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Mean Girls and the Teen Comedy Genre



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    I recently watched the film Mean Girls for the very first time. I know, I know, it's a classic and I should have seen it sooner. Trust me, I've been told that countless times. Having watched it though, it's caused me to think about the movement of mid 2000s comedy films and the teen comedy genre as a whole. 

    It seems to me that dedicated comedy films hit their peak around the 90s to mid 2000s and started becoming less and less popular after the Hangover franchise ended. It is between this period that the box office received a surplus of these films, often backed by big SNL names, that gave us a lot of classics of the genre. Probably my favorite films to come out of the 2000s comedy boom are Superbad and Walk Hard. 

    Mean Girls is one of the most iconic films to come out of this era. Endlessly quotable, I have basically been told to watch it by every person in my life. Having seen it, I think it is well and truly okay. Not the best movie of its era, but overall pretty good. A solid 7/10. This comes for a variety of reasons. The film is a comedy from the mid 2000s so not everything in it has aged well, but I think what Mean Girls is truly lacking is a compelling emotional arc. This is not something that every comedy requires of course, but the best comedies often do have them and I've always found that they add so much depth and feel to these films. This is especially relevant to the teen comedy genre. These movies often have a core message about growing up and coming of age. Mean Girls does have this, it's to be yourself and don't be a dick really. But I feel like it isn't given the weight it deserves. I don't think that Mean Girls takes itself seriously enough to evoke big emotional responses from people. And I view that as less of a flaw and more of a missed opportunity. 

    Part of the reason why I do have high expectations when it comes to what the teen comedy genre can provide is because of my favorite movie within said genre, Superbad. Superbad is at first a simple film about some guys trying to get alcohol for a party but it quickly spirals into more. Not only do the protagonists end up in increasingly worse and funnier situations, we also start to learn more about the relationship that's shared between them. And, by the end of the film, things have changed for good. Every one of the main characters has experienced growth. Our two protagonists have come to terms with the grief that comes with growing up. And the movie is still funny while doing this. Mean Girls doesn't really have a moment like that. There's no emotional climax to the film. At least not for me.

    If I'm being honest, I think that a huge part of what you get out of a teen comedy is when you see it. I'm certain that, had I seen Mean Girls when I was younger I would have gotten more out of it. I do think that Superbad is a better example of the genre but I can never be sure how much of that is because I watched it when I was a teen. In the end, comedy is probably the most subjective genre out there and the fact that I felt Mean Girls was lacking emotional catharsis is just my opinion.

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