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Mean Girls
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Mark Waters
Produced by	Lorne Michaels
Written by	Rosalind Wiseman (novel) Tina Fey
Starring	Lindsay Lohan Rachel McAdams Tina Fey Tim Meadows Amy Poehler Ana Gasteyer Lacey Chabert Amanda Seyfried Lizzy Caplan Daniel Franzese Neil Flynn Jonathan Bennett
Music by	Rolfe Kent
Cinematography	Daryn Okada
Editing by	Wendy Greene Bricmont
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	April 30, 2004
Running time	97 min.
Country
Language	English
Budget	$17 million
Gross revenue	$86,049,418
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Mean Girls is a 2004 film directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday), written by (and co-starring) Tina Fey and stars Lindsay Lohan with Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert and featured several Saturday Night Live cast members, including not only Tina Fey but also Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. It has been praised as being Lindsay Lohan's true break-out role.^[1]

Director Mark Waters described the movie as "Clueless meets Heathers,"^[2] the latter of which was written by his brother, Daniel Waters. Mean Girls is based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls. Similar to its inspiration Clueless and Heathers, the film was a surprise sleeper hit, and generated much discussion upon its release on high school cliques and bullying, despite the film being a light-hearted approach to those subjects.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception 4 Box office 5 Soundtrack 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Set in the affluent North Shore area of suburban Chicago (Evanston, Illinois), Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) was raised by her parents in Africa. At age 16, she moves to America to attend public school, after having been home schooled all her life. On the first day, she is surprised by all the rules and restrictions that high school has to offer. She struggles to fit in, but meets two students, Janis (Lizzy Caplan), a rebellious girl, and Damian (Daniel Franzese), her "too-gay-to-function" friend, who decide to show her around and offer her insight into the cliques and hierarchy of the school.

One of the groups is known as "The Plastics", a group of popular and superficial girls: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert), and Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Regina is considered the "Queen Bee" of the school and Janis hates her, which Cady later finds out stems from the fact that Regina spread rumors about her sexuality. One day, Cady is invited to sit with them at lunch in the cafeteria where seating is important and restricted to cliques. Janis and Damian convince Cady to eat lunch with them so she can report back to them everything The Plastics say and do. For example, Cady is introduced to a book known as "The Burn Book", in which they make insulting comments about the other girls in their school.

At the same time, Cady develops a crush on Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett). Gretchen and Karen find out about the crush, and tell Cady that Aaron was Regina's ex-boyfriend, and therefore, he is off-limits. Although Gretchen promises to keep Cady's a crush a secret, Regina finds out. Rather than telling Cady that Aaron is off-limits, Regina offers to help Cady win Aaron. As a result, Cady begins to talk to Aaron more and more during their calculus class, so that he invites her to a Halloween party. At the party, Regina finds Aaron (after promising to talk to him about Cady), and kisses him, while Cady watches. Cady is infuriated and decides to leave The Plastics. Janis, however, stops her, convincing Cady to keep hanging out with them so that they can get revenge.

Regina wishes to lose a few pounds, and so Cady gives her "Kälteen" bars, which are supposed to help someone gain weight, under the guise of them being diet bars. Cady also begins to talk to Aaron once again, pretending that she is horrible at math (when in actuality, she is quite good and is asked to join the Mathletes several times). Finally, Cady is able to manipulate Gretchen and Karen into getting angry at Regina, so that eventually Regina is kicked out of The Plastics. However, Cady begins to act exactly like Regina; much to Janis' displeasure.

After The Plastics kick Regina out of their group, Cady becomes the most popular girl at the school.Then one of the desperate wannabes says "I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I bought army pants and flip flops." Cady throws a small get-together at her house that becomes a huge party. Slightly drunk, Cady tries to make a move on Aaron, but he sees through her, calling her a "clone" of Regina and rejecting her advances. Regina discovers that 'Kalteen" bars make her put on weight which has been ruining her life. Regina decides to now ruin Cady's life. She loses her friendship with Janis and Damian, who now hate her just as much as they hated Regina. Regina gives "The Burn Book" to her principal at school, Mr. Duvall (Tim Meadows), and frames the remaining members of The Plastics for writing it. However, before she hands in the book, Regina makes numerous photocopies of its pages. Placing these copies around the whole school, all the girls start to riot against each other.

Outraged, Mr. Duvall gathers all of the junior girls into the gymnasium, where the girls receive an attitude makeover. Cady's math teacher, Ms. Norbury, is asked to take charge of the workshop. The girls are made to confess the bad things they have done and said about their peers. Janis, still angry at Cady, tells everyone about how Cady, Damian and herself thought up a nasty plan to ruin Regina's life. Regina gets mad and walks out of the school and Cady attempts to apologize, but Regina refuses to forgive her. Regina is then hit by a school bus.

The following day, rumors about Regina's accident start to float around school. One rumor states that Cady pushed Regina in front of the bus, which makes Cady's own parents distrust her. At school, Cady ends up all alone with no friends. She enters her math class later that day to discover that her math teacher, Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey), was taken away because of accusations of her being a drug dealer, as stated in the Burn Book. Also in the Burn Book was a page about a coach of the school, Coach Carr, having an affair with two of his students which turned out to be true, which forced the school to check each of the book's accusations. Cady decides to step up and admit that she wrote the book (although she only wrote the rumor about Ms. Norbury selling drugs). Ms. Norbury punishes Cady herself by making her join the Mathletes.

Although Cady is grounded by her father for her failing grade in math (since she dumbed herself down to get Aaron's attention), she leaves her house to attend a Mathlete competition. At the same time, the rest of the school prepares for the Spring Fling, a school dance. At the competition, Cady comes to some realizations about life, and manages to win the competition in the last minute. This is a turning point for Cady, as Ms. Norbury forgives her. After the competition, The Mathletes attend the Spring Fling, where Cady is announced as Queen of Spring Fling. Cady thinks she doesn't deserve the title after all she has done and breaks her crown into small pieces to give to other students. She then makes amends with The Plastics, Janis and Damian, and Aaron.

The following school year, The Plastics break up, with Gretchen joining the The Cool Asians, Karen presenting the morning weather announcements (she states that her breasts can detect when it is raining), and Regina taking up lacrosse. Cady is now dating Aaron and is friends with everyone in her senior class.

• Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron
• Rachel McAdams as Regina George
• Tina Fey as Ms. Sharon Norbury
• Tim Meadows as Mr. Ron Duvall
• Amy Poehler as Mrs. George
• Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Heron
• Lacey Chabert as Gretchen Wieners
• Amanda Seyfried as Karen Smith
• Lizzy Caplan as Janis Ian
• Daniel Franzese as Damian
• Neil Flynn as Mr. Heron
• Jonathan Bennett as Aaron Samuels

In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young girls watch it like a reality television show. It is much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing."^[3] Generally it was fairly well reviewed by critics, receiving an 85% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[4] and a 66 ("Generally favorable reviews") on Metacritic.^[5]

The movie was declared an instant success after its opening weekend made the film $24.4 million and the #1 film in America at 2,839 theaters.^[6] Due to strong word of mouth, Mean Girls had a long life at the box office and finished its run with $86,058,055 in the United States.^[7] The film was later nominated for the prestigious WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.^[8]

The soundtrack for the film was released on September 21, 2004.

1. Dancing With Myself - The Donnas
2. God Is A DJ - Pink
3. Milkshake - Kelis
4. Sorry (Don't Ask Me) - All Too Much
5. Built This Way - Samantha Ronson
6. Rip Her to Shreds - Boomkat
7. Overdrive - Katy Rose
8. One Way or Another - Blondie
9. Operate - Peaches
10. Misty Canyon - Anjali Bhatia
11. Mean Gurl - Gina Rene and Gabriel Rene
12. Hated - Nikki Cleary
13. Psyché Rock - Pierre Henry
14. The Mathlete Rap

• Cattiness

• Official site
• Mean Girls at the Internet Movie Database
• Mean Girls at All Movie Guide
• Mean Girls at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mean Girls at Box Office Mojo

Preceded by Man on Fire

Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA) May 2, 2004

Succeeded by Van Helsing