Mean Girls: How They Are Still Doing ‘Fetch’!

A decade ago, the movie titled ‘MEAN GIRLS’ made its appearance, and was much appreciated though it was not a super box office smash hit. Tina fey, the SNL fame, then host, scripted it for screen, adapting it from Rosalind Wiseman’s book QUEEN BEE and Wannabees. Little did she know that her crackling dialogues and witty retorts would find themselves repeated for a decade, becoming the cult language in the cyber world, posted over a number of sites over and over again, thereby providing the movie a longevity that surpassed its creator’s imagination.

What made it ‘click’?

Although many movies sustain their popularity over a period of time, very few have the quality to connect with people on such a basic level. As Cady Heron soon finds out, there’s jungle hierarchy everywhere. Especially when it comes to high school, there’s an unsaid code that operates among the students. There are preys and predators, and you really have to watch out before you become one of them. This movie touched upon all the factors that never change the situations that anybody can easily relate to, whether they went to school in 1994, 2004 or 2014.

There’s still the most popular girl in school, the Queen Bee. There’s the group of her devoted friends (read followers), there are the geeks and the nerds, the misfits and the rejects. The divisions are still there, and that’s what has given the movie its sustaining quality, no matter when you see it, you are able to identify yourself with. The petty jealousies, the unsaid rules, the plotting and planning, the revenge, friendships that endure and people who make it all worthwhile. It is fresh, it’s funny and closer to real life than you would have thought; it is relatable. Not to mention the stellar performances delivered by the perfect cast, many of whom got fame through this movie, it’s really gone on to become one of the most widely circulated movie on the internet. You will easily find its catchy phrases and dialogues over a number of pictures, especially on Twitter and Facebook.

…and ‘fetch’ has happened:

Gretchen Weiner, the loyal sidekick of the ultimate queen bee Regina, tried all through the movie to get a new slang word fetch happen. Well, lucky for us, she didn’t stop. Because, friends, fetch happened. The fact that this movie is now touted as the pop culture reference handbook is totally fetch! What made it really reach beyond the generation that saw its release is the rise of social networking websites. It is really through Twitter and Facebook and such other websites that the witticism was carried forward and kept alive for a decade. In fact, it has gained strength over the years as anything from a pink t-shirt to President Obama’s dog can get slapped with a mean girls’ caption. It is really through us (I wouldn’t count myself out of it!) that Mean Girls has acquired the status of a teen cult movie, with the catchphrases still being captioned and making the fetch happen.

Rachel Macadam’s as Regina George nailed the super snobby ultra rich bratty girl, who not only had killer looks but a venomous personality that made her the envy of every other girl. Lindsay Lohan as Cady was the perfect newbie who had been homeschooled, and had never had any experience with the kind of socializing she was lured into. She was at once attracted and repelled by the Plastics, as she called them because of their fake attitudes even with each other. Lacy Chabart and Amanda Seyfried as Gretchen and Karen are the sidekicks who are loyal to Regina but only on the surface. Then there is Janis, the falsely categorized victim of Regina’s vicious personality and her friend Damian, who is known as ‘almost too gay to function’. All these characters are regular yet special, because of the different things that they portray. The angst, the desire to be liked, the lure of power, and the reign of beauty are the themes that are universal in their appeal.

Everybody’s Plastic?

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Deep down inside, we all want to be Regina George; widely popular, irresistibly attractive, and always on top. But we find that most of us are just a Gretchen or a Cady. Our everyday life reflects a lot of the aspects of social hierarchy and female politics that we see in this movie. Maybe we know a Damian, who is an outcast just because he has ‘outed’ himself, and instead of lauding his courage we punish him for daring enough to be who he is. Maybe we are Janis, who was subjected to somebody’s revenge, and was forced to become what she didn’t want to be. The people of the society carve out niches and everybody tries to fit in the mould others expect them to be in. When in reality, we all strive to attain what we deem as the ultimate success: to be accepted. Through this movie Tina Fey has rightfully assessed the difficulty one faces when you try to deal with the social pressures while struggling to maintain your individuality, the domination of the cliques and the desire to acquire self realization, and not succumbing to the stress.

It’s going to last longer:

This movie has the tendency to last so much longer than anybody could have thought of because every generation that is going to watch it is going to react the same way. There is a chord that is touched deep inside, a character or a situation that we have faced or gone through, with which we can easily identify ourselves. It is not just a high school drama with pretty girls and handsome guys falling in love, it’s about the basic human needs and instincts, the personality issues one faces on daily basis, the adjustments that we need to make, mental as well as attitude wise. With her clever script and crafty dialogues, funny moments and real life situations, Tina Fey struck a nerve in bringing forth how we wear each other down mentally, sabotaging the self-confidence, and acquire power by feeding off of others’ strengths; knowledge that business people often try to gain from entrepreneurial finance related movie quotes.

It is always about the survival of the fittest, be it the jungle or your high school cafeteria, not just about the prettiest but about who’s the smartest, and doesn’t get outsmarted!

It’s a mean mean world!

[pollone id=”7″]