0:00 Mean Girls Regina George breaks the bad guy mold from the moment she walks on screen a beautiful pink-clad princess of a High School junior she's hardly the antagonist we might initially expect in a movie and yet she's one of Pop culture's most iconic villains and evil takes a human for in Regina George she reminds us of how tough it is to be a teenager and how terrifying high school can be when you're in it and even after you've left how many of you have ever felt personally victimized by Regina George perhaps the worst thing about Regina is that what's horrible about her is actually what's true she's a life ruiner she ruins people's lives Regina was a menace because she understood some
0:45 pretty dark fundamental truths about the world and the fact that she was right about them underlines some major problems in society so let's take a deeper look at what Regina unfortunately got right in her outlook on life and why it's so important that Society like Regina learns to change for the better Regina isn't a nice person she doesn't care about her friends or family and her main Drive seem to be status and wealth get in loser we're going shopping and that's kind of the point throughout the movie She's shown to get what she wants not by being kind as we are so often told is the way to success for girls and women but by being treacherous and manipulative as Janice says Regina would be nothing without her High status man candy technically good
1:32 physique an ignorant band of loyal followers and Regina is astute she knows all these things are important she makes decisions not based on what will make her happy but based on how she'll be perceived by The Wider School Community Regina's like the Barbie doll I never had i' never seen anybody So Glamorous so she chooses to pursue a relationship with Aaron Samuels A hot Senior Star athlete why would I break up with you you're so hot rather than Shane Omen who she really likes she diets obsessively despite having the kind of body her fellow high schoolers are jealous of I really want to lose 3 lbs and she hangs out with Gretchen and Karen despite not being stimulated by their conversations because they strengthen her position as the most popular girl in school she's the queen bee the star those other two
2:18 are just her little workers actually Regina would probably have been more fulfilled by continuing her friendship with Janice who we see is just as cunning and intent on destroying Regina to get her back for bullying her as a child in the end these two girls are much more similar than Regina is to Gretchen or Karen but in friendships Regina maintains her powerful Mystique by never letting the other party feel safe in their standing with her or the school at large in her childhood friendship with Janice Regina made sure she never felt like her affection was reciprocated like if I would blow her off to hang out with Kyle she'd be like why didn't you call me back and I'd be like why are you so obsessed with me and she's not totally wrong Janice is absolutely obsessed with her even years later and that's because Regina understands that if you want to
3:03 be revered you can't appear human so genuine friendships where both people are on even footing are a big no no I'm always on your left and right now you're getting on my last nerve switch the cold way she treated Janice means that even though Janice doesn't like Regina she still looms large in her mind and her life when we look at what motivates Regina we begin to see that her life seems a little empty she's frustrated by her mom who lets her do anything in her effort to seem cool and by the vapid interests of her friends that is so fetch Gretchen stop trying to make fetch happen it's not going to happen but by putting up with these things and containing her anger most of the time Regina is rewarded with something that she sees as more important than happiness power it was my parents' room
3:51 but I made them trade me by the end of the movie all of the main characters are pursuing things that are more interesting to them Katie has joined them athletes something Regina previously told her was social suicide while Regina herself is taking her anger out on the lacrosse pitch while they are both clearly better off in every way that matters the fact that their queen bee status has disappeared as they've gone down these happier routs does actually kind of confirm Regina's initial theory that doing what you enjoy and being honest doesn't result in agulation Regina understands perfectly how her fellow students work she gets their Buy in by creating an exclusive circle around herself but also by using a powerful mix of flattery and cruelty the weird thing about hanging out with Regina was that I could hate her and at the same time I still wanted her to like
4:36 me she compliments her fellow students but she never really means what she says it's just that she knows she has to interact with people in a positive way in order to make them feel special enough to maintain her position as their Queen oh my God I love your skirt where did you get it uh it was my mom's in the 80s vintage so adorable that is the ugliest effing skirt ever seen she's also able to orchestrate absolute chaos with her devious plan to release the Plastics burn book while making sure to include something scandalous about herself for Less villainous characters this leak would be mortifying but Regina does it deliberately in order to get Katie into trouble she's so single-minded and intent on bringing down Katie that she doesn't care about the risk to her own reputation and with
5:22 good reason because she can read everyone so well she knows that she needs to put herself in the book in order to evade blame and land her three former friends in trouble don't worry we're going to find out who did it there's only three girls in the whole school who aren't in It sharing the book goes almost exactly as Regina anticipates until she realizes that by making an enemy out of Janice Ian she left herself and her Reign vulnerable I convinced her that it would be fun to mess up Regina George's life perhaps cutting Janice out was actually the biggest thing Regina got wrong in her pursuit of power Regina understood that in order to stay on top of the metaphorical pyramid at school she needed to establish strict boundaries for her fellow Plastics and for the other students in order to be admired in the way she desires rega needs
6:08 ridiculous rumors to flourish about her and tidbits of knowledge to be shared about her she has two fendy purses and a silver Lexus I hear her hair is insured for $10,000 I hear she does car commercials in Japan these rumors almost seem to elevate her to super human status and they also stop people from talking about the other Messier parts of her life such as pcing together her secret relationship with Shane she knows that certain types of Gossip are valuable in the pursuit of power she's also keenly aware of the fact that the factors keeping her in control are relatively arbitrary she even says herself that Karen is prettier than her and as a result should technically be voted springling Queen the springling queen is always pretty and the crazy thing is is that it should be Caren but people forget about her cuz she's such a
6:53 slep so she creates a web of petty rules to make sure she's always able to keep the other Plastics in check on Wednesdays we were pink she understands that Gretchen and Karen need these strict kinds of rules to abide by and focus their energies on so that they feel the safety of their position in the hierarchy and don't try to overthrow her you can't wear a tank top 2 days in a row and you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week so I guess you pick today these rules can't be undermined or Regina would be undermined so Regina was right about the powerful psychology of creating a framework for her followers to exist in that is completely controlled by her but on the flip side she's also right when she breaks the rules and tells Gretchen they aren't real you're wearing
7:38 sweatpants it's Monday so so that's against the rules and you can't sit with us whatever those rules aren't real the rules aren't real to Regina She Made Them Up herself but what she doesn't realize is that once she enforced the rules she made them real for Gretchen they were real that day I wore a vest because that vest was was disgusting you can't sit with us Regina's rules for me and not for thee Outlook is terrible but effective at achieving her goals of keeping everyone in her orbit under her control Katie's Arc from innocent homeschooled new girl to Regina's mean queen replacement is one of the movies most surprising twists but Regina saw it coming from the first second she laid eyes on Katie in the cafeteria firstly she recognizes that Katie is attractive and that poses a big
8:25 problem unless she can get her on her side because Regina's attractiveness is one of the main roots of her power as a leader next she senses that having been homeschooled Katie doesn't have the chronically low self-esteem of the other teenage girls which means she could have the confidence to threaten Regina's previously uncontested reign of the school you're like really pretty thank you so you agree what you think you're really pretty so Regina makes the snap decision to pull Katie into the Plastics to mitigate the risk okay you should just know that we don't do this a lot so this is like a really huge deal we want to invite you to have lunch with us every day for the rest of the week Gretchen eventually reveals that Regina has never really liked Katie she doesn't even like you that much so she clearly has an ulterior motive for bringing her
9:11 into the fold it's a classic case of keeping your enemies close that Katy girl is hot she might even be hotter than Regina George as the story develops we see that Regina was right to try and keep Katie on her side because ultimately everything she feared came true Katie did undermine her power overthrow her and replace her as Queen Bee of the school was I the new queen bee it's as though right from the very beginning Regina sees something of herself in Katie which Katie doesn't even see and is surprised to learn is there so why are you still messing with Regina Katie I'll tell you why cuz you are a mean girl and the rest of the school sees this sight of Katie too while she might start out seeming Innocent by the time the school year is halfway over she's evolved so much into a mean queen that people don't even really question the idea that she might
9:58 have pushed Regina in of a bus to usurp her well half the people in this room are mad at me and the other half only like me because they think I push somebody in front of a bus while it might have taken most of the movie for everyone else to notice it Regina clocked it instantly despite being one of the great teen villains of the early a and someone who ultimately gets her come upin we can learn a lot from Regina George she's a shrewd leader who's unfortunately right about the way much of society Works she understands her teachers her parents and her fellow students per perfectly she knows a lot about what makes other people tick she can even see aspects of other people that they themselves might actually miss which is a powerful trait that gives her a lot of control her Reign of Terror at Northshore High shows us what's valued
10:43 in wider society and importantly gives us a glimpse of what we can do to Buck those Trends and find genuine happiness that's the take click here to watch a video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications and make sure to subscribe to our patreon for exclusive new videos
