use her for their
benet, she begins to act in ways similar to the Queen Bee.
Regina George: The Queen Bee
Regina George has claimed the title of Queen Bee, leader of the three-person “teen
royalty” clique (Waters, 2004). Regina, slim, with blonde hair and blue eyes, is conventionally
pretty by Western beauty standards; through this appearance and the authority it confers, she
dominates the school. Through years of inhabiting the Queen Bee role, Regina has obtained
total social superiority. In a rolling montage of North Shore students speaking about Regina,
they list o numerous rumors, describing her as anything from “a slut-faced hoe bag” to
“where evil takes a human form” (Waters, 2004). One girl recounts, “one time Regina George
punched me in the face. It was awesome,” a comment that reinforces Regina’s status as the
Queen Bee (Waters, 2004). Thus, Regina’s reign is oppressive to nearly every other woman
in the school, something that Fey’s satirization of high school dynamics highlights quite
eectively.
Regina’s disempowerment of other women is clear in the scene where Cady rst walks
by the Plastics’ lunch table. Regina stops her and tells her to sit down, saying:
REGINA: Why don’t I know you?
CADY: I’m new. I just moved here from Africa.
REGINA: What?
CADY: I used to be homeschooled.
REGINA: Wait, what?
CADY: My mom, she taught me—
REGINA: No, no I know what homeschooled is, I’m not
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retarded. So you’ve never actually been to a real school before?
Cady shakes her head.
REGINA: Shut up… Shut up!
CADY: I didn’t say anything. (Waters, 2004)
While Regina doesn’t truly mean for Cady to shut up, but rather uses the phrase as an
exclamation of disbelief, the voice she establishes with Cady is dismissive and threatening.
This is a crucial aspect of Plastic-speak: Regina establishes her power and dominance in this
social scenario with a girl who is a threat because she is an unknown factor and could possibly
become popular enough to claim the role of Queen Bee. This scene also highlights Cady’s
initial innocence; Cady just moved to the United States, and therefore doesn’t understand
the social connotation of “shut up!” as an expression of astonishment rather than command.
Regina arguably knows that Cady would misinterpret this phrase and is using it to confuse
and distress her. Furthermore, under the guise of compliments, Regina wins the unassuming
Cady over as a possible friend. But Regina uses the role of Queen Bee to absorb and neutralize
Cady; since Cady herself is a conventionally pretty girl, she may be either a useful ally, or
social competition.
Later in the lm, Cady develops a crush on senior Aaron Samuels. She discloses this
to one of the Plastics, who immediately tells her she “can’t like him” because he’s Regina’s
ex (Waters, 2004). As soon as Regina learns about the crush, she plots a scheme to get back
together with Aaron; this emphasizes her ability to manipulate others for her own pleasure
and to maintain power. Once Regina and Aaron are back together, he joins the Plastics’ lunch
table. When Cady approaches the table, Regina begins to play with Aaron’s hair, in another
power play:
REGINA: “Doesn’t he look sexy with his hair pushed back?”
Cady smiles and shrugs, and Regina forcefully repeats:
REGINA: “Cady, will you please tell him his hair looks sexy
pushed back.”
CADY: “You look sexy with your hair pushed back.” (Waters, 2004)
This is an authoritative move to establish Regina’s social dominance over Cady through an
interrogative twisted into a command. Because Regina knows that Cady still has a crush on
Aaron, Regina uses heteroglossia to use the role of a Plastic to assert control over Cady. This
demonstrates Regina as a manipulator and Mean Girl: she uses Aaron to belittle Cady into
submitting to her authority and to reinforce that she is the only Queen Bee.
Later in the lm, Regina invites Cady and the Plastics to her house. While in Regina’s
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room, Cady discovers a pink scrapbook titled “The Burn Book.” The Plastics explain that
it’s where “we cut girls’ pictures out of the yearbook and write comments” (Waters, 2004).
By calling these “comments” instead of rumors, insults, and lies, they use Plastic-speak to
frame their work to Cady, who is still unfamiliar with American speech patterns. Many of the
“comments” in the Burn Book categorize the North Shore girls in a negative and oensive
way; the majority of the remarks are based on appearance, sexual history, sexual orientation,
and race. As the Plastics are controlled by Regina, it’s fair to say that her inuence is wide-
ranging, and that many of her exclusionary ideas towards other girls impact the other Plastics’
opinions, especially through Plastic-speak.
Near the climax of the lm, Janis confesses her and Cady’s plan to ruin Regina’s life,
and Regina retaliates by circulating hundreds of copies of the Burn Book pages around the
school to frame Cady and the other Plastics. Chaos ensues and a mandatory assembly is called
for all junior girls. At the assembly, the principal calls for a “total attitude makeover,” which
Regina resists:
REGINA: “Can I just say that we don’t have a clique problem at
this school, and some of us shouldn’t have to take this workshop
because some of us are just victims in this situation?”
MS. NORBURY: “That’s probably true. How many of you have ever
felt personally victimized by Regina George?” (Waters, 2004).
Every girl in the auditorium raises her hand. It’s evident that, due to Regina’s social power,
the hierarchies she establishes aect the entire junior class. Later in the scene, Regina exclaims,
“it’s her dream…Jumping into a pile of girls!” when Janis, a rumored gay woman, goes on
stage (Waters, 2004). Many of the girls laugh—again, showing that the hierarchies Regina
enforces, such as her homophobia, have social power. As mentioned before, Regina uses the
sub-language of the Queen Bee to categorize the girls of North Shore into people she should
and shouldn’t hang out with, the cool and the uncool. The other students laughing at her
comment shows that what Regina says and thinks, however harmful to the overall wellbeing
of the North Shore girls, overrides the other high schoolers’ thoughts and opinions.
Regina’s role as Queen Bee perpetuates the Rebel Female as one that is obsessed
with tearing down other women. While the “Rebel Male” is critically celebrated, Regina is a
represented as anti-feminist, which makes her much less admirable to audiences. From using
homophobic and ableist slurs to manipulating other people into doing what she wants, Regina
uses Plastic-speak and her social power as Queen Bee to exclude others from her elite level. But
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this is a double-edged sword. Her fellow-high schoolers are infatuated with her social power
but are afraid of and hurt by her actions. In her role as the Queen Bee, Regina uses her power
and authority to terrorize other girls.
Janis Ian: The Vengeful Goth
Janis Ian is a clichéd goth character, with black-dyed hair, all black clothing, and
thick black eyeliner. She has one true friend, another outcast at North Shore due to his
homosexuality. As the goth trope is generally associated with being radical and nonconformist,
as a Rebel Female Janis isn’t an obvious Mean Girl at the beginning of the lm. But under close
inspection, it’s clear that Janis is mean—just in a dierent way than Regina or Cady. Initially
Janis appears friendly; when Cady walks into her rst class on the rst day of school, Janis
gives her advice on where to sit. Afterwards, she gives Cady directions to her next classes and
general tips on the North Shore social scene. Specically, she talks about the social layout of
the cafeteria, and advises Cady to sit at her table at lunch.
After the scene in which Regina orders Cady to sit at the Plastics table, there’s a cut to
Janis asking Cady what Regina said. Cady explains that Regina invited her to sit at their lunch
table for the rest of the week, and Janis starts hilariously laughing, saying “you have to do it
and tell me all the horrible things they say” (Waters, 2004). This is an appropriation of Plastic-
speak, as Janis is simultaneously tearing down Regina and ordering Cady around.
Regina and Janis’ friendship before the lm begins is crucial to understanding Janis’ mean
motives. About halfway through the lm, Regina sees Cady talking to Janis. She says:
REGINA: “Why are you talking to Janis Ian?”
CADY: “Oh, I don’t know.”
REGINA: “She’s so pathetic. Let me tell you something about Janis
Ian. I was best friends with her in middle school. I know, right? It’s
so embarrassing, I don’t even…whatever. Then, in eighth grade,
I started going out with my rst boyfriend, Kyle, who was totally
gorgeous, but he moved to Indiana, and Janis was, like, weirdly
jealous of him. Like, if I blew her o to hang out with Kyle she
would be like, ‘Why didn’t you call me back!?’ And I would be,
like, ‘Why are you so obsessed with me?’ So, then my birthday
was an all-girls pool party and I was like, I can’t invite you, Janis,
because I think you’re a lesbian. I mean, I couldn’t have a lesbian
there. Girls were going to be in their bathing suits. I mean, right?”
(Waters, 2004)
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This instance of Regina’s homophobia explains why Janis wants to exact revenge on Regina.
Janis’ revenge plan is deliberate: knowing she cannot instigate the plan herself, as Regina
would never been seen with her, Janis knowingly uses Cady as a pawn to execute the plan
for her. This complex relationship primes Janis’ foray into becoming a dierent type of Mean
Girl—one that is attempting to take down the Queen Bee as the Vengeful Goth. Furthermore,
Janis suggests the plan to Cady soon after Regina kisses Aaron on Halloween night—Regina’s
move to rekindle their former relationship to neutralize Cady’s crush on Aaron. It is here that
Janis begins to use voice appropriation of Plastic-speak to trick Cady into thinking this plan
would exact revenge for Regina’s betrayal. Janis presents herself as a caring friend who is
willing to do anything to get Regina back for the pain she causes Cady. However, this plan to
ruin Regina’s life is much deeper, rooted in personal revenge for Regina cutting her out of her
life due to her (presumed) sexual orientation years prior. The threefold plan consists of getting
Aaron and Regina to break up, making her gain weight and making the other two Plastics turn
against her.
Like Regina, Janis capitalizes on Cady’s innocence to manipulate her. She builds Cady’s
trust by being the rst, and perhaps only, dependable friend that Cady has throughout the rst
half of the lm. Through her outsider’s perspective of school dynamics, Janis assures Cady
the plan is a good idea, whether it is in Cady’s best interest or not. Janis’ plan itself is designed
to “cut o [Regina’s] resources” (Waters, 2004). Although it’s Cady who ultimately completes
most of these tasks through nding necessary information, spreading rumors and outright
lying, it is Janis who is calling all the shots—and thus Janis is presented as an unconventional
Mean Girl. While she isn’t as obviously “evil” as Regina, in her role of Vengeful Goth Janis is
still conniving and absorbed in her own plan to ruin Regina’s life, and perhaps even Cady’s as
collateral damage. Near the end of the lm, Janis confesses the entire plot. She says:
“Okay, yeah. I’ve got an apology. So, I have this friend who is a new
student this year, and I convinced her that it would be fun to mess
up Regina George’s life. So, I had her pretend to be friends with
Regina, and then she would come to my house after and we would
just laugh about all the dumb stu Regina said. And we gave these
candy bar things that would make her gain weight, and then we
turned her best friends against her. And then...Oh yeah, Cady? You
know my friend Cady. She made out with Regina’s boyfriend, and
we convinced him to break up with her. Oh God, and we gave her
foot cream instead of face wash. God! I am so sorry Regina. Really,
I don’t know why I did this. I guess it’s probably because I’ve got a
big lesbian crush on you! Suck on that!” (Waters 2004)
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Here, Janis’ role as the Vengeful Goth allows her to create a sarcastic, unapologetic version of
herself, someone who is unbothered by Regina’s previous homophobic actions towards her.
However, after analyzing Janis’ background with Regina, and her extensive plot to destroy
her life, it’s clear that Janis doing this for revenge, not fun. Through her rebellious anti-Plastics
attitude and select use of heteroglossia, Janis represents the unconventional Mean Girl because
as Vengeful Goth, no one suspects her to be the mastermind behind Regina’s downfall.
Cady Heron: The New Girl?
The lm begins with Cady Heron moving to the suburbs of Chicago because her
parents, both research zoologists, have received job oers at Northwestern University. Before
the move, Cady spent her entire life being home-schooled in Africa, where her family lived for
her parents’ research. This setup explains why Cady wouldn’t understand many of the social
cues and dynamics that the average American high schooler would. Therefore, Cady begins as
an innocent, non-partisan witness to the ghting and mutual destruction happening at North
Shore. Cady’s role as the New Girl oers North Shore the opportunity to incorporate new or
change old sub-languages, but instead Cady adopts the existing sub-languages and begins to
be manipulated by both Regina and Janis. In fact, Cady’s naiveté made it relatively easy for
Regina and Janis to inuence her in order to advance their respective agendas.
As the lm progresses and Janis’ plan intensies, Cady rapidly learns how brutal and
calculated “girl world” is (Waters, 2004). As Janis’ ideas for ruining Regina’s life escalate, Cady
must become closer to Regina so she will conde in Cady and take her advice. Through this
process, Cady begins to form her own opinions about both Regina and Janis. About midway
through the lm, Cady arms to herself and others that although she was spending more time
with Regina, she was not enjoying it. For instance, Cady says, “The weird thing about hanging
out with Regina is that even though I hated her, I became more and more obsessed with her,”
and, “I know it seems like I was a bitch, but I was only acting like a bitch” (Waters, 2004). This
series of declarations is the rst sign that Cady’s innocence as the New Girl is waning; she
becomes more aware of her own actions, and her appropriation of Plastic-speak to grow closer
to the Plastics increases. While Cady initially embodied the New Girl, she changes into more
of a chameleon in terms of her role—she begins her vocal appropriation of Regina, the Queen
Bee, and not only tricks the characters in the lm, but also the viewers of the lm itself. On the
surface, it appears she still doesn’t like Regina and is acting to humiliate her, but as the lm
progresses it becomes apparent that she is either enjoying the ruin of Regina, or is actually
becoming friends with her, or perhaps both.
After two thirds of Janis’ plan is complete (Aaron breaks up with Regina and the
Plastics unfriend her), Cady decides to throw a party at her house while her parents are out
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of town. She only invites a few people to the party, excluding Regina, but virtually the entire
school shows up. Cady seems proud of this and asks herself, “am I the new Queen Bee?”
(Waters, 2004). This rhetorical question marks a signicant shift in Cady’s priorities and values,
indicating she is ruining Regina’s life, no longer for Janis’ revenge, but to dethrone Regina
entirely and become the new Queen Bee. Unfortunately, the only way she knows how to play
the role is by becoming more and more like Regina. This newfound vocal appropriation can be
seen when Cady nds the newly single Aaron Samuels in her bedroom:
CADY: “I just wanted a reason to talk to you.”
AARON: “So why didn’t you just talk to me?”
CADY: “Well, because I couldn’t because of Regina...because
you were her property.”
AARON: “Her property?”
CADY: “No, shut up! Not her property…”
AARON: “No, don’t tell me to shut up.”
CADY: “I wasn’t…”
AARON: “God, you know what? You are just like a clone of
Regina.” (Waters, 2004)
Here it is clear that Cady has incorporated aspects of Regina’s vocabulary into her own to gain
Aaron’s aection. However, this plan backres, as Aaron proclaims that he doesn’t like Regina,
and therefore does not like how Cady is currently acting. Cady describes feelings of losing
“total control” (Waters, 2004), but I would argue that she is simply reeling from the eects of
her appropriation of Plastic-speak.
This voice and language appropriation can be seen clearly when Janis confronts Cady
on the night of the party. Cady was supposed to go to Janis’ art gallery opening the same night
but forgets about Janis’ event. Janis nds out about the party and shows up to confront Cady:
CADY: “You know I couldn’t invite you! I had to pretend to be
plastic!”
JANIS: “But you’re not pretending anymore! You’re plastic! Cold,
shiny, hard plastic!”
CADY: “You know what? You’re the one who made me like this so
you could use me for your eighth-grade revenge!”
JANIS: “God! See, at least me and Regina George know we’re
mean! But you try to act so innocent like, ‘Oh, I use to live in Africa
with all the little birdies, and the little monkeys!’”
128
CADY: “You know what! It’s not my fault you’re like, in love with
me, or something!”
JANIS: “See, that’s the thing with you Plastics, you think
everyone’s in love with you, but in reality, everyone hates you, like
Aaron Samuels for example! He broke up with Regina and guess
what, he still doesn’t want you, Cady! So why are you still messing
with Regina? I’ll tell you why, because you are a mean girl, you’re a
bitch!” (Waters 2004)
Here Cady appropriates Plastic-speak to tear down her former best friend, signifying ascension
to Queen Bee. Because of this, I argue this makes Cady one of the meanest girls in the lm,
as she knowingly hurt and tried to disempower both Regina and Janis. While becoming fake
friends with Regina as part of Janis’ plan, Cady destroyed her friendship with Janis. On the
other hand, while becoming friends with Janis, she betrayed her by actually becoming invested
in the toxic, exclusive social structure of the school that hurts and ostracizes people like Janis.
Cady began to act in her own self-interest once she shifted into actually wanting to become
the Queen Bee, and therefore, Cady’s character is an accurate portrayal of the Mean Girl—one
that is created to antagonize and degrade other women through a combination of voice and
language appropriation.
Conclusion
For this study, I used rhetorical analysis and the theories of heteroglossia and
polyphony to examine Mean Girls. Per my ndings, its three main characters, Regina, Janis,
and Cady, used their roles and the social power and skills those roles aorded them to achieve
what they wanted; increased social standing, an image of being cool or desirable, or getting
revenge. Often through the use of polyphony and heteroglossia, these girls would manipulate
or lie to other girls, portraying a character who is self-absorbed and tears down other girls.
The Mean Girl voices and roles constructed concrete denitions of what was cool and what
was not, in a way that parallels the Rebel Male stereotype in television and lm. When these
qualities are portrayed by the women in this lm, even if it mirrors how men perpetuate these
types of behaviors, the female in-group ghting leaves some viewers with a sense of disgust,
rather than admiration. These problematic portrayals of women call for continued, accurate
representations of women in lm that can successfully counter the celebrated Rebel Male
archetype.
129
However, it’s important to note that some members of the audience also revere this lm
and its characters. Mean Girls’ Day continues to be a social phenomenon, and many can quote
lines from this lm to this day. But the three archetypes oered in Mean Girls are not ones that
should be idolized; even though Cady oers reparations at the end of the lm, she is only
transformed from a Mean Girl into a Good Girl—a return to a one-dimensional, uninteresting
female stereotype. This Good Girl still does not provide an adequate counterpart to the Rebel
Male, and more importantly, does not embody a girl who acts for herself, let alone acts for
herself without tearing down other girls.
Although the lm did originally intend to satirize high school, Mean Girls was actually
quite representative of real life. I think there could have been better judgment on behalf of
the writers and directors to subvert this type of dialogue. Rather than basing many jokes, and
almost the entire plot of the lm, on homophobia, there could have been a more reasonable
and less exclusionary reason for the plot to continue. With that being said, I assert that this
lm presents three anti-feminist roles that perpetuate stereotypes from decades past about
young high-school-age women constantly ghting, putting each other down, and creating
an exclusive sub-language that overall disempowers each other’s important voices. Rather
than successfully paralleling the Rebel Male archetype with its rebellious women, Mean Girls
constructs a feminine power and agency that relies on the degradation of other women.
Possible ways to expand on this study would be a quantitative analysis of how this lm
inuenced girl viewers, or how this lm impacted young girls’ ongoing perceptions of other
women. A future study might gather a group of women who rst watched this lm between
the ages of nine and 13, have them re-watch certain clips, and observe their current thoughts
on the lm through either a focus group or a survey.
130
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