APRIL 4, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 9

It would be easy to overlook Mean Girls, to write it off as just another clichèd piece of teen comedy in a sea of many. Sure, it's full of many of the same elements that make up all teen comedies. What sets this film, written by "Saturday Night Live" alum Tina Fey, apart from the rest is it's laugh-out-loud commentary on life in a Chicago suburb. Many aspects of the film are universally relatable to anyone who's ever been at the mercy of cruel adolescent mind games, but there are also a few themes that are unique to those growing up in a Chicago suburb.

Cady is the new girl at school, who has just moved to Evanston from South Africa. As the new girl, she is immediately aligned with the outsiders, arty goth Janice and "too gay to function" Damien. They give her a crash course in the elaborate system of cliques that make up the school. From the get go, the film establishes the bubble in which the suburb exists. Like many western and northern Chicago suburbs, the students are comprised of the extremely affluent and the moderately affluent. The students measure economic status by designer possessions and silver convertibles. Mean Girls reflects the distinctly conservative atmosphere held by many of the suburbs of Chicago. Regardless of people's individual politics, the overall attitudes of the suburbs are quite conservative. Dominantly white and upper middle class, the schools cliques are determined by not only extracurricular affiliations, but also by ethnicity. The lunchroom is the microcosm that exemplifies the strict rules of segregation by which the students live and operate. The Asian nerds are separate from the band geeks who are separate from the jocks. And, at the center of the cafeteria, are the rich white girls.

The girls are in the most popular clique in the school, the Plastics, and are infamous among the student body. Everyone knows who the Plastics are and what they have. In many ways, they have an almost celebrity-like status. Other students talk about them, idealize them, and see them as figures of unattainable perfection. Everyone who has ever gone to high school knew those girls. Regina George, queen bee, is the pinnacle of high school popularity and sees Cady as a possible asset to her clique. She is interested in Cady because she's different. Not, of course, because she is interested in the culture where Cady is from, but because Cady seems "like a Martian." These suburban girls are not interested in learning about her previous culture, they just want to assimilate her. The heaviest inquiry into her past is when one of the girls asks her why she's white, since she's from Africa. The Plastics are essentially pink wearing, Fendi carrying Borg. Cady is accepted as one of them because she makes them feel superior, and over the course of the film becomes one of them once she learns to play by their rules. She joins the Plastics initially to sate the curiosity of her outsider friends, but is transformed by the bitchy, subversive behavior of the girls. As she vies with Regina for position of queen bee of the school, the two girls end up starting a school wide conflict amongst the girls. It is a teen movie so, of course, the girls all learn a valuable lesson about being nice because all girls have feelings. Regina is almost killed by a school bus and Cady has turned everyone against her. Honesty and apologies redeem them, and transform them from mean girls into actual people.

Anyone not from Chicago, or familiar with the area, might guess based on the film that Evanston is distant, even secluded from the Chicago and the other suburbs. Not once does the film mention the metropolis with which it shares a border. All the characters in the film go to the same school, and there is no allusion to friends from other schools or towns. Though all of Chicago's suburbs are indistinguishably close to one another, they remain distinctly separate. Each almost has the feel of a much smaller town. The Mean Girls capture this mood in their Burn Book, a scrapbook filled with gossip about every girl in school. Everyone is so involved in everyone else's business, it's no wonder they have no time to pay attention to the world that is so closely surrounding them. Even at the end of the film, they've accepted each other as people, but the film makes it clear that each younger generation is on the same trajectory. As Cady sits with friends on the school’s lawn, they see a group of girls who look like younger versions of the Plastics. Cady imagines them getting hit by a bus, like Regina did, clearly foreshadowing the path of every generation to come. Change comes slowly in the suburbs, and the changes that happen are small. At the end of the film Cady is nice again, but she is still very clearly a suburban girl, no longer the innocent animal loving girl who landed in Evanston from South Africa. Her assimilation was complete.