But that's what I want to talk about. Beyond the comedy and drama within this movie (and don't forget Aaron Samuels) that has made its name, there are quite a few bad messages being sent to females. In this movie women are portrayed as dumb, gossipy, cliquey, and as sexual objects. None of which are okay, or true, and that can send young women the wrong ideas.
When Cady (played by Lindsey Lohan) goes to her new school, she meets her first friend, Janis, and is given a map of the cafeteria, which is labeled table-by-table of what cliques sit where. She tells her who's who, who to avoid (like The Plastics), etc. This teaches us that cliques are not only expected in school, but that it's really a big deal who you hang out with and decide to sit with at lunch. Who cares who I eat my sandwich next to? And why can't I also have many different types of friends instead of confining myself to one "clique"?
Hmm...
The next thing I want to bring up is that hurting people isn't fun. The Plastics decide to let Cady join their group (let her join their group), and then Janis wants Cady to sort of "spy" on them to see the dumb things they talk about. Cady ends up finding out there's this book the girls call the "Burn Book" and it has pictures of students who go to their school, with nasty things written about them in it. This is portrayed as something fun and funny, but really this is bullying. It's not fun, it's not hilarious, it's not nice, and it doesn't make you look cool. Bullying is a real problem in the world, especially in public schools. 1 in 10 students drop out of school because of repeated bullying (dosomething.org). We should be trying to advocate to stop bullying, not keep it going. A statistic specific to females also came from the same source, stating due to bullying "over 70% of girls age 15 to 17 avoid normal daily activities, such as attending school, when they feel bad about their looks."
The last thing I want to touch on is that making yourself seem dumb when you're really not, should also not be cool. We see this example when Cady meets Aaron in her math class. Cady is extremely good at math, but when she meets Aaron, she wants his attention. In order to do that, she starts purposefully flunking her tests. When Aaron notices, he offers to tutor her, which is her way of getting him to like her. Girls are already told they aren't good at math, or at science, and only men to these jobs, blahblahblah. It's a load of BS, but that's a message being sent to girls not just through this one movie. You can read this article here about how woman are still underrepresented in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) field. More than half (57%) of all girls say that girls don’t typically consider a career in STEM (Girl Scout Research Institute), and as these girls enter college or the working field, this number decreases even more.
Sooo...when your female child or student shows an interest in STEM, nourish this interest! For starters, the pay is really good as well as the benefits, and I would personally LOVE to be good at math, or engineering. Don't tell your daughters all they can be is actors, singers, housewives, or Miss Universe. I wanted to shake Cady when she started flunking her tests so a guy would notice her, and think it's "cute" [insert disappointed face here].
There are many bad messages sent to us woman in this one movie alone. I only touched on three, but you can definitely find more if you watch this movie again. Is it okay it's such a hit with girls? It makes me uncomfortable thinking my child would see some of the things in this movie and think it's okay. These are the wrong messages to be sending. Girls should feel empowered, smart, beautiful (inside AND out), and nourished in life. None of these happens in "Mean Girls", so if you are a lover of this movie, or have daughters, sisters, nieces, who watch this movie, you are responsible for educating them about the things that woman ARE. Not cliquey, gossipy, dumb, or sexual objects.
