Sugar and spice and all that good stuff is what girls are made of – not these girls, though. The mean girls on screen tell their disturbing nasty and inventive jokes with a sweet smile, have no friends but only underlings and seem to have no greater goal than to destroy people’s lives and become the prom queen. So why do we love them so much?
In short, bad guys are sometimes a lot more interesting to watch than goody-two-shoes. Especially since they are often also incredibly intelligent, passionate and determined. Yeah, the mean girl trope is detrimental to how girls view themselves, with Hollywood vilifies hyper-femininity, simultaneously telling teens that liking fashion and pink lipstick is the mark of an empty-headed corrupt person and that ambitious and competitive girls quickly turn to the dark side. There is, however, a growing resentment towards the sexist movie trope to portray angry women as villains on screen.
It seems that while men can express their anger or grief violently, women can’t be angry, can’t lash out without “crossing the line.” The message is that power corrupts women, so powerful women or, in this case, girls need to be stopped. Viewers, on the other hand, often relate to overwhelming feelings of insecurity, rage and passion brewing inside young women, thus feeling a certain protectiveness towards them.
8 Courtney Alice Shayne – Jawbreaker
Jaw-dropping follows three popular girls who accidentally kill a member of their own band while playing a prank on him. To buy the silence of the school’s resident nerd, they promise him a makeover and the place of the prematurely departed member. Fittingly, Courtney Alice Shayne is an absurdly mean girl, self-proclaimed God of the high school microcosm. For example, to avoid appearing human, she never eats in public. It’s refreshing to see such a mean and absurd woman, a woman who doesn’t put the needs of others before her own.
seven Tracy Flick – Election
Reese Witherspoon gives incredible performance as overzealous know-it-all Tracy Flick in Election. She’s a high school movie avatar of Hillary Clinton, trying to find female ambition and showing how the norms for men and women in politics are different: where men are assertive and confident, women are arrogant and overly eager. As girls get older, their aggressive and competitive impulses become less socially acceptable, so to fit in, they need to appear kind and approachable and express their negative emotions quietly, through intrigue, blackmail, or war. psychological.
6 Kathryn Merteuil – Cruel Intentions
Beautiful and excellent student, the pride of the school, a girl that mothers give as an example to their daughters: who would have thought that the ideal Kathryn and the real Kathryn had nothing in common between them! Seduce out of boredom, have sex out of revenge, bribe for pleasure – this is how Kathryn from cruel intentions is entertained.
As his brother Sebastian fulfills the conditions of their bet, the unexpected happens: he falls in love. Kathryn hates it because it means losing such a wonderful toy. At the end of the film, Katherine falls from “grace” and her fall is devastating.
5 Sharpay Evans – High School Musical
In recent years, the public seems to have reclaimed the “mean girl” and the “love to hate her” attitude has turned into more sympathetic feelings, sometimes even claiming that the bad girl was actually the victim of history, as happened with Sharpay Evans of musical high school. His apologists ask: what is Sharpay’s crime, after all? To be incredibly dedicated to her craft and not let amateurs take away her dream? She’s a mean diva but, to be honest, that comes with being a theater kid. Her sparkly pink looks have become a fashion inspiration, and her campy performances are so much fun, making Sharpay more memorable and adorable in the long run.
4 Jennifer Check – Jennifer’s Body
Jennifer Check emerges as the quintessential mean girl, however, feminist satire and underrated horror-comedy Jennifer’s body tackles the trope in an interesting way. The titular Jennifer can’t change the system, so she decides to use unfair circumstances and people’s preconceived perceptions of her to her advantage. As Mashable writes: “The feelings generated by the pressure exerted on young women – anger, guilt, shame, fear, self-loathing – explode in bloody fashion”.
There is an element of mystery in girls – why does this girl who has everything hate the outcast girl so intensely? Good, Jennifer’s body finally develops the powerful dynamic of female friendship and animosity and gives this intensity strange nuances.
3 Heather Chandler – Heathers
Heathers gave us the mean OG girl. The impact Heather Chandler had on pop culture in the short ten minutes she actually appeared on screen cannot be overstated. The film even predicted the public’s obsession with her by showing how, after her death, her presence became stronger than ever. From the bold 80s fashion to the absurd dark humor that inspired many of the following teen films, Heathers is a classic, and Heather Chandler has taken a new, more complex look at the mean girl: someone who looks perfect, as society demands, but is broken and deeply flawed in reality.
2 Regina George – Mean Girls
Whether Heathers introduced a fresh take on the mean girl trope, then mean girls perfected it. Regina George sums up the paradox of the mean girl universe: people can hate her, but at the same time, they still want her to like them. He’s an evil genius, a bully, and a manipulator, but stripped of the glamour, he’s just a really angry kid who had no limits or guidance. A amazing political satire, mean girls examined how fleeting popularity is, how meanness is a coping mechanism for dealing with deep inner insecurities, and how quickly anyone can be corrupted by power, a meek nerd and a tomboy gothic included.
1 Blair Waldorf—Gossip Girl
Blair Waldorf, our “favorite 95-pound, doe-eyed, word-tossing, label-whoring bundle of girly evil” from Gossip Girl, is the ultimate mean girl. She won Prom Queen, became a real princess, and even managed to replace the “nice girl” as the de facto main character. Blair is mean, but also incredibly witty, smart, and driven. She wants it all, but what’s lovely is that she works tirelessly to earn it, battling very real issues like insecurity, self-sabotage, eating disorders, toxic relationships. , the broken family, the loss of a baby… Giving meanness (not an excuse but) an explanation makes Blair a delightfully nuanced and complex character, securing his legacy as a teen show that no remake can replicate.
