Understanding Mean Girls

Regina from Mean Girls

"She's fabulous, but she's evil," social outcast Damian famously says about queen bee Regina George in the 2004 film Mean Girls. This line seems to perfectly capture our culture's love/hate relationship with so-called mean girls.

On the one hand, we're obsessed with them. Another Mean Girls sequel, Mean Moms, is forthcoming, and reality TV is replete with real-life mean girls of all kinds (for example, see these clips from The Real Housewives of New York, The Jersey Shore, and The Hills). Even after high school, we look to cultural alphas, such as high-profile celebrities, for advice on how to dress, what to eat (even if it's just lemon juice and cayenne pepper), and even how to surgically alter ourselves (see I want a famous face). There are apparently even elderly mean girls.

On the other hand, we resent their power and love to bring them down, which is probably why so many mean girl-centered movies (Heathers, Saved!, Sixteen Candles, etc) feature the demise of the queen bee and the triumph of the downtrodden, and why powerful female politicians are often torn apart by the media. See, for example, Carly Fiorina's infamous "mean girl moment" or Maureen Dowd's column on mean girl politicians. (Dowd herself was later accused of being "the ultimate mean girl").

Read More->