- 20 hours ago
Bu video Dailymotion Python SDK ile yüklendi.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00"'Haven't you heard? I'm the crazy bitch around here.'"
00:06Whoever said girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice
00:09didn't go to school with a Blair Waldorf, a Cheryl Blossom,
00:12a Heather Chandler, or a Regina George.
00:15These mean girls rule their high schools with an iron fist.
00:19"'Shoo, bitches!'
00:21And if we break down the mean girl character type in movies and TV,
00:25we see some recurring elements.
00:27She's confident and ambitious, but she takes these positive qualities
00:30to a dark extreme.
00:32"'I admire you so much.'
00:33"'And why wouldn't you?'
00:35She's often highly intelligent and cunning,
00:37with a canny understanding of how to manipulate people
00:40for personal entertainment.
00:41"'You're just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with.'"
00:46She's glamorous and charismatic.
00:48"'Regina's like the Barbie doll I never had.
00:50I'd never seen anybody so glamorous.'"
00:52Even to those who hate her.
00:54"'The weird thing about hanging out with Regina
00:56was that I could hate her, and at the same time,
00:58I still wanted her to like me.'"
00:59She's driven by rage,
01:00which comes from her realistic yet cynical understanding of the world.
01:04"'Heather told me she teaches people real life.
01:08She said, real life sucks losers dry.'"
01:11The status quo of the social hierarchy actually makes her miserable.
01:15But instead of overturning it,
01:17she chooses to perpetuate the toxic cycle,
01:20because at least she's on top.
01:22So the Mean Girl is the high school version of the cautionary tale that power corrupts.
01:27"'I made you, and I'm God. That's all you need to do.'"
01:30Here's our take on the Mean Girl on screen.
01:33What makes her tick, what she represents,
01:35and why she ultimately has to fall.
01:38"'You're an awful person.'"
01:40"'Maybe. But I'm rich and I'm pretty, so it doesn't really matter.'"
01:48This video is brought to you by MUBI,
01:51a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe.
01:55It's like your own personal film festival streaming anytime, anywhere.
02:05The core of the Mean Girl's identity is rage.
02:08Mean Girl star Rachel McAdams described Regina George as
02:12a really angry kid who had no boundaries or guidance,
02:15and said director Mark Waters told her to listen to Courtney Love's music
02:21and watch Alec Baldwin and Glengarry Glen Ross for inspiration.
02:24"'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight.
02:26I drove an $80,000 BMW. That's my name.'"
02:31Early examples of the Mean Girl already embody a raw anger
02:35or hatred towards the protagonist that's hard to immediately understand.
02:39Here's beautiful, wealthy, popular Chris in Carrie,
02:42talking about the awkward, painfully shy classmate
02:45who's never done anything to her.
02:47"'I hate Carrie White."
02:50"'Who?'
02:51And look at the intensity of the hatred that beautiful,
02:54wealthy, popular girl, Benny, has toward Molly Ringwald's Andy.
02:59"'Oh, God. Am I having a nightmare?"
03:04These mean girls of the 70s and 80s planted this mystery
03:07of why the girl who has everything so fiercely despises the outcast who has less,
03:12a pattern we'd see continue in later examples.
03:15In 1988, Heathers gave us a more complex and alarming look
03:19at the pathological society that drove the Queen Bee to be so mean.
03:23"'It's just like, there are people I work with,
03:26and our job is being popular and shit.'"
03:28But the trope really took off and became a fixture
03:30in 90s and early 2000s movies, and this timing is no coincidence.
03:35In the early 90s, Kai Bjorkvist's research shed new light on female aggression.
03:40According to Bjorkvist,
03:41"'Girls can better understand how other girls feel,
03:44so they know better how to harm them.'"
03:46In 1995, Nikki R. Crick and Jennifer Kay Grottpeter coined the term
03:50relational aggression to describe how,
03:52while boys tend to be overtly aggressive through physical violence or threats,
03:57girls are more likely to express aggression by weaponizing relationships.
04:01Relational aggression comes out in behaviors like exclusion
04:04and spreading rumors or lies.
04:06"'I want you to raise your hand if you have ever had a girl
04:09say something bad about you behind your back.'"
04:12Early 2000s bestsellers like Odd Girl Out and Queen Bees and Wannabes,
04:17which inspired Mean Girls, further spotlighted the subject of female bullying.
04:22As young women grow up, their angry, aggressive, and competitive impulses
04:26become less socially acceptable.
04:28So they're forced to express these emotions in under-the-table ways.
04:32"'The aggression might be increasing to the extent that we are putting more pressure on girls
04:37to achieve in the same ways that boys achieve,
04:40but again, not giving them the license to engage in the kinds of competitiveness
04:44and aggressions that they need to go the distance.'"
04:47The Mean Girls we see on screen are often smiling assassins.
04:51Their machinations are more sinister because they're hidden
04:54under a cover of surface niceness.
04:56"'I love your skirt. Where did you get it?'
04:59"'That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen.'"
05:01So part of the problem is that girls aren't given license
05:04to deal with conflict honestly, out in the open.
05:08"'I knew how this would be settled in the animal world.'"
05:11"'But this was girl world.'"
05:13And the lack of communication leads to a toxic buildup of resentment.
05:16That's why Mean Girls' Miss Norbury doesn't tell the girls to stop feeling angry.
05:21She urges them to,
05:23"'Express your anger in a healthy way.'"
05:26There's also an even more disturbing reason girls resort to relational aggression.
05:30They're bored.
05:31We don't have to look any further than Mean Girls' burn book
05:34to see what this looks like.
05:35"'That book was written by a bunch of stupid girls who make up rumors
05:39because they're bored with their own lame lies.'"
05:42Girls bullying each other for entertainment is very sad,
05:45and it points to a culture that's not offering young women
05:47constructive outlets for their self-expression.
05:50"'I use my grand IQ to decide what color gloss to wear
05:53and how to hit three keggers before curfew.'"
05:56What's so interesting about the Mean Girl is that she's full of potential.
06:00Her male equivalent is the jock bully who preys on nerds.
06:03But the jock is usually portrayed as dumb and boorish,
06:07while the Mean Girl is strikingly bright and perceptive.
06:11She can read the people around her like a book.
06:13"'Your hair looks so sexy, pushback.
06:15Kitty, will you please tell him his hair looks sexy, pushback?'
06:18Even if she's a dark figure, she embodies many empowering qualities
06:22that teen girls should aspire towards.
06:24Fierce ambition, determination, and belief in herself.
06:28"'Power isn't just my mission, it's my mantra.'"
06:30We could imagine a very different version of her story,
06:33where the Mean Girl gets to channel her talents into a worthwhile pursuit.
06:37"'And her physical therapist taught her to channel all her rage into sports.'"
06:41Looking at all this together, it becomes clear that this character's meanness
06:44is really a coping mechanism.
06:46The sympathetic take on these frustrated young women
06:49is that they're thwarted by a suffocating system
06:52that doesn't expect them to be more than vapid sex symbols,
06:56or allow them to embrace their full mental power.
06:59The Mean Girl is under no illusions about how the real world works.
07:08"'Life's a bitch, then you die.'"
07:10She may be beautiful and rich,
07:12but the true reason the Queen Bee rises to the top in the first place
07:15is her cold, cynical understanding of the system.
07:19She gets that public opinion is everything.
07:22"'Everybody loves me, and I intend to keep it that way.'"
07:26So she skillfully cultivates an image that makes her seem godlike.
07:30In Jawbreaker, Courtney's rule about not eating in public suggests
07:34she doesn't even want to be seen as human.
07:36"'The mere act of eating invokes thoughts of digestion,
07:39flagellation, defecation, even, shall we say, complexion, defection.'"
07:44Like a monarch, the Queen Bee builds a larger culture around herself
07:48to keep her subjects in line and worshiping at her altar.
07:51"'Because being with the plastics was like being famous.
07:53People looked at you all the time,
07:56and everybody just knew stuff about you.'"
07:58She has a posse of enforcers, which often has its own group name,
08:02and a strict code of laws that must be obeyed.
08:05"'Girl world had a lot of rules.'"
08:07"'You can't wear a tank top two days in a row,
08:09and you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week.'"
08:12Her hyper-vigilance in maintaining her reputation reveals that,
08:16while the student body sees her as untouchable,
08:18she knows how tenuous her position really is.
08:22"'But popularity can be fleeting.'"
08:23There can be many different reasons for the mean girl's pessimistic outlook.
08:28"'My boyfriend compulsively cheats on me.
08:30All of my friends work for me.
08:31My parents didn't even call me on my birthday
08:33because they were too busy hosting a fundraiser for Jeb Bush.'"
08:36There's the claustrophobia of being a teenage girl
08:38in a sexist, unfair world,
08:40and knowing you have so much more potential than you can realize.
08:44"'God forbid I exude confidence and enjoy sex.
08:47Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24-7
08:53so I can be considered a lady?'
08:54There may be great suffering in the character's backstory.
08:58On Riverdale, Cheryl Blossom's hostility is really an expression of her pain.
09:02"'Everyone thinks I'm this loveless monster, but it isn't true.
09:07I loved someone who loved me.
09:11My mother destroyed it.'"
09:13But most troublingly, the mean girl's worldview represents a broader societal outlook.
09:18Usually, this character has inherited a corrupt value system
09:22from the privileged adults in her life.
09:24"'You will never be more beautiful or thin or happy than you are right now.'"
09:29So essentially, this young woman embodies the elitism
09:32and superficiality of the most powerful people in our world.
09:36"'Some people are simply better than others.'"
09:40In Pretty in Pink, the only real reason we're given for
09:42Benny's problem with Andy is that she views this working-class girl as less than.
09:47"'Where'd you get your clothes? Five and dime store.'"
09:50But this is learned behavior, reflecting how the world at large
09:54defines Andy and her peers by how much money they have.
09:57"'I'm getting a better education than I deserve. I'm lucky.
10:01I'm fortunate that the good people of this community allow me to attend this school.'"
10:04So the real culprit is a messed-up society that teaches impressionable young adults
10:09to value beauty, wealth, and fame over inner virtues like kindness.
10:13"'You were a good person, Fern. What a good that did me.'"
10:17Ultimately, the Mean Girl is just ahead of the curve.
10:20She embodies the cutthroat attitude and materialist standards we expect from
10:25power players in the adult world, where there are no teachers trying to help everyone get along.
10:30All this makes the Mean Girl so often the antagonist or villain of her story.
10:35Meanwhile, the protagonist is typically a rebel who tries to bring down a wrong society.
10:40"'Why is everybody stressing over this thing? I mean, it's just plastic. It's really just...
10:49share it.'"
10:50Since the Mean Girl is the equivalent of a queen or aristocrat,
10:54she doesn't have any incentive to overturn the system that keeps her in power.
10:58She chooses to succeed within it, thereby protecting her popularity.
11:02Yet the irony is that she actively fights to preserve a status quo that makes her suffer.
11:08"'You put on a good front, but you're miserable. Don't you think any of that
11:12has anything to do with the fact that you've created an atmosphere
11:15based solely on negativity and raw ambition?'
11:17In Heather's, Heather Chandler acts like she's helped Veronica
11:21by making her part of the in-crowd, and Veronica should be grateful.
11:24"'You were nothing before you met me.'"
11:26Even though Heather's own social success clearly doesn't make her happy.
11:31At the Remington party, Heather's college boyfriend
11:33pushes her to do more than she's comfortable with.
11:36"'Should we get back to the party?'
11:38"'We will. It's just you're so hot tonight.
11:43I can't control myself.'"
11:44But when Veronica resists the guy who's trying to pressure her
11:48in the same way, Heather is outraged.
11:51"'What's your damage? Brad says you're being a real coos.'"
11:54Veronica's refusal to conform bothers Heather so much,
11:58because she lacks this spark to be an individual.
12:01There's a deeper symbolism in the term Queen Bee.
12:05Bee colonies are divided into castes, much like a high school hierarchy.
12:09Without the queen, the bee colony can't survive,
12:12so it relies on her to keep the whole structure alive.
12:16But the Mean Girl is actually at the mercy of her colony.
12:19Claire Gillespie writes,
12:20"'While the queen bee is pivotal to everything that happens inside the hive,
12:25she is not, contrary to popular belief, in control of the colony.
12:29In fact, the thousands of worker bees control the queen.'"
12:33All this brings us to the answer to that mystery we raised
12:37of why the Mean Girl hates the misfit with such intensity.
12:41She fears the alternative outcast as a threat to the system
12:45she's invested in maintaining.
12:47But even more than that, she envies that girl for her freedom
12:51and her willingness to rebel, because while the kingdom
12:54the Mean Girl reigns over leaves her deeply dissatisfied,
12:57she can't conceive of life outside it.
13:00"'And I realize now that none of this matters to me.
13:03But it does to you. It's your dream.'"
13:06This gives us more insight into what drives
13:08even the one-dimensional Benny in Pretty in Pink.
13:11She puts Andy down because her clothes aren't expensive,
13:14but this outfit expresses a quirky, charming style that stands out.
13:19On some level, Benny probably wishes she had Andy's individuality,
13:24which, significantly, has attracted the attention
13:26of Benny's rich boyfriend, Steph.
13:28"'You know, I've been out with a lot of girls at this school.
13:31I don't see what makes you so different.'"
13:33"'I have some taste.'"
13:39More often than not, the on-screen Mean Girl isn't redeemed in the end.
13:43Even if she's humanized, it's within limits.
13:46Instead, the main event is her being overthrown or exposed
13:50as the evil person she is, as her oppressed population unites against her.
13:55In Heather's, after Heather Chandler dies,
13:57everyone jumps to believing she was more than a one-dimensional dictator.
14:01"'I thought she was a usual airhead bitch.
14:05Guess I was wrong. We all were.'"
14:08But the movie's point is that they weren't wrong,
14:11and the takeaway of many of these movies is that the Mean Girl is rotten to the core.
14:16"'You're a bad person with an ugly heart,
14:18and we don't give a flying f*** what you think.'"
14:21Her aspirations often don't extend far beyond becoming prom queen,
14:25or if they do, her goal is extremely superficial.
14:28"'I'm what's known as pre-famous.
14:30My life is an audition for reality TV,
14:33so yeah, um, I need to chronicle everything.'"
14:36In movies where we see the character as an adult,
14:39she's fixated on her past glory days,
14:42perpetuating the narrative that those who are popular in high school
14:45peak early and go downhill from there,
14:47unlike high school losers and nerds who will surely go on to great things.
14:52"'Mia, you're such a freak!'
14:54"'Yeah, yeah, I am. But you know what?
14:56Someday I just might grow out of that, but you,
14:58you will never stop being a jerk.'"
15:00So we're encouraged to feel a sense of superiority over the Mean Girl.
15:04Yet it feels wrong to derive pleasure from the Mean Girl's downfall.
15:09First, as we've discussed, she usually embodies strong,
15:12powerful traits that are generally rewarded by our society.
15:15So why wouldn't she be destined for big things?
15:18In High School Musical, Sharpay is ruthless
15:21as she tries to maintain control over the school musical.
15:24"'We need to save our show from people who don't know the difference
15:26between a Tony Award and Tony Hawk.'"
15:29She's acting the way any highly competitive person would
15:32if their ambition were threatened.
15:34And this kind of behavior generally yields success in the adult world.
15:38If we're not the cool, rich, beautiful leader,
15:41it's tempting to console ourselves that we must be better people,
15:45and she'll get her comeuppance.
15:47But vilifying the Mean Girl through this black-and-white moral lens
15:51is missing the point.
15:52Because, to some degree, there's a Mean Girl in all of us,
15:55waiting to come out.
15:57"'There's good and bad to everybody, right?
15:58Regina's just... she's just more upfront about it.'"
16:02It only takes one sip of the Kool-Aid to cross over to the dark side.
16:06"'Why are you such a mega-bitch?'
16:08"'Because I can be.'"
16:10In Mean Girls, as Katie replaces Regina,
16:12she finds herself effortlessly transforming into a master manipulatrix.
16:16"'I learned how to control everyone around me.'"
16:19Even Janice, who sees herself as Regina's victim,
16:22is really her oppressor's equal in scheming and cruelty.
16:26"'I just think that it would be like a fun little experiment
16:28if you were to hang out with them and then tell us everything that they say.'"
16:31The movie's writer Tina Fey has said that in high school,
16:34she was a mean girl, and she described her behavior as
16:37a coping mechanism for feeling less than.
16:40This is something Fey also explored in 30 Rock,
16:42where Liz Lemon is shocked to discover that in high school,
16:45she was not a victim, but a victimizer.
16:48"'What are you talking about? I was a nerd!
16:50You were a bully! We were all afraid of you!'
16:54Most of us don't fit neatly into the high school character types
16:57we see on screen.
16:58It's possible to be both unpopular and cruel, or cool and smart.
17:03"'We didn't party because we wanted to focus on school
17:06and get into good colleges.
17:08But the irresponsible people who partied also got into those colleges.
17:11They did both.'"
17:12To reduce your peers, or yourself, to just one thing,
17:16does a disservice to everyone.
17:18And it distracts from the more important takeaway.
17:21It's the world that's mean.
17:23This girl's just doing a better job of living in it.
17:27"'I have an army to build, a school to take over,
17:31and girls to blackmail.'"
17:33Hey guys, this is Alani, and today I want to talk to you about
17:36one of our favorite places to watch movies, Mubi.
17:40Mubi is a treasure trove of films.
17:42Every day Mubi premieres a new film.
17:44Whether it's a movie you've been dying to see,
17:46or one you've never heard of before,
17:48there is always something new to discover.
17:50So in this world where it's very easy to spend hours debating
17:54what you should watch, Mubi is like having a really cool friend
17:58with amazing taste in movies making it so much easier for you.
18:02They feature hard-to-come-by masterpieces, indie festival darlings,
18:06influential arthouse and foreign films,
18:08lesser-known films by your favorite famous directors, and more.
18:12Plus, you can even download the films to watch offline,
18:14and there are no ads, ever.
18:16One movie you can check out right now on Mubi is
18:19The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine.
18:21This explosive film is set in 1920s Japan
18:24and follows the intertwined stories of an anarchist group
18:27and a troupe of female sumo wrestlers.
18:30We can't recommend Mubi highly enough.
18:32You can try it out now for free for a whole month.
18:34Just click the link in the description below.
Recommended
21:22
|
Up next
21:14
20:57
8:45
9:29
14:08
2:34
17:46
5:11
14:30
19:06
10:22
4:14
17:49
12:47
13:36
15:50
17:41
Be the first to comment