10 May 2013

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Mean Girls (2004)

#inspirationalmovies


This, as some other of our suggestions - like Dirty Dancing (1987), for example - may seem unlikely to be labelled as feminist inspiration.

But we insist that Mean Girls (2004, Mark Waters), the girl-on-girl hate classics for those who have grown up in the 2000's, does offer at least some empowering life lessons:

a) You do not need men to perpetuate the patriarchy. The whole thing - as heteronormative and fallocentric as it gets - can be going on with the objects of the rat race being completely oblivious to the fact that friendships, sanity and intelligence is sacrificed for entering in a couple.

b) Playing dumb (or different) is a strategy that doesn't work in long term. And it hurts your most authentic self. Not worth it.

c) The urge to be part of a group, to have social capital is a (social) life or death issue among adolescents (it may get better with the age, not always, though). Trying to be cool is hard enough... and bullying exists, especially the body-, gender- and sexual orientation-related one. And it takes a lot to try to get over that and hope on that it gets better.
This is to be taken into account when trying to intervene and change the behaviour. 

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