Mean Girls (2004) is a widely popular teen comedy that highlights the cliques and realities of public high school. The film focuses on Cady, a new student at the movie’s high school, as she navigates high school for the first time. The film has stayed revolutionary for preteens and teenagers for the past decade, with adolescents dedicating October 3rd as “Mean Girls Day” (as a reference to the film) and dedicating Wednesdays as a day to wear pink for everything from social media captions to school spirit days. Though the film has rightfully become a fun teen classic, the unfortunate side of Mean Girls teaches its young audience to fear lesbians through a drama-filled plotline.
The film begins with Cady, a previously homeschooled student, beginning her first day of school. She befriends Janis Ian and Damian Leigh– both “unpopular” outcasts– who tell her about the stereotypical cliques at the school. Before Janis introduces herself, she introduces Damien to Cady, saying that he is “too gay to function”. Before knowing any other character trait besides his name, the audience is given his seemingly most identifying and important trait: his homosexuality.
However, Damien isn’t ashamed to be gay, and the school is overall accepting of him. Though he is a classic “feminine” gay male character, the other characters are accepting of him, and Damien’s character does little harm to the audience’s view of gay males (see no. 2).
On the other hand, it is later revealed that Regina, the main “plastic” has started a rumor that Janis is a lesbian. Until it is revealed to Cady, Janis abruptly tries to stop Damien from revealing her secret every time it is brought up. Though she is claimed to be straight at the end of the film, she is clearly uncomfortable and upset with this rumor, establishing the idea that for her it is “bad” to be considered homosexual.
Damien and Janis tell Cady about the “plastics,”- a trio of three girls on campus that they describe as “teen royalty”. From their introduction, the audience sees the pedestal that these girls are placed on, making their power over the other students clear. Throughout the film, there are many instances of students clearly idolizing the plastics and greatly valuing their opinions. Though the exaggerated popularity and idolization are seemingly clearly for the comedic value of the film for the audience out of high school, teenagers that are experiencing the cliques of high school see this aspect of the film as more of a reality.
With this, the opinions of these characters, although flawed, are more dangerous to the young audience than one would think. By using “lesbian” as an insult throughout the film, it establishes the disconnection between beautiful, “popular” girls and homosexual girls. To me, any young girl watching this film is left with the ideology that you cannot be well-liked or feminine in high school while being a lesbian.
Throughout the film, Regina openly says multiple insults about Janis being a lesbian, once calling her a slur behind her back. When doing a group exercise involving a trust fall into a pit of female classmates, Regina announces that it must be Janis’s “dream come true” implying her love for female touch. When explaining how the rumor started, Regina notes that because she believed Janis to be a lesbian in middle school, she did not want her at her pool party, as the other girls would be in bathing suits. This quote seemingly normalizes the idea that lesbians should be feared by straight girls, enforcing the “predatory lesbian” stereotype. For former vulnerable high schooler Grace Perry, the movie assisted her early developed fear of lesbians and seems to easily assist those of many preteens.
The part that is the most unsettling is the true fear that all of the characters have towards the possible idea that a classmate could be a lesbian: Janis, herself, is too ashamed to tell Cady of the rumor, Regina feared being in a bathing suit around her, and during a fight with her and Cady claims that its not her fault that Janis is “in love” with her. Young audience members internalize and remember these plot lines, reflecting them in their own lives.
I have found that media that addresses lesbians that I watched during my early teenage years and childhood absolutely helped form my opinion on homosexual girls. Both the predatory lesbian character in Pitch Perfect and comedic yet negative connotations in Modern Family and Mean Girls helped form my internalized homophobia by mid-elementry school. When young people have little queer represention in their own lives, most of their knowledge and opinions grow from media representation, which makes the attitude and approach crucial.
I believe that if I was fed more inclusive media (and my parents were, too, at a young age) I would be more open to discovering aspects of my sexuality much earlier. I remember hearing the word lesbian concerning actresses and public figures such as Ellen DeGeneres and Jilian Michaels and thinking they were in some way “worse” than straight women– less feminine and less relatable. This ideology directly mirrors that of the ideology in Mean Girls with the term “lesbian” standing for unrelatable and one to be feared. I believe that by having Mean Girls on my list of favorite films in elementary school, that I internalized its homophobia and reflected it in my own life.
Although the homophobic jokes in Mean Girls are seemingly just for comedy, the widespread popularity of the film combined with the young audience creates fuel for accidental homophobia in its audience, as media is far more impactful on young people than one may think.