What I researched and why:
For class we were supposed to look on Salon.com and search for Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. When I started reading some of the articles, I thought it was interesting that Lindsay Lohan's life is a lot like "the Plastics" in the movie Mean Girls. So I decided to look more into it.
What I found:
In Mean Girls, Regina dates Aaron first then Cady likes Aaron. In Lindsay Lohan's life, Paris Hilton dated Stavros first then Lindsay started dating him, which caused a feud between Paris and Lindsay. In Mean Girls, the drama between "the Plastics" settles down at the end of the movie. In Lindsay's life, Paris and Lindsay eventually patch things up. It was rumored that Paris hacked into Lindsay's BlackBerry and sent her friends mean messages. In Mean Girls, friends are also involved to try to ruin Regina's popular reputation. In Mean Girls, "the Plastics" want to stand out in a crowd, and Lindsay Lohan also does things that get her attention in magazines and tabloids. Also in Mean Girls, the girls in the school copy off of Regina, for example when they cut holes in their shirts because Regina's shirt has holes in it. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton also effect our culture by setting trends. Lindsay Lohan in real life is basically a mean girl. She's often getting into arguments with other celebrities, and is often the center of attention. Here are some of the articles about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton I found on Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/ent/col/fix/2006/06/14/wed/index.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/col/fix/2006/07/20/thu/index.html
(they are very short articles and they are entertaining)
My interpretation:
I think it's interesting how Lindsay Lohan's life is somewhat like the movie Mean Girls. Also, many girls can relate to the movie because there were mean girls in their high school. I know my high school had mean girls. I also think that the quote was talked about in class, "everyone loves a mean girl" is true. Because when Lindsay Lohan gets into ridiculous fights with other celebrities, people read about it in the tabloids.
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10 comments:
This line from the first article was probably the most interesting (and most entertaining): Lohan's rep confirmed that Hilton tried to pick a fight but her client "took the high road." Hilton, meanwhile, apparently stayed behind and put on a striptease for a group of New York Giants players.
What I found interesting (and hilarious) was the idea of Lohan being the more mature of the two. I really don't know much about the history of the rivalry, but is there any chance that Lohan recognized some of the mean girl tactics that she had to portray in the movie in her real life? Is it possible that she took a second to look at the situation, saw how close the movie was to reality and made an effort to shape up? While I doubt it, that would say a lot about the affect of this movie on actual mean girls.
What i find interesting about how everyone reflected on their high school days and this quote that "everyone loves a mean girl" has been used, but i think a word needs to be entered and it should be "everyone loves a popular mean girl." In the movie, during the little mini-interviews, they talk about the plastics and how they comment on materialistic things like hairstyles and bracelets. This says nothing to the characteristics of the female characters but that their popularity dictates style and whats tasteful. People love and desire to be popular (typically, at least a little), no one really desires to be mean.
I think it's interesting that the only reason we're watching these girls at all is because they're rich and pretty. Whether it's in high school or in magazines, it seems that "pretty girls" still demand the attention and people are more than willing to give it to them. I think this is one of the fallbacks of the movie itself. Like all movies, the main character is still a pretty girl. So, even if the movie is encouraging "niceness", it's on top of being pretty, which seems to provoke a lot of the meanness to begin with. It seems like a cycle that young girls might have a hard time getting past.
I agree with what people are saying but also think that as viewers of the movie Mean Girls, we are supposed to be on Cady's side, at least in the beginning. We see her as innocent and naive, coming from Africa and thrown into this savage and uncivilized world of high school. When she gets sucked in, we, or at least, I was upset because we know that Cady is better than that...or is it that she really is a mean girl deep down and the culture is just bringing it out in her?
I feel that is interesting that following Mean Girls we began to see the 'mean girl' come out in Lindsey. Is it possible that she allowed the acting to get under her skin or that the popularity of the movie impacted how Lindsey thought she should behave? The last movie I really recall Lindsey Lohan starring in was the one where she was a twin trying to get her parents back together. She was a sweet girl who used harmless pranks to make her parents fall in love again. I wonder if the movies Lindsey played in would have followed this same innocence if we would see a difference in Lindsey off camera. With this idea, environmental influences are again at the center of attention in regards to how they impact behavior. If Lindsey would not have had the opportunity to play a mean girl and discover what it was like, prehaps we would see a different girl off camera.
I really feel sorry for Lindsey Lohan. I feel as though she is very similar to Cady in Mean Girls. Lohan was very young when she first appeared in big time movies. She was only ten or so when she made her debut in Parent Trap in 1998. That is a young, vulnerable age to be thrown into Hollywood. Lohan is like Cady because Cady grew up in Africa and was happy and "nice". She then turns into a "mean girl" when she arrives at a public high school. Lohan was, likely, considered a nice girl when she entered Hollywood. It seems as though she has a good heart that she simply has lost in the midst of a busy, fast paced lifestyle. Lohan is in need of some serious parental guidance.
Although she may be "living the life of a mean girl" Lohan is no where close to being a role model, and I would say the same for the characters in the movie, until the end. "Everyone loves a mean girl" is a weird concept to believe in because as you see in the movie the "mean girls" torment others and it causes the eventually battle royale in the school. At the end the characters change and thus are good role models for showing that everyone should and can get along with everyone else and that clicks can only hurt someone. Back to Lohan, yes she may be similar to her character in her movie, but she is terrible for young girls to see as well as Paris Hilton. These girls get away with what they want because of their "celebrity" status (and I use "celebrity" because they are the worst kind). They act like the girls before the big fight and everyone making up and are horrible for girls to see. They make it seem like those actions are acceptable and they are most certainly not.
I think this article, contrasted with the movie, really brings to the forefront concepts of "mean" and "nice" as masquerades or performances rather than actual inherent qualities of a person. While Lohan is a professional actress, people in their everyday life also put on "performances," and being a mean girl may be used as some as a social tactic, when their true personality is not necessarily mean. Similarly, people who are cruel or careless at heart can put on an act of kindness and respect when it suits them well to do so. This was touched on some in the movie, in the case of Cady becoming "mean," but was not explored fully.
I think the idea that "everyone loves a mean girl" is an interesting one...if not a little problematic. I love Regina...I don't care how mean she was in Mean Girls...however, there is a certain line which keeps a mean girl on the love side of the love/hate line. For example, if Regina had actually taken a gun to school I'm pretty sure no one would be sitting at their computer professing their love for her...it's almost that she's just mean enough....just edgy enough to elicit that love/hate response in the positive. Props to the writers for being able to carry this off...and not to mention the pressure I'm sure real girls feel to stay on the Love side of that line...(I'm not suggesting that mean girls are awesome, but I'm sure it's an incredibly hard image to maintain!)
I think that one of the things that we find most appealing about Regina is that in a lot of ways, she is what we tell girls they can be. She is confident, intelligent, lives her life by her own terms, doesn't allow anyone to control her life, goes after the things she wants, and works very hard on the aspects of her life that she values. She does not allow herself to be restricted by any old-fashioned ideas about what a girl is. She doesn't pretend to be a chaste and innocent and isn't afraid of her own sexuality. It just so happens that the way that she chases after these goals while being incredibly mean. She's intelligent, but uses it to manipulate those around her. She's living her life by her own terms, but those terms also include putting down all the people around her. She's a darker twist on the ideal "modern woman".
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