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Mean Girls: Difference between revisions
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* [[California Doubling]]: As [[Roger Ebert]] [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040430/REVIEWS/404300306 put it], "She enrolls in Evanston Township High School -- which, like all American high schools in the movies, is physically located in [[Toronto]]"
* [[Can't Believe I Said That]]: Invoked by Gretchen a couple times when insulting Regina. It's pretense, of course.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
** Chekhov's {{spoiler|big yellow school bus}}, rather.
** Before the talent show scene, Janis tells Cady that "everybody in the English speaking world" knows the words to the song Jingle Bell Rock. Cady presumably used this information to save the act.
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* [[Fallen Princess]]: Janis used to be popular, but her reputation was destroyed by a rumor and she now willingly embraces outsiderdom.
* [[Flamboyant Gay]]: Damian is "too gay to function," though to be fair he is only mildly flamboyant.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: A narrating Cady, with regards to her immediate crush on Aaron:
{{quote|'''Cady:''' {{spoiler|But this one hit me like a big yellow school bus.}}}}
** Another one, foreshadowing the exact same event, comes at the very beginning, when Cady {{spoiler|is almost hit by a big yellow school bus}}.
* [[Former Friend of Alpha Bitch]]: Janis to Regina.
* [[Friendship Moment]]: Played straight with Janis's art, and played for laughs (though also rather sweetly) with Karen catching Gretchen in the circle of trust.
* [[Funny Background Event]]: During Cady's phone call with Regina, you can see Regina's little sister watching [[Girls Gone Wild]] and lifting up her shirt while cheering.
* [[Girl Posse]]: The "Plastics" (Regina, Karen, Gretchen, and later Cady) are unusually well-developed examples. There's also Trang Pak and her "Cool Asians".
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Karen and Gretchen.
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* [[The Mall]]: Janis works here. Cady also compares the kids hanging out here to the wild animals she grew up with in Africa.
* [[Meaningful Name]]:
** The name "Regina" is Latin for "queen." (Her last name is "George", bringing to mind [[George W. Bush|a certain President]], or [[wikipedia:George III of the United Kingdom|a certain king]].)
** And in the same vein, it's surely no accident that on many different occasions, a character will mispronounce Cady's name, thinking it's pronounced "catty."
** Janis Ian shares her name with the singer of "At Seventeen", a song about discovering that the "pretty girls" get the love. The real Janis Ian is a lesbian, and was the musical guest on the first episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', [[Shout-Out|the show screenwriter Tina Fey first became famous for]].
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** ''KEVIN''!
* [[Never Say That Again]]: "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen!"
* [[No Dress Code]]: The plastics get away with performing in a school pageant wearing sexy Santa outfits that are closer to lingerie than costumes.
* [[No Social Skills]]: Up until she came to the school, Cady lived in Africa and was home schooled, thus winding up with absolutely no clue about how things worked in 'Girl World'. Her parents appear to be clueless every time they appear. Here is an unusual case where we get the message via dialogue rather than non-verbally:
{{quote|'''Mom''': Where's Cady?
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* [[Pair the Spares]]: Mocked. Janis and Damian kiss at the dance for a second, then quickly separate from each other in disgust.
** But then arguably played straight when {{spoiler|she hooks up with Kevin at the end.}}
* [[Parents Walk in At the Worst Time]]:
{{quote|'''[[Amy Poehler|Mrs. George]]:''' You kids need anything? Snack? [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|Condom?]] Ah, God love ya!}}
* [[Peer Pressure Makes You Evil]]
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* [[Too Much Information]]: "Somebody wrote in that book that I'm lying about being a virgin, 'cuz I use super-jumbo tampons, but I can't help if I've got a heavy flow and a wide set vagina!"
* [[Truth-Telling Session]]: Regina escalates the battle to such an extreme level that it can best be described as "going nuclear."
* [[Twisting the Words]]: Regina uses this to undermine people's confidence: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex51QJfN1d8 "So you agree? You think you're really pretty?"]
* [[Verbal Backspace]]: Principal Duvall, [[Running Gag|repeatedly]].
{{quote|"Let me hear you make some noise!... Settle down."}}
* [[Wet Sari Scene]]: How Karen "predicts" when it's going to rain.
* [[What Could Have Been]]: In the original script Gretchen was envisaged as plain-to-ugly (with a "sniveling whiny face") and part of the in-crowd solely for her wealth. Obviously this was dropped when the very pretty [[Lacey Chabert]] was cast in the role but traces of the original perception of the character can still be seen in the film in Regina's obvious surprise that Gretchen was nominated for Spring Fling Queen.
** The film was a lot filthier before it was PG-13ified. See [[Bowdlerise|Bowdlerization]] above.
* [[Wild Teen Party]]
* [[With Friends Like These...]]: Regina to Karen, Cady, and (especially) Gretchen. "Frenemies" indeed!
* [[You Are the New Trend]]: Regina. One scene has Janis cutting nipple holes in Regina's shirt in the locker room to try and sabotage her wardrobe. Regina wears the top anyway and the next day, every girl has the exact same nipple holes in her shirt.
* [[You Fail Geography Forever]]: In one scene, the characters go to Old Orchard Mall (technically "Westfield Old Orchard"), a Chicago-area mall known for being a large, ''outdoor'' mall. Its stand-in was Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke, Ontario, a more conventional ''indoor'' mall.
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* [[Avoid the Dreaded G Rating]]: The sole reason this film was not aired on [[Disney Channel]] as an original movie is because of the amount of tacked-on profanity.
** They aired it on [[ABC Family]] instead.
** And later on E! under their "Movies We Love" banner. . .
* [[Broken Aesop]]: The moral of the story seems to be "don't be a follower," but in the end, Abby decides to attend Carnegie-Melon instead of her original goal of NYU just to stick with Jo, who in turn based her college decision solely on it being the school her dead mother went to.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: The paranoid neighbor. Specifically his security cameras.
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** Until she learns what her name means that is.
* [[Lighter and Softer]]
* [[Manipulative Bitch]]
* [[Polite Villains, Rude Heroes]]: Mandi and Tyler (see next trope). Only those two however; Mandi's horrible to everyone else.
* [[Sibling Rivalry|Step Sibling Rivalry]]: Mandi and Tyler, though oddly the dislike comes entirely from his side and Mandi, despite being a bitch to everyone else seems to have some sisterly feeling for him, even declaring him off limits to Chastity and calling his father (her stepfather) "''our'' Dad". He's also the only character she's never directly mean to.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Why does it feel like the football game between the Plastics and the Anti-Plastics is an homage to ''[[The Longest Yard]]'' (of all things)?
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