Mean Girls

"I mean, right? She was a LESBIAN."

When Cady moves from Africa and attends her first American high school, she has no idea how to behave in "Girl World," where you need your friends' approval to buy a dress/date a boy, every compliment is a power struggle, and you can only wear a ponytail once a week. The first friends she makes are queer, or at least queer enough to be ostracized by the rest of the school. Damian, "almost too gay to function," loans her his pink shirt, has a Celine Dion poster in his room, and wears a purple tux to Spring Fling. Janis Ian, whose entry in the Burn Book just says "dyke," is named after a lesbian folk singer, is obsessed with Regina George, and also wears a purple tux to Spring Fling.

At first, Cady doesn't seem to care that her friends might be gay, and even, upon repeating Janis's joke that Damian is "almost too gay to function," wonders "is that only okay when Janis says it?" But the more time she spends with evil queen bee Regina, the more of her casual homophobia she absorbs, referring to her teacher as "totally queer" and finally accusing Janis of being, like, totally in love with her.

We find out that Janis's hatred for Regina is a result of homophobia, or, as Regina explains:


Later, Cady apologizes to Janis and Damian, and Janis refuses to let the gay rumors bother her anymore. She tells Regina, in front of the all the girls (and Damian) in their grade that she tried to ruin her life: "I am so sorry, Regina. Really, I don't know why I did all this. I guess it's probably because I've got a big LESBIAN crush on you! Suck on THAT!"

The ironic thing of course is that Janis isn't even a lesbian--she winds up with the mathlete rapper guy at the end, totally mellowed-out and apparently straight. This shows that gay rumors, like every other kind of high school rumor, are mostly not even true, and that stereotypes are not actually very useful, and that even if a girl wears a purple tux to prom and is weirdly obsessed with other girls, she is not necessarily gay. Only mean people are homophobic, and if you don’t know if you should call somebody “too gay to function,” you should probably restrain yourself. All of which is a nice message! But, Damian has a bit of Christian from Clueless syndrome, where he’s the only one who never shows any romantic interest in anyone, let alone gets a boyfriend. This, plus the fact that Janis turns out to be straight, felt a little like a bait-and-switch: they’re queer enough to be funny and make a statement, but not too queer.