meangirls

Mean Girls

Watched Mean Girls with my sister just recently on DVD and found it to be a pretty good comedy. Cady Heron is new to a school from her family life in Africa. At the school she comes across the 'alpha girls' referred to as the 'plastics' and falls for the boyfriend (Aaron Samuels) of the top 'plastic' girl, Regina George. Cady then embarks on a plot to get Aaron and bring about the downfall of Regina.

The movie addresses issues of friendship, of hypocrisy, of love, of being true to yourself, of the bitchiness of (especially) girls and of the power of forgiveness. Ultimately this is a story with a happy ending. It parodies American school life and the fake living of many students. It is also quite funny and a fairly harmless movie, although with occasional inappropriate sexual humour - and swearing.

Confession and absolution - yes these are 2 posh words.. What they mean is getting rid of bad stuff and being cleansed inside as a result. The scene is around 1 hour 45mins into the movie. Cady is talking to herself and says, 'when you're bitten by a snake, you have to suck the poison out. That's what I had to do, get the poison out of my mouth..' (What a fantastic line and concept!!) You can keep the clip going until Cady wins the Prom. Cut it after her final speech - and where the head takes over the stage/mic (clips is 8-10 mins in length). The point is that from her decision to admit her guilt, to confess, she was and felt absolved.

Link this to 1 John 1.9 where the Bible says: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." That is something we must all do - when we come to Christ and he turns our lives around.. And in our everyday life. Confession of sin seems to have gone out of the evangelical language. But it's at the heart of our lives. We must say sorry to God for sin, turn from it and mean it! One simple way is to pray the Lord's Prayer. Encourage people in the group to pray this.

In the background of the movie, as Cady says the line about 'poison', we have the Pink song, 'God is a DJ' with the lyrics, 'If God is a DJ, life is a dancefloor'. What another great and interesting line! Questions for you and your group: What does this mean to you? What does a DJ do? Is God like a DJ? How is life like a dancefloor? To me, this is quite an interesting concept of God. If God is a 'DJ' and life is a 'dancefloor' then it recognises that God is the one we're looking up to, dancing for, to, listening to his choice of direction and song. This also speaks of life being a dancefloor, where we can choose to get on the dancefloor, or sit on the sidelines. The DJ doesn't make people dance, they choose to or not. What else, how else does this song lyric challenge you? Remember the Faithless song of the same name which has the lyrics, 'This is my church. This is where I heal my hurt'...

Friendship - scenes with Cady and her best friend, Janis. These guys fall out big time when Cady becomes too much like the 'plastic' girls in the school.

Hypocrisy - the scene at the pasrty at Cady's house. Towards the end of the scene, Aaron comes along and he ends us confronting Cady. When outside, Cady is then confronted by Janis who calls her a 'bitch.' The hypocrisy of Cady's life also comes tumbling down around her towards the end of the movie.

Forgiveness - the scene where Ms Norbury gets all the girls together to discuss their attitude towards each other. You could also show the last scene in the movie where the school is a much happier place.

Bitchiness - the same scene as above with Ms Norbury would be good, as would the immediately previous scene where Regina goes spreading leaflets around the school and all the girls end up fighting.

Being true to yourself - It's when Cady accepts who she is and is humbled / humbles herself that things change. There is a scene where Ms Norbury isn't in school cos of drug charges made up by Cady. Cady stands up and admits it was her. She then goes and helps win a maths competition when Ms Norbury gets back. In all this she gets the attention of Aaron too.