The Queer History of the Mean Girl
By Anne Gregg
Mean Girls (2024) released January 12th is an adaptation of the Broadway Musical based off of the 2004 classic Mean Girls. The basic plot of Mean Girls is the epitome of the coming-of-age-comedy mean girl trope. Protagonist Cady Heron is the new girl at her high school and must get acclimated to the school’s hierarchy in order to survive. Along the way she makes friends, crushes on a cute boy and has to contend with the popular girls, The Plastics run by queen bee and icon in pink Regina George. Regina George uses her beauty, wealth, and charisma to gain social power over her high school. She is conniving and manipulative. Her femininity and sexuality is her power. The cast of the latest movie features out queer actors Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi Cravalho, and Jaquel Spivey. While the mean girl is supposed to be the emblem of feminine perfection as defined by patriarchy, something about her resonates with queer women and feels uniquely queer. But why? Well, simply put, because the Mean Girl and her femininity is the villain.
The modern mean girl as we know her today can be traced back to 1988’s Heathers, but popular mean girls have existed in movies since the 70s like Chris Hargensen from Carrie and Rizzo from Grease. These early iterations of mean girls stand opposed to the protagonists of the films who are emblems of innocence and youth. They are not emblematic of a 90s hyper feminine style. In fact the main characters of Carrie and Hairspray take on a 50s pure femininity that later main characters in high school movies will subvert by being the smart, awkward every girl. Veronica from Heathers is that smart heroine, opposed to the cold rule of the Heathers as she’s absorbed into their clique. While Heathers is a black comedy/satire the explosion of the 90s mean girls that follow her are comedic but sincere.
Mean girls are often found in coming-of-age rom coms targeted at teen girls. The awkward female protagonist of these movies will go on a journey of self discovery and ultimately learn to be herself and to love herself. Through this journey she usually will gain some social clout that the mean girl is also vying for. Sometimes in this quest for social clout and/or the boy of her dreams the protagonist is seduced by the mean girl’s power. Then a reckoning will happen and the protagonist will realize the error of her ways and either disavow her newfound power or use it to make the school better. She and the audience are given a message about being yourself and being kind to others. Who you are is better than being a fake, plastic, mean girl. The message of all these movies including Mean Girls is be yourself, be kind, and everything will work out in the end. Do not fall for vapid femininity and cattiness. When Cady unseats Regina as the queen bee of the school, her friends turn on her and her crush reprimands her for being exactly like Regina. Cady’s newfound power leaves her lonely, stuck in obsession with her looks, her social clot, and Regina George.
The teen romcom is a genre marketed to young women, all young women. Not just the not-like-the-other girls girls. It has helped create a false narrative that there are real girls and vapid hyper feminine girls. A majority of the female audience is supposed to relate to the awkward young protagonist, who is feminine but not to feminine. They are supposed to judge the girls who are feminine and confident in their sexuality. Could this trope be a feminist response to years of hypersexualization and sexual harassment of women? Sure. But it’s a response that policies how young women should act and dress. It’s also a response that villainizes female social power and sexuality.
I do not believe this policing is always intentional. The original Mean Girls bluntly illustrates how girls are taught to sexualize themselves and criticize their bodies from a young age. The original Mean Girls culminates in a scene where all the girls apologize to each other for what they have said and they learn to accept others’ differences. The narrative is framed like a nature documentary about the teenage girl. It uses comedy to accurately depict how teen girls tear each other apart over their appearances, sexuality, and personalities. It also makes sense to criticize and reject the notion that the perfect woman is blonde, skinny, white, and wealthy. However, the darkness that needs to be destroyed in Mean Girls, the person that Cady becomes, is tied to flaunting attractiveness and dressing in a hyper feminine way. Cady reverts to jeans and more casual clothing at the end of the film. Hyper femininity and sexuality in Mean Girls and in other stories with mean girls is associated with cruelness and villainy.
The mean girl feels queer because her brand of femininity is not subservient to men. Instead she is loud, pink, and perfect. She does not need a man. She uses men. Her freedom from men, her independence, and her performance of femininity is her power. She breaks patriarchal confines of her gender. The mean girl does not seek male approval. She is in control. Her expression of her gender is an overperformance. The Mean Girl cannot be the patriarchal ideal because she holds power through her femininity. She has control that is tied to an overperformance of femininity. She is the one who does not conform. Some queer women and femmes like to present in a hyper feminine way. Hyperfemininity is not donned by these women to attract men. It is a celebration of girliness. It is femininity as power, not as objectification.
Teen girls should not feel pressured into showing skin and dressing “sexy.” Nor should they ever be sexualized because of their choice of clothing. They should not be sexualized at all. Mean Girls and other teen rom coms make that clear. However, if young girls are taught through the media that they should look a certain way to gain male attention and their value is in getting male attention, why are they shamed when they use that attention to their advantage? Why are we not shaming the creators of that media, of that programming?
Embracing the mean girl becomes queer because it’s a rejection of being the everygirl and it’s an acknowledgement that there is a flaw in the patriarchal system. The mean girl’s power is her femininity. In her world power is not defined by its proximity to masculinity. Power is defined by the mean girl.
About the Author
Anne Gregg is a poet and writer from Northwest Indiana. She is an English Writing major at DePauw University and is the editor-in-chief of her campus’s literary magazine, A Midwestern Review. She is a Media Fellow at her university and loves dissecting how LGBTQ+ people are portrayed in film and tv.
