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

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