Going through teen years is pretty tough. But if you get help when you’re feeling upset, it’s not quite so hard. One of the things that can help calm you down are movies that share what you’re feeling. Mean Girls is an inspiring and relevant movie to this day because of its connection to the real world from real-life inspiration, its cast and how they contributed, and the fact that it rises above other movies of the same genre. 

To start off, let’s talk about some real-life inspiration Tina Fey had for the movie. Before the movie was even an idea, author Rosalind Wiseman wrote a book called, ‘Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.’ When she first heard of this book, Tina Fey decided to get permission from Wiseman to make it a movie. Soon after, the making of Mean Girls had begun. The process was long and hard at times, and it started out with making the characters. In fact, as well as using a book for the movie’s inspiration, Tina Fey also used people from real life to base the characters off of. For example, in college, Tina Fey shared an apartment with a close friend named Cady Garey. She later went on to use her friend's name as the name of the movie’s main heroine, Cady Heron. Other characters that were based off of real people were Glen Coco and Janis Ian. Some other things she pulled into the movie were details about her own character. As many know, Tina Fey played the role of Ms. Norbury, a math teacher at Northshore High. Tina Fey was most interested in playing a math teacher to fight the stereotype that girls weren’t good at math. However, she said in an interview that most of the time, she didn’t really understand her lines. Although she did have a creative way of coming up with the dialogue, “'My friend’s boyfriend is a calculus teacher in the Bronx,' Fey said. 'I took his lesson plans.'" As you can see, Tina Fey put a lot of things from her life into Mean Girls, she also used her creativity to make the movie even better than it would’ve been if she hadn’t.

Let’s go backstage and learn some general and lesser known information about the cast. First off, did you know that playing Damian in the movie, Mean Girls, allowed Damian to come out through a letter to his character several years later. He wrote in the letter and said, ‘I was twenty-six; you were sixteen. You were proud of who you were; I was an insecure actor. You became an iconic character that people looked up to; I wished I’d had you as a role model when I was younger. I might’ve been easier to be gay growing up.’ As you can see, the movie helped him show his true colors and learn how to be himself.

Before the filming started, there were a lot of auditioning and casting. A few actors auditioned for different roles before being casted as their characters. For example, Amanda Seyfried actually tried out for the role of Regina George before being casted as Karen Smith. One producer talked about how she came into the audition with an altogether different approach from Rachel McAdams, who was later cast as the character. He said when she tried out for the role, she ultimately made it more terrifying. Speaking of casting and auditions, it’s a fact that Rachel McAdams was actually supposed to play the good guy, or girl, in Mean Girls. That’s right, she was originally cast as Cady Heron, the main character and protagonist of the movie. Instead, she landed the part of Regina George, and what an incredible job she did with that part. In fact, Lindsay Lohan, who was the actress who played Cady Heron, auditioned for Regina George, the director instead thought they suited different characters and switched them around. In conclusion of this paragraph, there are many interesting facts about the cast, whether they are lesser-known facts or general knowledge.

Finally, we’ll be getting into a comparison of Mean Girls and other movies that are similar to it. One of the best movies to compare Mean Girls to is Heathers. The movies are both very popular, and while Heathers was made a couple of decades earlier, they both deal with some of the same topics. For example, as said in the article: Mean Girls: A History, they were both ahead of their time when talking about the LGBTQ Community. They also both deal with topics such as people spreading rumors about someone’s sexual orientation. Even though they both look at some of the same topics, there is a major difference between Mean Girls and Heathers: their humor. Altogether, humor in Mean Girls is kept a lot lighter than the humor in Heathers. To add to that, even though Mean Girls has some more mature humor, Heathers has quite a bit more and occasionally drops its humor into some dark areas. Of course, a lot of other teen movies have been made since Mean Girls and Heathers, but only a couple of movies came close to perfecting the ethics of high school and girl politics. It was even said in the article: Mean Girls: A History that, “Filmmakers who want to make clever and meaningful teen-oriented films should continue to look to Mean Girls as a model. The first-person narrative style is particularly effective because it allows the viewer to further identify with Cady, her experiences, and the lessons that she learns.” From this paragraph, you can see that in comparison to other movies, Mean Girls is not only a humorous movie, but it also uses its characters and scenes to connect to the people watching.

In conclusion, Mean Girls is not only relevant, but it also connects with teenagers and was one of the best movies of its time. The reason it was so relevant is because of real-life connections, an inspiring cast, and the overall work behind the making of the movie. You can clearly see it is a gem among other movies that share the same topics. When watching this movie, think about how it connects to your life, and I guarantee that will make the experience much more stimulating.

Works Cited

Finn, Rachel. "Mean Girls the Musical Is Officially Being Turned into a Film." Pop Buzz, 24 Jan. 2020, www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/news/mean-girls-remake-musical-film/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.

Hess, Megan. "Mean Girls: A History." Cinemablography, 28 Sept. 2016, www.cinemablography.org/blog/mean-girls-a-history. Accessed 8 Jan. 2021.

Kimble, Julian. "'Mean Girls' Is Everything (No, Really): How One Movie Summarized a Generation." Complex, 30 Apr. 2014, www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/04/mean-girls-the-movie-of-the-millennial-generation. Accessed 8 Jan. 2021.

Witter, Brad. "Tina Fey Used Her Real Life as Inspiration for the Unforgettable Characters in 'Mean Girls.'" Biography, 19 May 2020, www.biography.com/news/tina-fey-mean-girls-characters#:~:text=When%20Tina%20Fey%20wrote%20the,Boyfriends%20%26%20Other%20Realities%20of%20Adolescence. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.

Wolf, Erika. "15 Fetch Facts about Mean Girls." Mental Floss, 3 Oct. 2018, www.mentalfloss.com/article/56486/20-fun-facts-about-mean-girls. Accessed 8 Jan. 2021.