Mean Girls is one of those coming-of-age stories that resonates so well with anyone who can remember traversing the jungle that is adolescence. It is a story that deals with themes of survival, popularity, intelligence, and maturity. However, the one theme that especially stands out is the importance of individuality.

For all of us the middle and high school years should be a time of finding, embracing, and being proud of  your true self; in essence finding “Where Do You Belong?”. Unfortunately, school during the years of adolescence can feel dominated by a constant struggle to live according to strict rules regarding social norms. It is a battle between deciding to be yourself or do whatever you can to conform to the popular crowd. This is the internal battle our characters face throughout Mean Girls and they are ones adolescence face today and we adults all have faced in our younger years.

In the end, the lessons our characters learn is that it is better to be who you are than to try to conform to someone else’s idea of who you should be. They learn not to care about what others say about you and to embrace the things that make you different and unique. They learn that “calling someone fat doesn’t make you skinnier” and “calling someone stupid doesn’t make you smarter.” Most importantly, they learn that if we let the harsh words and judgments of others break us down and cause us to resort to being “mean" we lose ourselves. 

The world is full of Regina Georges. They exist in the hallways of middle and high school. They exist in the “real world” of adulthood where they continue to try to bully their way through life. Social media has become their “Burn Book,” they’ve got the gasoline, and want to “watch the world burn and everyone get mean.” How do we begin to fight the fire? We fight the fire by embracing Janis’ words in “I’d Rather Be Me” and Cady’s message in “I See Stars.”