Mean Girls - Review
	You know you like a movie when you see it again almost within two weeks of the first viewing.  I'll admit that I am fascinated by teen movies because sometimes they are the most telling about how the world works.  This is definitely how one could describe Mean Girls.
		Mean Girls is the story of Cady, a new student at the age of sixteen to the gruesome days of high school after being home schooled on the plains of Africa.  We follow Cady on her journey from her first day to the big Spring Fling and onwards into her last year before heading off into university.  She is impressionable literally as we follow her being pulled to all sides of the high school experience from nobody to somebody to villafied and it is this journey that stays with us as we relive our own high school experience.
			I had the pleasure of watching the film with adult friends while being immersed in a slew of teenagers and it is remarkable how many of them did not get that the film was about them as much as anyone.  I even had the pleasure of experience the same behaviour from my own peers in the same week and it is justified that it does not apply to teenagers solely.  The girls in the film are mean, as are most of the guys, but it is mostly a product of a world in which segregation has almost been applauded and a very real world in which they have been cast.  One could write this film off as just a comedy about the growing years, but one would miss the deep seriousness about where being mean can lead.  Girls making remarks behind each other's backs at first may seem to be funny, but we also get to experience the reality of when the remarks become bigger and adult, they are no longer funny, but concerning to our nature.  As for Cady, we see a real live teenager, a rare glimpse as it is, and we live the reality of being mean instead of being nice.  She is not a mock teenager and she does not get through this year without being scathed.  She learns her lessons and her flaws and this makes her a favourite character of mine for purely being a human being.
				Of course we get our happy ending where everyone learns their lesson, with a few neck accidents along the way, but we also get the never-ending cycle of being a mean girl or mean guy with a glimpse at the next year's students.  We see the interaction for only a brief second, but there is a longing for the viewer that they will learn as the year before did and grow as people.  As for us who are beyond those high school days and possibly going back for our tenth high school reunions, it gives us pause and realize that now we can go back as adults and know what we did wrong and what we did right.  I think we all recall being a mean girl from time to time, but as this movie attests, there is always hope after we have served the consequences.  We just need to realize that it's much more enjoyable to be a nice girl than to be a mean girl.