Mean Girls: it’s a tale as old as time. After spending the better part of the 1990s conducting leadership workshops with teenage girls, Rosalind Wiseman wrote Queen Bees & Wannabes, the book on which Mean Girls was based. It was not a work of fiction or even social science – it was a self-help book. Her goal was to help parents (especially mothers) communicate better with their teenage daughters, who seemed to live on a cruel and ruthless planet all their own, far away from their bewildered elders. Wiseman probably never guessed that her parental guide would evolve into a cult classic film and later a Broadway musical. Before she ever had daughters of her own, Tina Fey recognized something of her own youth in Wiseman’s book, and wrote the screenplay for the 2004 film Mean Girls. She also adapted it into a musical a decade later. There are lines in the film and musical that are taken nearly verbatim from actual girls Wiseman quoted in Queen Bees. To a nearly distressing degree, Mean Girls endures.
Yet, at its core, Mean Girls is a love letter. It bears witness to the kids who leave the safety of their homes and go off to high school, where they navigate complex and ever-changing social dynamics. Maybe someone is mean to them. Maybe they are mean to someone else. Hopefully, they find their place. Most importantly, they leave high school with a stronger sense of themselves, a foundation they can rely on no matter what comes next.
There are no villains in Mean Girls, and no flawless heroes either. Every character is an Actual Human Being, capable of kindness, crudeness, empathy, treachery, resilience and authenticity.
Like all of us.
