Mean Girls

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Mean Girls

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Mark Waters
Produced by Lorne Michaels
Written by Novel:
Rosalind Wiseman
Screenplay:
Tina Fey
Starring Lindsay Lohan
Rachel McAdams
Tina Fey
Lacey Chabert
Tim Meadows
Lizzy Caplan
Daniel Franzese
Amanda Seyfried
Neil Flynn
Jonathan Bennett
Music by Rolfe Kent
Cinematography Daryn Okada
Editing by Wendy Greene Bricmont
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) April 30, 2004
Running time 97 min.
Country Flag of the United States
Language English
Budget $17 million
Gross revenue $129,042,871

Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film, based on the book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, directed by Mark Waters and starring Lindsay Lohan. Written by (and co-starring) Tina Fey, the film features a supporting cast of Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, and Lizzy Caplan. The film also features several Saturday Night Live cast members, including Fey, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. Mean Girls has been praised as being Lohan's break-out film role.[1]

Director Waters described the movie as "Clueless meets Heathers,"[2] the latter of which was written by his brother, Daniel Waters. Mean Girls is based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The home-schooled daughter of zoologist parents (Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn), Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is unprepared for her first day of public high school at fictional North Shore High School in Illinois. With the help of social misfits Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damien (Daniel Franzese), Cady learns about the various cliques, including the Plastics, an exclusive group of girls led by queen bee Regina George (Rachel McAdams), who was once Janis' best friend. Janis hatches a plan for Cady to infiltrate the Plastics and get revenge for what Regina did to Janis in 8th grade. Along the way, Cady learns about the "Burn Book," a top secret notebook filled with rumors, secrets and gossip about the other girls in school, and falls for Regina's ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett), who sits in front of her in calculus.

In her efforts to get revenge on Regina, Cady gradually loses her individual personality and remakes herself in the image of Regina. Soon, her act becomes her reality, and she becomes as mean as Regina. Cady perceives the machinations of the high school students to be akin to the struggles for dominance among wild animals.

Eventually, Regina strikes back, which ultimately causes a riot as the class learn all of the nasty things others have been saying about them. Called into the gym, the girls are forced to listen to one of the teachers, Ms. Norbury. She makes the girls realize that all of them have been hurt by having mean things said about them, and all of them have said mean things about others. She has each girl confess and apologize to the rest of the girls. Janis confesses her plan to destroy Regina, causing Regina to storm out and get hit by a bus, for which the school blames Cady. Cady has lost all of her friends, her status, the guy she had a crush on, she's failing math, and her parents punish her. Cady also wrote a rumor that Ms. Norbury dealt drugs in the Burn Book, and, because another rumor in the book about a teacher turned out to be true in turn, learns Ms. Norbury will likely get fired. Cady then begins to try to make amends. She confesses what she did in order to get Ms. Norbury exonerated, and in order to make up for her failing math grade, she join the Mathletes Team.

At the Spring Fling dance, Cady, in Mathlete uniform, makes up with her true friends, and reaches a truce with the Plastics. She is elected the Spring Fling Queen, and gives a speech to her class that they all deserve it and are all wonderful in their own way. She distributes the pieces of her crown to her fellow classmates, and makes up with Aaron.

The Plastics break up, though. Regina returns to school and joins the lacrosse team as a way to channel her aggression; dimwitted, blond Karen (Amanda Seyfried) becomes the local weather girl; follower Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) joins the "Cool Asians" clique; and Cady stays on the Mathletes and continues to date Aaron. Regina and Cady have gained mutual respect for each other, and Janis is dating Cady's fellow Mathelete Kevin Gnapoor (Rajiv Surendra).

[edit] Cast

[edit] Reception

Generally the movie was well reviewed by critics, receiving an 84% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes[3] and a 66 ("Generally favorable reviews") on Metacritic.[4] In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young people watch it like a reality television show. It is much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing."[5]

[edit] Box office

The movie was declared an instant success after its opening weekend made the film $24,432,195 from 2839 theaters becoming the #1 film in America and averaging $8,606 per venue.[6] Due to strong word of mouth, Mean Girls had a long life at the box office and finished its run with $86,058,055 in the United States making its worldwide total gross $129,042,871.[7]

In the US, the film was the 24th highest grossing movie of 2004.[7] The film was later nominated for the prestigious WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.[8]

[edit] Soundtrack

Mean Girls
Mean Girls cover
Soundtrack by Various artists
Released September 21, 2004
Genre Rock/pop
Label Rykodisc
Professional reviews

The soundtrack for the film was released on September 21, 2004, the same day as the DVD release.

  1. "Dancing With Myself" - The Donnas (Generation X cover)
  2. "God Is A DJ" - Pink
  3. "Milkshake" - Kelis
  4. "Sorry (Don't Ask Me)" - All Too Much
  5. "Built This Way" - Samantha Ronson
  6. "Rip Her to Shreds" - Boomkat (Blondie cover)
  7. "Overdrive" - Katy Rose
  8. "One Way or Another" - Blondie
  9. "Operate" - Peaches
  10. "Misty Canyon" - Anjali Bhatia
  11. "Mean Gurl" - Gina Rene and Gabriel Rene
  12. "Hated" - Nikki Cleary
  13. "Psyché Rock" - Pierre Henry
  14. "The Mathlete Rap" - Rajiv Surendra

[edit] DVD and Blu-ray

The DVD was released in North America on September 21, 2004, five months after it opened in theaters. It was released in a widescreen special collector's edition and a fullscreen collector's edition, both including several deleted scenes, a blooper reel, three interstitials, the theatrical trailer, previews, and three featurettes. A Blu-ray version was released on April 14, 2009.

[edit] Sequel

A second film is currently being planned and developed by Paramount Pictures for a 2009 release.[9] According to the Internet Movie Database, the sequel has been written by Leslie Dixon, (Freaky Friday, Hairspray) and Gail Parent (Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen). Both screenwriters have previously written Lindsay Lohan films. [9][10]

[edit] Pop Culture

- R&B singer Mariah Carey expressed several times that she's a fan of the movie using some quotes from the film on several interview, most notably on the Ellen Degeneres Show back in 2005, and in her official Twitter updates in 2009. Carey most recently released the first single from her album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, called "Obsessed", which begins with an interlude quote where she says "And I was like, Why are you so obsessed with me?" a line said by Regina in the film. Carey's Husband Nick Cannon revealed in an interview with MTV the song was inspired by the film itself.[11]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Lindsay Lohan - CelebSpin.com profile". CelebSpin.com. http://www.celebspin.com/lindsay-lohan/. Retrieved on 2007-07-18. "Lohan’s breakout role as a leading actress came six years later with 2004’s Mean Girls" 
  2. ^ The Seattle Times: Arts & Entertainment: It's back to school with 'Mean Girls,' but director will transfer to guy films
  3. ^ Mean Girls Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
  4. ^ Mean Girls (2004): Reviews
  5. ^ [1][dead link]
  6. ^ ""Mean Girls" Topples "Man"". E!. 2004-05-02. http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=4461c036-3943-445b-8c95-f931068888c1. 
  7. ^ a b "Mean Girls (2004) - BoxOfficeMojo.com". BoxOfficeMojo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=meangirls.htm. Retrieved on 2007-07-18. 
  8. ^ "IMDb - Mean Girls (2004) - Awards". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/awards. Retrieved on 2007-07-18. 
  9. ^ a b "Mean Girls 2 at IMDb". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282066/. Retrieved on 2008-11-12. 
  10. ^ Thomas K. Arnold (2008-20-31). "Paramount eyes Famous fortune". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i2540573003aeb12cdeeebdc420d0c5c3. Retrieved on 2008-08-21. 
  11. ^ [2]

[edit] External links

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mean Girls
Preceded by
Man on Fire		 Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA)
May 2, 2004		 Succeeded by
Van Helsing
v • d • e
Lindsay Lohan
Albums
Speak (2004) • A Little More Personal (Raw) (2005) •
Singles
Soundtrack
Films
The Parent Trap (1998)  • Freaky Friday (2003)  • Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004)  • Mean Girls (2004)  • Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)  • Just My Luck (2006)  • A Prairie Home Companion (2006)  • Bobby (2006)  • Georgia Rule (2007)  • I Know Who Killed Me (2007)  • Chapter 27 (2008)  • The Other Side (2010)  • Dare to Love Me (2010)
TV/Other films
Life-Size (2000)  • Get a Clue (2002)  • My Scene Goes Hollywood (2005)  • Labor Pains (2009)
Related topics
v • d • e
Films directed by Mark Waters
The House of Yes (1997) · Head Over Heels (2001) · Freaky Friday (2003) · Mean Girls (2004) · Just Like Heaven (2005) · The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) · Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
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