By Jessica-May Cox
Tina Fey’s Mean Girls is more than just a quotable teen comedy; it’s a sharp commentary on female identity construction, particularly on how teenage girls navigate their place in a world shaped by the male gaze. Beneath its humour and camp high school tropes, the movie looks at how young women are socialised to view themselves and one another through the lens of patriarchal expectations, making it relevant to this day.
Cady Heron’s transformation from an innocent outsider to a Plastic is a key representation of how women are fundamentally conditioned to adopt a certain image – one dictated by Western beauty standards that prioritise thinness, sexualisation, and ultimately consumerism. As Cady begins to wear tighter clothing, more pink, and makeup, she embraces hyper-feminine ideals, mimicking the superficial markers of success dictated by a male-centric culture. This reflects the pressures girls face to conform to a certain mould – one that prioritises how well they “fit in” to arbitrary rules, such as wearing pink on Wednesdays. While this ideal appearance may have been started by men, girls are the ones who police it and ensure it is upheld. The creator of these rules, Regina George, consistently uses patriarchal norms to maintain her “Queen Bee” status in this way.
Patriarchal society’s ideals of female sexuality also facilitate division and toxic friendships between girls. Regina, for example, uses the male gaze as a tool of control over Karen Smith, as she believes she is more attractive than herself. Regina’s slut-shaming towards Karen allows her to maintain her Queen-like standing, but also reflects how patriarchal views of women can often shape the interactions between them; reinforcing patriarchal standards of a pretty girl who is also “pure”.
One of the most striking moments of Mean Girls is Ms. Norbury’s lecture to the girls: “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores, it just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.” This line speaks to how internalised misogyny shapes female relationships, encouraging girls to compete for male attention by devaluing each other. This is portrayed best in the scene where Regina kisses Aaron Samuels in front of Cady, and her first reaction is to call her a “slut”. While the movie highlights the bottom-up approach women can take to combat a society that values them only for their sexual purity or availability, it also does not villainise anyone (even Regina) because teenage girls, even when complicit, are ultimately caught in a system designed to pit them against each other.
Cady’s eventual rejection of the Plastic identity suggests a deeper reckoning with these societal pressures. She sheds her markers of popularity and control by wearing less revealing clothing and more of the blue she wore at the beginning. However, she retains some aspects of her transformation, e.g. her more refined hair and makeup, signalling she isn’t rejecting femininity altogether, but redefining it on her terms. This nuance raises questions about Western feminism in an increasingly consumerist world: Is the answer to reject these standards entirely, or is true empowerment found in reclaiming them?
By examining how female identity is constructed and policed in a male-dominated world, Mean Girls offers more than just laughs. It’s a smart critique of the impossible expectations placed on young women. Ultimately, the film shows us just how difficult it is to be a teenage girl.
Illustrated by Sylvain Chan
