Fetch Isn’t Happening – But Girlhood Solidarity Is

Fetch isn’t happening, but something more powerful is. In 2004, women and girls were graced with one of the most game-changing films to date—Mean Girls.

Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, teen movies sold us narratives that constructed popularity pyramids as normal parts of teenage life. Mean Girls pulled back that curtain and showed us that certain hierarchies don’t need to exist if we don’t want them to. It showed us how fake and fragile those constructed pecking orders really are, that hierarchies only work when people believe in them.

 
As a young woman growing up in the 90s, I saw female competition as the default. My friends and I were taught to compare our bodies to unachievable standards. We were taught “girl vs. girl” competition as a strategy to survive. We were taught that fellow girls and women were the enemy, or “frenemy” at best. Surely, there weren’t enough resources to go around. Men would receive the lion’s share, and we must compete for what scraps remained.

Mean Girls taught us that there don’t have to be limited resources. There doesn’t have to be competition. There is enough to go around. When Cady stands on stage at the end of the film and breaks up the prom crown, throwing a piece to every girl in the room regardless of her popularity status, she is showing us that when girls refuse to compete and choose to hype each other up instead, the whole system collapses.

 

Mean Girls also taught us that rejecting secrecy and calling out harm creates community. Exposing the contents of the Burn Book destroyed a surveillance tool that kept The Plastics in power. It ended whisper networks and mean-girl culture.

Marxist themes are dominant throughout the film. Class structure is ever-present, with The Plastics reigning supreme as the popular clique. However, in the end, the groups blend and merge. Instead of competing and gossiping, everyone is supportive of one another.

In modern culture, the Marxist-feminist concept of real change happening through collective action is being embraced. Whether it’s women hyping each other up or strangers giving each other advice on social media, millennial and Gen Z women are redefining girlhood. The needle is moving away from scarcity and lack and moving toward mutual empowerment.

Because of films like Mean Girls, it’s cool to be a girl’s girl. When one of us wins, we all win. The limit does not exist.

What in popular culture do you think has the biggest influence on women supporting women? Or do you think the biggest influence resides outside of popular culture?