We’ve all been through the high school process, and it’s tough. Essays, grades, and stories. Oh, the stories… You know, the stories close family members would tell you, and they will give you a very exaggerated context of high school. don’t forget they’ll only tell you the bad experiences, but do you know what’s worse? High school movies. 

The 1990s-2000s was probably the best era of movies. Teen movies to be exact. In that era it came with “Clueless,”, “Ten Things I Hate About You,” and a lot more great movies, but that’s not what this article is about. 

“Mean Girls.” 

A film made in 2004 that possibly gave many viewers mixed amount of emotions. For a lot of people — scared of high school.  

Of course, you had the very fabricated perfect ideal high school movie like “High School Musical”, but those movies were dominated by horror ones, like heathers, (spoiler!!) That jaw-drop moment when she had to pretend to kill herself because her boyfriend was a maniac?! Yeah, that’s a hard no, but there’s a difference between those movies and “High School Musical”… They’re better. Not only do they have those popular kids that you’d wish to be but couldn’t, but they also have drama. 

From stealing boyfriends and with karma getting its way to Regina George– and she gets hit by a bus? If that isn’t the craziest thing you’ve ever heard from high schoolers, then have you heard?

Mean Girls portrays this insane amount of drama that literally no one would ever get into but somehow… It could be very interesting to see how it ends., but this movie also gives you a life lesson to not be as crazy and dumb as these girls were.

Even though “Mean Girls” is a great movie, there’s a lot of room for improvement! Stating the obvious part… It was made in 2004. Meaning the era was different and so was the humor, so you may not see eye to eye with the vulgar vocabulary that could be thrown in this movie. “I love Mean Girls the way it is, because it’s such a classic, and it never gets old. I mean yeah there could be room for improvement because I feel like there could have been things that should’ve been done and said differently, but it’s still in my top 10,” said Leanna Laino, a freshman from another high school. 

A lot of people have similar experiences to these high school movies, but there are also a lot of people who don’t. “I’ve had no connection to the movie so far. I think it was very exaggerated with what happens, like stealing boyfriends, and cutting people off hasn’t happened to me,” said Armani Lorenzo, an ischool freshman. 

As stated above there are people who have had encounters like the “Mean girl” movie, there’s a freshman who actually relates to Cady! “I was homeschooled just like Cady so I kinda get her confusion of being in a new place, I think at one point in the movie she mentions ‘oh I don’t get how adults don’t trust me and that’s kinda the same at school,” said Amelie Dejean-Reid. And lastly an experience with stealing boyfriends: “This movie made connections to high school for me in certain ways. Like stealing boyfriends, yeah that’s a thing. Drugs, alcohol, and partying also have an impact. I don’t know about the burn book though, people have gotten ideas from it, so that can also be true. But people aren’t really doing that now.”– Leanna Laino. Everyone’s connections to things are always different, so it’s not surprising that many teens can relate and not relate.

Have you ever heard the saying “It’s fun to hear drama, but no fun to hear that you’re in drama.”? If not… You heard it now. As a human being (when we mean human beings I mean regular human beings, not social media clout-chasing celebrities) it’s horrible to go to a Halloween party and find out your crush is weirded out by you over some stupid rumor your best friend Regina made to your crush. That internally sticks with you for the rest of the school year, or if anything high school, school year. If you didn’t get the reference… It was from “Mean Girls”. Drama is incredibly tough, and anyone knows it’s easy to get into it but so hard to get out of it, and at one point in time we were all middle schoolers getting into those troubling situations but feared how it could be in high school. 

We’ve heard from adults, that high school can be the real deal, and to avoid drama. But what is the drama? Is the drama as bad as the middle school drama..? Or is it like “Mean Girls” drama? That’s where it’s conflicted. Middle school drama was the worst, but somehow “Mean Girls” portrays this type of drama that everyone could fear. “It made me a little scared because I was thinking if the drama was that bad in middle school, how bad is it gonna be in high school, with people maturing, people going through different experiences, and how it’s gonna be with boyfriends and girlfriends.” From Leanna. Maturity can say a lot about how people can handle situations. It could range from confronting, rumors, and even worse fighting, and since this is more up in maturity levels, people will indeed hold grudges. 

Mean girls are the best chick flick, so of course, it’s best to have other opinions on it.

“9 out of 10, it’s a really good movie. It needs more diversity, and it has some stereotypical conflict, but other than that I think it’s a great movie.” said Amelie Dejean-Reid.

“An 8 or a 9 out of 10 because there were things that were said that were offensive in some ways, or like some jokes they made that were kinda offensive. Nobody realized it of course because it was a different time, but we grew up to notice that it was wrong. The good attributes is why it’s a 9/8 because I am an actor and a vocal major, and I would know that they played their characters really well.” -Leanna Laino. 

Overall, “Mean Girls” can be a great movie for a lot of people, but it always has flaws.

But the award for best chick flick of all time will always, even if it’s been 16 years, be “Mean Girls”!