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Mean Girls Run the World? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Smantha, and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you production by.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I hurt you, and we're back with a movie related topic.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like that that's perfect for what I will
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: say is the beginning of fall. Yes, mainly because it's
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: actually kind of cool and that has been for the
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: past couple of days, meaning around sixties or seventies before
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: like ten.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: So for us, it's huge, huge.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's not hit beyond ninety, which is incredible for
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: the like August and in September. I know everybody's like, what,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: but with that just feels like movie season, like when
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: you get to come in and watch the movies, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: some of these movies since it's like.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: School related, high school related.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Even feels like on topic because yes, all the kids
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: are back to school and they've been back.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: To school for like a month.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to y'all because that sounds awful and we're
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: not talking about the movie and I'm about to get
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: to it. But any I don't think we've actually watched
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: this for the show, and I'm kind of shocked by that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I already talked about this yesterday. I had realize we've
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: never done this as a feminist movie, which is a
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: shame which I feel like we're gonna have to like
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: fix soon. But we were talking about the overall trope
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of it, and we're talking about the mean girl trope,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: and the mean girl trope has many names, and we're
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: gonna be referencing all the different names, and we will
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: be cursing a little bit because you know, they don't
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: like women and oftentimes degrade them in these tropes. We
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: know this, and I say they as in like filmmakers
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and entertainers and all those people. So yes, we'll be
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: referencing the movie quite a bit, as it obviously has
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: a big impact.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Seriously, the title of the movie is mean Girl, So yeah,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and uh.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: But first we want to note that mean girls goes
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: way back, like the actual idea of them, one specifically
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: noted from Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, which we
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: did cover. Hello Caroline Binkley. I feel like she is
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: an ultimate mean girl. She never does get a redemption
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: arc either, so the original mean girl. So let's start
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: with this question, Annie, do you have a favorite mean
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: girl or like a scenario of mean girls? Oh?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: No, I remember when you suggested this I said, this
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: is like so out of what I but.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: It's not because horror movies use this trope quite often.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: They do, But I bet I classify it differently than
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: how I classify a mean girl.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, because I would think bodies, bodies, bodies, mean girl.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: But the mean girls there, which is we have that
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: whole like ousting of friendships and then like calling each
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: other out for not being around.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: It's kind of this level of mingrel I would say more.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I can't think of it in mind.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Well, Jennifer's Body is actually we're gonna mention that movie
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: and that is a mean girl movie as well, essentially,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: so you know there's more than you think. The mean
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: girl has had evolution, an essential like growth and up dates.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: So with that, that's what we're seeing and a lot
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of horror movies, Carrie, I'm mentioning that as well also
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: has which you.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Have watched that right? Oh my god.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I keep coming back to all the movies, Like every
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: time you tell me you haven't watched something, even though
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you've already told me this, I'm in shock. But I
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: will also say I was also in shock when you
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: do tell me you've watched a movie I'm like, you
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: have seen that one death becomes her an enigma? You
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: are death becomes or you have watched that. We haven't
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: talked about that and those like that's two mean girls,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: two alpha girls going after each other, which is even funnier.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I digress.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: There's a lot and I think I'm gonna put a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: spoiler here because we are talking a little bit about
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: one of your favorite movies in Kanto and it's fairly new,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: and we do kind of spoil a couple of things,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: so FYI, that's coming towards the end.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: So let's begin. What is a main girl exactly?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Here's how Victoria con Leon sorry if I've said that wrong,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: describes them for VNHS Mirror dot com. In teen media,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the main girl is typically an antagonistic character, notoriously good
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: at tormenting.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: The main character.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: These girls are often portrayed as popular, vain, selfish, and manipulative,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: always sporting the best style. They come from rich families
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: with an air of determined self assurance.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And from a wonderful article written by student Ivy Gen
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: for their school on Highlight dot Org. Here's how she
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: explains the mean girl quote. According to online entertainment magazine
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: The take. The mean girl is confident, cunning, and manipulative.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: She often finds entertainment from humiliating others, but is still
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: seen as charismatic and alluring by her peers. On the surface,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: she's the face of power and corruption. She personifies the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: status quo of the social hierarchy with a click that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: enforces her tyrannical nature.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: What is that movie?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Though, we just watched Where's the Influencer going on the
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: bachelorette party?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: This is again the mean girl.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: We see like we don't understand why she's mean. I mean,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: she was mean from the beginning and pushed heart over
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: the edge, but it ended up being a horror movie.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, again, like, there's so many of these examples. She
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: has to humiliate her, she has to be right.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: She's the one that has all the money, she does
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: all the things, buys the nice things.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: This is the mean girl.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And we'll come back to Ivy's article because she has
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: a very great insight on the theory on the mean
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: girl trope and its evolution. And I was so impressed
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: with her. I think she is her high school newspaper essentially.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It was like, but it's good so I'm gonna use it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I love it, and her writing was wonderful, So good
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: on you, Ivy. But first, let's talk about the origins
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: of the mean girl and how it has been used
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: throughout our entertainment history and just history in general sociology.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Mean girls have been around for the entirety of the
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: existence of humans, it has, but the term itself didn't
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: come around until two thousand and two, when author Rosalind
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Wiseman coined the term in her book Queen Bees and Wannabes.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And for a bit of background on that, Wiseman, who
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: was originally a martial arts teacher, I believe she does
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: have a degree in political science.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: She taught young women.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: She wrote this book, which pushed her into the world
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: of being an author and public speaker. And as we
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: were researching the topic, we didn't exactly find what catapulted
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: her to that world necessarily, like there wasn't just an
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: aha moment. But she does often talk about how she
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: witnessed the constant social cycles within girl circles.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: So here's a bit from her Wikipedia page. So take
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: this with a green salt.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: After hearing the young girls questions about social issues they
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: faced and watching them become empowered by martial arts. Wiseman
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was inspired to begin working in the youth empowerment and
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: leadership building. After spending over a decade speaking with girls
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: about the social issues they face, including boys, clicks, gossip,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: social hierarchy, and self image, Wiseman wrote Queen Bees and Wannabes.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: The book gives suggestions on how parents can better understand
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and help their daughters navigate the social atmosphere of what
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Wiseman refers to as quote girl world. Since his release
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and two, it has become a New
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: York Times bestseller and was the basis for the two
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: thousand and four film Mean Girls. And though the actual
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: trope again has been around forever. So let's just like
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: we know, we've we know what it is without giving
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: it me like the name right because you can look
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: at the movie carry which apparently any hasn't seen, no,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: and it is the epitome of mean girls for real
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: or even children's classics. The parent trap. There's like, even
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: though they're not truly mean girls, they.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Are mean girls to each other. At first they bully
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: each other.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I don't understand, although again this falls into the more
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: lovable misunderstood mean girl trope, which is part of the
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: evolution of the mean girl that we're going to talk
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: about later. The term came after the coining within this
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: self help book. And by the way, the author has
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: written many more books and including advice for adult mean
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: girl situations like in the workplace. Also, I believe they
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: are on the third edition of the original book so
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: as to keep up with the times and the changes.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, new movie too.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Also, I just realized I've seen the rage carry two.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Just does that make me want to flip the table?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: So you need to stop talking.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Because there was a song in there I liked.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I'll give you that. I'll give you that, Okay. Anyway.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Wiseman often uses titles like Queen Bee and alpha Girls
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: to categorize the mean girls, and throughout the book and
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: in her classes and seminars, she's really classified the different types.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: In one reference, she would use the term really mean
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: girls are RMG's as a reference for alpha girls. Here's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a bit from a two thousand and four New York
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Times article titled girls Just Want to Be Mean, where
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: they talk about having an apology day and one of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Weisman's classes quote the girls whom Weisman variously calls the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: alpha girls. The RMG's really mean girls are the queen
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: bees are the ones who are supposed to own up
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: to having backstabbed or dumped a front, but they are
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: also the most resistant to the exercise and the most
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: self justifying. The girls who are their habitual victims or
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: hangers on. The wannabes and messengers in Weisman's lingo, are
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: always apologizing anyway.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Right, And within the article they talk a bit more
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: about Wiseman herself, as well as a great reference to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: again one of our favorite Heathers. We've mentioned a lot
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: of movies in here that we have watched.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, just listen to for those. Here's
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: a quote.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Wiseman, who is thirty two and hip and girlish herself,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: has taught this class at many different schools, and it's
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: fair to say that although she loves girls, she does
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: not cling to sentimental notions about them. She is a feminist,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: but not the sort likely to ascribe greater inherent compassion
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: to women or girls as a group than two men
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: or boys.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: More.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Her style is the analysis of the feminist historian Elizabeth
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Fox Genoviz, who has observed that quote, those who have
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: experienced dismissal by that junior high school girls clique could
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: hardly with a straight face claim generosity and nurture as
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a natural attribute of women.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Together.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Weiseman and I once watched the movie Heathers, the nineteen
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: eighty nine black comedy about a triad of vicious queen
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: bees who got their come uppance, and she found it
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: quote pretty true to life. The line uttered by Winona
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Writer as Veronica, the disaffected non Heather of the group,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: struck her as particularly apt. I don't really like my friends.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: It's just like there are people I work with and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: our job is being popular.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And the article gives a bit more factual context on
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the mean girls and why we may have been inundated
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: with so much mean girl content in the nineties and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: two thousands. Quote. This focus on the cruelty of girls is,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: of course something new. For years, psychologists who study aggression
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: among school children looked only at its physical and overt
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: manifestations and concluded that girls were less aggressive than boys.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That consensus began to change in the early nineties after
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a team of researchers led by a Finnish professor named
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: kaj Yorquist started interviewing eleven and twelve year old girls
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: about their behavior toward one another. The team's conclusion was
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that the girls were in fact just as aggressive as boys,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: though in a different way. They were not as likely
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to engage in physical fights, for example, but their superior
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: social intelligence enabled them to wage complicated battles with other
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: girls aimed at damaging relationships or reputations, leaving nasty messages
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: by cell phone or spreading scurrilous rumors by email, making
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: friends with one girl as revenge against another, gossiping about
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: someone just loudly enough to be overheard. Turning the notion
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: of women's greater empathy on its head byor quests focused
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: on the destructive uses to which such emotional attunement could
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: be put. Girls can better understand how other girls feel,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: as he puts it, so they know better how to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: harm them.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I will say that just triggered me to a middle
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: school incident on the playground or friends where we were
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: separated and one person wasn't invited.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: To a birthday party. Oh, just like I had that moment.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Jeez, So I'm not completely wrong about this whole That
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: was always a girl's girl, if you did something wrong,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: I was like mad at you, like if you did
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: something really wrong.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: But outside of that, Nah, but yeah, I just had
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: this moment wow or Maria, Sorry Maria. So the article
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: goes on to highlight other studies that came soon after.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Here's something that was written in relation to Rachel Simmons'
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: work titled Odd Girl Out The Hidden Culture of Aggression
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and Girls. In her book The twenty seven year Old,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Simmons offers a plaintive definition of a relational aggression. Unlike
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: boys who tend to bully acquaintances or strangers, girls frequently
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: attack within tightly knit friendship networks, making aggression harder to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: identify and intensify the damage to the victims. Within the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: hidden culture of aggression, girls fight with body language and
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: relationships instead of fists and knives. In this world, friendship
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: is a weapon, and the sting of a shout peals
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: in comparison to a day of someone's silence. No gesture
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: more devastating than back turning away. Now, Simonist insists, is
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the time to pull up the rock and really look
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: at this seeding underside of American girlhood beneath a facade
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: of female intimacy, she writes, lies a terrain traveled in secret,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: marked with anguish and nourished by silence.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: She's not completely wrong.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Kind of also reminds me of a New Girl episode
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: where the two jests and CEC don't talk to each other, like,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: they don't actually fight, but they do passive aggressive things,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: but they know they're in a fight, and no one
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: else knows that they're in a fight, right, And then
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: when they actually get physical with each other, they feel
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: better and you screamed at each other, they released it
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: all and their friends again.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, that doesn't typically happen.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: When that happens, friendship usically just over right by that
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: point anyway. And though it isn't mentioned in the article
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: about how the patriarchy and misogyny are big influences within
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: this relative aggression that they have termed this type of actions,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: they do go on to look into other ages and
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: emotional factors for the reactions. And I don't think we're
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: the only ones who thought about this. Here's another quote
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: from the CEC online dot Com article. It says, to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: get into the discourse of it all, the popular mean
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: girl trope is a caricature feeling internalized misogyny in all
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: of us. Ironically, she's often written by men. As much
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: as we know that she is an exaggerated and unrealistic
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: movie character, she's so ingrained in our minds that it
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: feels like surely some of her must be real and
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: must be present in real women. Hollywood has pulled this
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: long con on us over decades in an act of
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: what we would now call next level gaslighting. This archetype
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: made us feel bad for not being unrealistically beautiful, rich,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: or thin. But more than that, did it encourage an
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: era of bullying that caused more damage than anyone could
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: have expected. These movies told us that being mean is
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: what made you popular. We can't help but wonder what
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: this did for the psyche of teenagers growing up. So
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: just coupling the two ideas about, okay, this is how
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: you win a war is by being mean to a group,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: like gaging up on someone, versus also seeing that in
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Hollywood films, as well as not realizing this is only
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: helping one set of peoples and it's not women or
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: marginalized peoples. But I found that very interesting that none
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: of the earlier works really talks about it. I also
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: want to go ahead and talk about the fact the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: way they describe Wiseman's feminism as very like low key,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: almost to the point of saying I'm not feminists, but
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: type of conversation I was like, oh okay, oh okay. However,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Wiseman did continue to make additions to keep up with
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the changes of the times. So what we were talking
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: about when we were talking about her theories was the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: two thousand and four edition and the self helpic did
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: have an impact again in the trope itself, literally being
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the reason that the movie Mean Girls was even thought
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of by Tina Fey, who actually did consult a bit
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: with Wiseman. I don't know though, if she took a
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: lot of that advice Tina Fey. I think she took
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff out and did her own thing.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Did talk to Wiseman, but kind of like just okay, cool, thanks,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: type of situations.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, from what I've read, I don't think she likes
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: a new version.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: That's what that's why, just just just the just the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: quick kess of I've not seen that. With that background,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: let's talk about the Mean Girls the main inspiration actually
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: comes from the classic Heathers. Uh. Yes, we did this
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: feature as one of our first movies. I remember it well,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: being on your beach house watching it on your small TV. Yeah,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: because you had bought it from me on DVD, and
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, let's do this. But like we said before,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: the mean girls have been around way before this, but
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: this was kind of the quintessential beginning. And again what
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Wiseman took as examples, but like, yeah, they're the fairy tale.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Cinderella is about meingirls, her wicked stepsisters and her mother. Yeah, hey,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: meanirl theme. They were real mean to her, but she,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: you know, succeeded without them, and they just there's different
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: versions of what happens to them, but it's not nice.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: But Heathers, yes, as a staple when it comes to
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the best example. Here's a bit from the teenmagazine dot
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: com about meingirls. I can't talk about the mean girl
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: trope without first mentioning Heathers, the nineteen eighty nine cult
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: classic that simultaneously became the blueprint for the archetype and
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: defied the somewhat sexist expectations of teenage girls. Heathers show
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: the consequence this is not just of mean girls' actions themselves,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: but of societal misunderstanding of teens and angst, while poking
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: fun of the characters and the subject matter with hilarious
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: self awareness.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So in the typical story, we have a girl often
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: seen as innocent or an outsider, are both, who are
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: pitted against another girl and her posse. This posse is
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: seen as popular and cool, and they dictate the social
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: hierarchy in their territory. And again with another reference to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the Heathers, hears a bit more about the leader, or
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: as Wiseman may call her, the Alpha from that CEC
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Online article quote. We know her so well. She's gorgeous,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: she's wealthy, she's smart, she drives boys crazy, and above all,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: she's the absolute worst. She's the popular mean girl in
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: every teen movie we grew up watching, and she's completely
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: made up. Despite her not existing, this archetype has stuck
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: around for decades, still being used today in movies, series
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and reality TV, so implanted in our minds that we're
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: convinced that her real life incarnation must be out there
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: somewhere waiting to pounce and make us feel bad. Despite feminism,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: pop culture and representation making so many progressive strides. Why
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is the popular mean girl so indelible and why the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: hell was she created in the first place. What is
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it that makes this character so quintessentially her? She's stereotypically beautiful,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of course, but she's also really mean. From one of
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: her first iterations embodied by Heather Chandler and Heathers to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Chanelle number one in screen Queens, she's tall, skinny, white,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and she has Salan quality hairstyling every day despite being
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in high school. She's also always rich, and not in
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a quiet luxury kind of way. We'll see ostentatious shots
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of her family's massive suburban house, her fancy car, often
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: convertible sports cars it was the nineties, her huge bedroom
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: in bed, and most obviously, her incredible wardrobe.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Right, And we're not really talking about the depth of
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: how most of the mean girls at the beginning were
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: white and very rich and very sexual or seen as
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: very sexual. We're not really talking about that part at
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: We should.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I think I've just ran at it with time or
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: so we'll come back to that maybe at a different
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: point when we talk about other tropes. I'm sure, but yeah,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: that is something to be seen, although there is conversations
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: about how more and more people of color have been
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: put as the mean girls. Asian girls I've seen as
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: being put in this as the mean girl, rich, small,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: all those things and sexually active obviously, and it seems
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: like that's kind of the filler, like, oh, you want
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: more people of color.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: We'll put them in this role. Then it will shake
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And yeah, just for fun, because I love it, We're
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: gonna talk a little bit more about the Heathers and
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: really how it brought into in an age and generation
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of mean girls and again their importance.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: And this is from gain.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Rent, though it has appeared in many, many iterations since.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: The earliest example of mean girl tropes as we know
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: it today it came from the nineteen eighty eight movies
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: or nineteen eighty nine Heathers. Heathers had had a sort
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: of renaissance lately because of the surging popularity of the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: musical adaptation, but the original movie was kind of a
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: cult classic for a long time. The mean girls in
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: questions are the Heathers themselves, three teenage girls all named
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Heather who ruled the school as a group Heather Chandler
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: is the head and is the ultimate pinnacle of the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: mean girl, so much so that basically everyone who came
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: after was based on this model. She, along with other girls,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: is fundamentally motivated by status in social hierarchy, whether that's
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: gaining it or maintaining the capital she already has. That's
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: kind of the definition of the mean girl. She's confident, ambitious,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and cunning, but she uses these traits to uphold power
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: and manipulate others into doing her bidding, thereby keeping her
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: as the bee. Is also important to the trope that
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: other people want to be her, and Heather Chandler's social
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: status is so coveted by others that it literally has
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: deadly consequences in the stories and oftentimes in horror stories. Interestingly,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: some would call the mean girl trope the Heather trope.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Like I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. According
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: to an article titled the Heather Trope?
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And how do you write this character? We're not giving
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: you advice how to write, by the way, just talk
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: about head apart they write. A Heather is a character
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: trope that describes the popular person of the high school. Typically,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: a Heather is a female character who is traditionally beautiful
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: and is desired by both men and women. A character
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: who falls into the heather trope is often complex and
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: driven by desire to keep up a well manicured appearance.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Similar to the mean girl, the Heather can come off
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: as a mean spirited even if they're trying to be nice.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: This is due to the audience's perception of these types
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: of characters, which leads to a later understanding of the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: characters complexities that make them feel the need to appear
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: a certain way.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And it continues quote. The heather trope appeals to the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: female desire to be understood and accepted as they are,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: rather than what they appear to be. It is a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: trope that can often be misunderstood and misrepresented, creating a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: character that is mean just because they're pretty.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a little bit different in the wanting
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: to be accepted part. They actually go on to use
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Dinnifer from Jennifer's Body Again, we watched that one too
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: as an example of this and also as an example
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: of taking down the patriarchy.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: So they use the mean girl trope to take down
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: the man. I'm like, okay, that's that's that's.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: An appropriate way. Yeah, I approve it this way, so
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely the feminist that the other articles referring. Now,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: one of the things we didn't talk about with Weisman's
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: books and classes is her breakdown of these groups, which
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: is often seen again within like Heathers and Mean Girls
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and other classic films. But it is understood that part
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of the downfall and the catalyst within the mean Girl
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: slash girls trope as the battle to become the RMG
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: or the alpha. And I love that this word was
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: in usage for mean Girls and now have become more
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: popular for like the referencing on a strong male leader.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: But back to the GameRant dot com article, they continue
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to break down how the group is seen within different movies.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Quote Heather's itself is a satire and more of an
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: indictment on society for forcing young girls to get to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: this point more than anything else, but the fundamental tropes
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: it presented became staples of ten movies into the nineties
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and two thousands. Mean Girls presented a more modern version
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of the trio from Heathers from the head mean girl
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Heather Chandler and Regina George to the jealous Lackey Heather
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Duke and Gretchen Wieners to the dumb one who might
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: secretly be the nicest of the trio, Heather McNamara and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Karen Smith. The bearz of the plot of Mean Girls
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: is similar to Heathers as well. The protagonists Veronica Slash
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Katie befriends the popular girls and thinks they've cracked the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: code of social status, only to find that the world
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: of the mean Girl is much darker than they thought,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and they don't like how it changes them.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, after they get called out, of course, So the
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: RMG or the Alpha or alpha because a lot of
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: them call them the Alpha or Queen B is the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: antagonist and I'm saying this with a capital A. The
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: antagonist and is the epitome of power or of evil
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: or both. And here's a bit from TV tropes dot org.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: The Alpha is living, breathing evidence that popular is evil,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: from stealing your crush to humiliating you in front of
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the whole school. There is no low she won't stoop
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to in order to oppress her dorky classmates and assert
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: herself as the queen. She will often win Homecoming Queen
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: or prom Queen in a landslide vote or not, that's
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: their takedown, and oftentimes she's the authority of the cheerleading
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: squad and decides who's on and off the squad. After all,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: who needs a coach?
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Hello'e bring it on.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And they continue quote. She's also usually the sign of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: a wealthy and influential family, the star of the school
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: or head sister of the influential college sorority house, thus
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: providing her a network of local celebrity, influence and wealth
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to exploit. She's also quite the seductress, even going so
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: far as to bear her midriff as a method of intimidation,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and consequently all the boys fight amongst themselves, sometimes literally,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: to be her oppressed boyfriend. And to top it off,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: she's also very good looking. All this leaves her with
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the belief that she can do whatever she likes without consequences. Unfortunately,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: she's often right. The powers that be are not immune
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to her family's wealth, connections and influence, and they can
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and will be corrupted or coerced into overlooking her bad behavior.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Her natural enemy is the loser heroine. Whenever their eternal
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: jealousy fueld struggle over possessions, boyfriends, and status is sparked,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: aew quarter will neither be asked for nor given.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: So with all those details, we have to ask, why
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: does the mean girl trope work and has it grown
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: with the times. Maybe it's not the fact that it worked,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: but with a sense of entertainment and foretales like Cinderella,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Heathers and Carrie.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: More of it's about justice.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Like having the deadly ending that brings a bit of
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: satisfaction in the story that that vengeance, And as the
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: time has changed, we see a bit of a shift
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: into the lovable alpha or the reginas who's able to
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: release their anger and finally be themselves.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, here's some thoughts on the mean girl and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: what we as a society may see about them. From
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Women's Republic dot net quote. Contrary to her male counterpart,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the jock bully, who is usually dumb and lacks a
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: promising future, the mean girl is full of potential. She
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: believes herself and is aware of her own intelligence. Her
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: personality drives these positive characteristics to a hyper competitive extreme
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and makes her a skilled, yet cruel and devious ruler.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: The core of the mean girl's character is often deep
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: insecurity and anger. She is guided by her rage and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: her cynical and deep understanding of the world. Rachel mcadam's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: portrayal of Regina George captures this eloquently in Regina's meltdown
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: after finding out that Katie was deceiving her all along,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: or in the regular rude outburst she has towards her mom.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: The mean girl is really just an angry girl in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: need of boundaries and guidance. Unable to deal with her emotion,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: she projects her anger into selfishness and protects herself from
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the outside world, climbing the social hierarchy. The mean girl
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: is well aware of how society works. Instead of fighting
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: these structures, she upholds them because at least that way
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: she can end up on top.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Right and the writer goes into more detail of what
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: makes a good mean girl. She writes, a successful portrayal
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: of Meingirlo trope should include a motive to the meanness.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Sharpey Evans wanted to start on Broadway. Regina George was
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: addicted to the power of being influential and saw her
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: own self worth in popularity. Blair Waldorf relied on her
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: status to achieve her dreams. The mean girl needs a
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: backstory to make her authentic. Explaining her behavior simply on
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: the basis of her gender is sexist and unsatisfying. Her
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: life also isn't all is cut out to be. Regina
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: George is on a constant diet to maintain her figure.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Blossom lost her brother and closest friend, Rosalie hale
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: A Low Twilight hates being a vampire the foundation of
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: her existence. The mean girl is smart, she has a
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: signature look, and most importantly, she exues desirability on several levels,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: which remains even after her downfall. So we know that
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: we have to have mean girls for some of these
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: movies and hopefully they come back together with like, oh
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: it wasn't a competition hopefully or you know, taking down Man.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: One of those.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: So the mean girl must be the feminine representation as well.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: So here's some interesting thoughts from Madison Huizinga, I'm so
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: sorry if I said that wrong, and what she wrote
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: in her substack about mean girls. So mingirl is always
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: hyper feminine. She embodies feminine stereotypes on steroids, immaculate faces
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of ultra glamorous makeup, victorious secret push up bras, be
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: dazzled notebooks, luscious waterfalls of the care, manicured nails, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: an undying obsession with fashion. Mean girls of the nineties
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: and early two thousands looked like they got caught in
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: a Claire's thunderstorm, followed by a limited to tornado.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: What a reference? What a reference? And she continues in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: her writing quote, the cookie cutter characterization of a hyper
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: feminine mean girl and an unfeminine protagonist is not an accident.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: There's a reason why this formula has thrived for decades,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the same reason why young boys are reprimanded for preferring
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to play with dolls and wear skirts, while young girls
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: are more often praised for not being afraid to get dirty,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: playing in the mud, and stuck with the label tomboy.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: In a patriarchal society, femininity is viewed at best as
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: acute deficiency and at worst as evil. Obviously, America has
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: moved past witch trials, yet the disdain for femininity persists
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: in slighter ways, less boisterous, but loud enough to permeate
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the consciousness of media consumers of all genders. Four years teen,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: rom coms have disseminated the message that if girls want
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: to be viewed as intelligent, interesting and in the end
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: worthy of an equally smart and steady boyfriend. They ultimately
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: need to abandon their overly feminine qualities. Eliminate your vocal fry,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: wipe off the lip gloss, Prove that you're the exception,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the brilliant needle in the haystack of ditsy girlishness to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: be seen as having any kind of substance. Prove you're
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: not like most girls. To prove your significance.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Right, and it isn't too surprising to know that it
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: is the opposits that have to fight that the enemy
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: would be the outsider. We would add to that the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: layers of makeover tropes, the betting trope. You know, dude
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: will definitely have sex with the unpopular girl who was
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: hot all along, but they don't have sex, and instead
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: he the dude, gets a redemption arc because at the
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: last minute he decided that's not a nice idea. But
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: even without those types of tropes, we would still have
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the pretty girl versus the not as pretty girl, or
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: so we're told that, you know, her curly hair makes
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: her unpretty?
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Or glasses am I right? Am I right?
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: As Huizinga writes quote, and somehow the pendulum manages to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: swing to the other extreme, too, conceiving a swarm of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: opposing but related identity issues. If girls don't conventionally groom
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: or adorn themselves like the stereotypical woman, if they abandon makeup,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: long hair, and dresses, they're often seen as less of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a girl. Sometimes they're asked if they are even girls
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: at all. As conceptions of gender are inextricably tough, hied
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: up with appearances, and so a balancing act fit for
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the circus emerges. Girls quickly learn to be tightrope walkers,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: walking the fine line between being a socially acceptable, conventionally
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: attractive woman, but not being so girlish that they're seen
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: as stupid, unserious, or caddy, perhaps also while trying to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: figure out the person they want to be for themselves,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: apart from the media influence, if that's even possible to discern.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: The stress of this balancing act bolsters an already thriving
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: culture of competition among women. When the patriarchy only allows
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a small fixed number of pedestals of power for women,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: they must fight each other for them, leading to a
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: flourishing cesspool of internalized misogyny. Rather than targeting this energy
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: towards dismantling the patriarchy, the source of this issue. Girls
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: express hatred toward other girls, their designated opponents. Instead of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: using some of this energy to uplift other girls, they
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: direct it towards trying to be the exception to It's
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a cure, a spot on the prize pedestal, be it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a gateway to a higher pinging job, a boyfriend, or
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: just healthy self worse.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Right, And I feel like she kind of took what
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: we were saying at the beginning. How we didn't. No
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: one was addressing that part.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Everybody was just addressing, Oh, mean girls could be mean
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: they can.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: We understand this, But why in this scenario?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And yes, the usage of mean girl to propel the
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: narrative that women can't be friends is not something new
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: in the foil. Not like most girls, Trope is placed
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: to make sure that the friendship seems near and possible.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Huizinga devines this. Not like most girls, Trope as the
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: protagonist in our story. Unlike mean girls, she is pleasant
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: and shows compassion to friends and strangers. She is often
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: smart or talented in some secretive way, perhaps notably bookish, artistic,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: or athletic. When one of these hidden talents is uncovers,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: she peaks the interest of another prominent character, typically the
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: attractive boyfriend and of the mean girl, or at least
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: the interest strikingly not like most girls, defining uh stable
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: trait is the complete opposite of the mean girls. She
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: is decidedly not feminine. She either subtly dresses more plain
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: and boyish than the mean girl, more pants less pink,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: or downright rejects fashion and makeup altogether, deeming it unnecessary
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: or trivial. Her hair is either thrown up in a
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: practical ponytail or stuffed into a knotted bundle atop her
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: scalp rather than holding a handbag. She can be found
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: roaming the hallways with her nose stuck in a book,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: clumsily bumping into fellows students. Yeah, this is uh, she's
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: she's all that, for sure, you've never seen that. I
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: don't think you're missing much on that one.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: But like glasses, like the Hollywood movie, the glasses, the overalls,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: her hiding and like like and then her Uh.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I want to say, they're implying that he he's autistic, brother,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: but I don't think he is. I can't figure out
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: what they're because he's He rollers skates and decides to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: put pepper on everybody's lunch and people make fun of him.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but yes, that's that one. But yeah, okay,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: I still I do.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: The usher scene, the dance, the bad dance scenes. What
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: pops into my head. This has become the age of
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: women supporting women, and so the idea of mean girls
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: have had to catch up to us essentially, and since
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: then we've had that big conversation with mean girls asking
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: are you okay? No, really, are you okay? You know,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: truly trying to get to the bottom.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Many would argue that the mean girl isn't actually mean,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: but angry and misunderstood. In fact, going back to the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: student we mentioned Avy Jen who wrote about mean girls,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: she talks about the empowerment in evolving a female anger quote.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Not only are emotion expressed through behind the scenes manipulation,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: but oftentimes violent passion. Regina George's outbursts and the conclusion
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: of mean Girls exemplified this. A woman can rage over
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: reputation and money, exemplified by the character Runata Kline and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Big Little Eyes, showing that these outbursts may be a
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: last resort for women to achieve what they covet. The
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: mean girl's trope to me is not about a character's personality, privilege,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: or materialistic tendencies, but rather the individual and societal factors
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: behind a character's actions, words, or emotion.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: And she isn't the only one who sees the evolution
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: of a mean girl. Perhaps they would call it an
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: update of it, maybe not. Gweta writes in her twenty
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: twenty four movie Web article. The importance here is that
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the trope has gotten a touch up, growing from the
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: self centered young woman who does not have much of
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: a reason to be as hateful as she is to
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: a young woman who has dealt with her own hardships
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: and feels that she is justified in how she reacts
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: to things. This may not seem like a huge shift
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: on the outside, but it really is. When keeping the
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: character up to date, girls are becoming more complex and
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: relatable in the sense that audiences can sympathize with what
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: they've been through, even if they do not fully condone
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: how the young women handle things. In the present, the
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: trope is still at the forefront of many teen movies
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: and shows, and a lot of the time, they receive
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the spotlight to show how no one can really be
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: considered quote good or bad. There is a gray middle
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: ground where this trope now resides. With this shift in
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: this trope, they are able to fall in love, have
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: genuine friends who do not stick with them due to
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: their status, and become someone who is actually likable.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: This is a.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Positive change to the formerly shallow trope, and we cannot
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: wait to see what becomes of it in the future.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Or we have movies that break the stereotype pretty early on,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: such as inn Encanto as the latter days. Sat geeks
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: dot com article writes about the sisters Mirabella and Isabella,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: who seem to have nothing in common and Mirabell seeing
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Isabella as the standard of the perfect, powerful daughter, but
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: we quickly learn that isn't the case. Here's a quote.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: The room is covered in flower blossoms and Isabella's bed
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is suspended from the ceiling by vines. She controls. It's
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the girliest thing since the original My Little Pony series,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: only somehow less subtle. She tries to throw Mirabel out
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: via vines when Mirabel starts challenging her about being perfect,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: temporarily giving up on the hug my sister to save
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the family plan. It's when Isabella starts to truly get mad,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: not flippantly annoyed, but actually mad that she accidentally makes
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: a cactus. The two sisters look surprised at the spiny
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: addition to the room, and then Isabella breaks out into song.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Apparently with all her power, all she'd ever done was
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: make flowers and vines grow. She had no idea she
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: could affect other plants or make something that's not a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: traditionally pretty flower. This is where the mean girl trope
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: spins on its head when we get insight into Isabella's
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: so called perfection. She feels like she has to be
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: because that's what's best for the family right.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: And here we don't see the mean girl trope being
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: used as the antagonist, but more of the revelation for
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: both the hero in her family to a problem that
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: has to be solved in order to save all of them.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: And as the article continues once again, and Kanto flips
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: this trope over by having Isabella conjure plants with colorful pollen,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: which he then voluntarily gets on her clothes and her hair,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: ruining her pretty pink dress. In the end of the song,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: her and Mirabel are covered in color from the plants,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: a complete mess and smiling happily. The sisters finally embrace
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: in the mess they've made, allowing each other to be
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: their imperfect cells and loving each other for it instead
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: of in spite of it. Isabella ruining her dress on
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: purpose shows her breakneck growth as a character. She's not
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: trying to be perfect and is now embracing all the imperfections,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: which allows her to have a relationship with her sister,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: who is considered the black sheep of the family. So
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: a great example of what can be done and why
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: it's necessary for the plot without making it sexist and gross,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: and as Aditi Marty writes in her article tie, can
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: we move on from the mean girl trope? As a
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: depiction of hyper competitiveness between women in this swaddle dot
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: com quote, waves of feminists have attempted to discern and
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: work towards why women compete with each other and how
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: they can work together instead. Their work ranges from the
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: shine theory, which posits women's ability to befriend and learn
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: from other women, to upholding kindness as a deeply underrated
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: feminist way of life. This work is both possible and
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: shows gradual results because they consider women's hyper aggressiveness and
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: competition as a reaction to societal forces rather than innate.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: This shift has yielded results. Mean girls on screen now
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: come with nuance, background stories and motivations because the audience
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: will simply not accept women are caddy negative, preppy and
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: competitive female characters now come with backstories. Cheryl Blossom and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Riverdale are friendless for their competitive nature. Sharpey evans in
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: high school musical and are often redeemed as worthy of love.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Again Rosalie Hill Twilight Series. I love it, and you
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: know what, I think it's working. I think this kind
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: of ideal is working in the fact that the audience
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: is demanding more because again there's great films in children's
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: movies like Encanto that bring a different level to the trope,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: which does uphold kindness as they write. But yes, there
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: is a lot to be said about the evolution of
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: the mean girl and a lot of work to be
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: done again, like the whole sexual like the mean girl
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: needs to be sexual experience and sexual as a part
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: of being cool. Interesting way of going and I know
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: there are a lot that we may not have tackled,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: and there are so many other references we haven't touched on,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: but it is interesting to see how these dated tropes
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: have evolved as time passes, and hopefully here's to see
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: more encouraging adaptations of the mean girl, which honestly probably
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: should be renamed by now, but they you know whatever.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think it's interesting that because women are
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: so expected to be so nice that mean girls have
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of fans at a lot of the more
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: recent one and have a lot of fans.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And we didn't really go into the queer Yeah, heard
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: of it again, ran out of time because I feel
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: like that might be just a Monday mini honest.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Well, something to look forward to. So much to touch
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: on here, but what listeners, We would love to hear
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: your favorite examples, yeah, yes, or your thoughts about this.
• 44:21
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• 44:35
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• 44:38
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• 44:41
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