Things Only Guys Noticed In Mean Girls
You don't have to be a girl to like Mean Girls. The Tina Fey-written comedy about new girl at school Cady Heron and the superficial clique that she infiltrates called The Plastics is a classic that has proven popular with both girls and guys alike. So what if the often-quoted 2004 film was written by a woman and stars a mostly female cast, including Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams? All that really matters is that the story was entertaining and the jokes were funny.
Of course, guys probably didn't consume Mean Girls in the exact same way that girls did. There are certain jokes and topics that girls could relate to in the film better than guys could. On the other hand, there are certain observations and opinions that guys might have had about the movie and its characters that girls possibly didn't share. Here are things only guys noticed in Mean Girls.
Gretchen is way too good for Jason
Jason's ability to land Gretchen cannot be overlooked. He out-kicked his coverage. He was punching above his weight. To stick with the sports metaphors, Gretchen is way out of his league. She's a knockout. Just look at that smile, those eyes, that hair — she should have been able to get just about any guy that she wants in that school and every other school.
Jason? He's a terrible dresser and a "skeez," as Regina repeatedly calls him. This is the same perv whose first line is, "It doesn't count if you don't see nipple," and who asked Cady, "Is your muffin buttered? Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?" That's not even funny.
And, rather than count his lucky stars that Gretchen is into him, he blows her off and hangs out with Taylor at Old Orchard Mall, behavior that Gretchen — for some reason — forgives when she professes her love for him. What could she possibly see in him? The guy is so not fetch.
Shane wouldn't have stayed silent about his fling with Regina
There's an old saying that a gentleman never tells, but we all know how rare it actually is for a guy to keep quiet about his sex life. Many guys tend to brag about their flings to impress their friends, even if it's not very gentleman-like. And that's why it was a surprise that it took Aaron so long to find out his girlfriend Regina was cheating on him every Thursday with her ex-boyfriend Shane on school property of all places.
Cady spent so much time trying to get Aaron to walk in on Regina and Shane in order to sabotage their relationship, but, in real life, no elaborate stunt would have been required. A guy like Shane would have probably blabbed about his fling with Regina to all of his buddies — she is the Queen Bee, after all — and word would have spread around the school quickly. That's just how these things seem to work.
The male characters are kind of boring
One of the biggest complaints about female characters on the big screen is that they can be poorly written. While male protagonists get fully fleshed out, their female counterparts far too often are one-dimensional and underdeveloped. It's sad but true. But in Mean Girls, that injustice gets flipped on its head. The female characters are interesting and complex, and the male characters, for the most part, are kind of just there.
Aaron isn't interesting or funny. He's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer either, as pointed out by Cady, who tells him he's bad at math (don't ask us how he got accepted into a prestigious school like Northwestern because we have no idea). Cady's dad and Principal Duvall are both kind of pushovers. Remember how oblivious Cady's ol' man comes off when unsuccessfully punishing her? Or how in over his head Principal Duvall seems with the madness going on at his school? And Shane and Jason seem like, well, meatheads. Not the most likable bunch. At least Kevin G. has some personality.
A lot of guys wouldn't have turned Cady down
Most guys dream about having the opportunity to date a girl like Cady. After all, she's a "regulation hottie," as Janis calls her. But Aaron apparently did not, or at least not when he found himself alone with her in her bedroom during her house party. When Aaron found himself in that enviable position, he immediately asks Cady, who was obviously into him, "You want to go downstairs?" You can imagine that more than a couple guys watching the movie probably facepalmed and shook their heads.
Aaron turning down Cady was the sort of move that often gets a guy teased mercilessly for years to come — the kind of decision he might even find himself regretting later on. But, in rejecting Cady, he probably won over much of the female audience, despite potentially disappointing some of the movie's male viewers. Good guy Aaron for the win.
Wait, why is Lizzy Caplan playing an outcast?
We get it: Movies like to cast pretty people. That's not just a Mean Girls thing. But it's still somewhat hard to buy the gorgeous Lizzy Caplan as an outcast who garners very little attention from male students. Sorry, but it's going to take a lot more than baggy skater clothes and a hairstyle that looks like it's been taken straight out of a Tim Burton movie to make Caplan unattractive. This is the same actress who many viewers surely developed a crush on after her roles in Masters of Sex and Hot Tub Time Machine, after all.
With her stunning looks, Caplan very easily could have played a member of The Plastics. But alas, her character was relegated to the "art freaks" table in the cafeteria and labeled as a lesbian by Regina. Kudos to Kevin G. for knowing a good thing when he sees it and coupling up with her at the end of the movie.
Aaron isn't much of a soccer player
We don't mean to keep picking on poor Aaron. He seems like an okay guy (except for the part where he briefly kissed Cady while he was seeing Regina). It's just that Aaron is supposed to be a jock, but he looks pretty unathletic during his one sports scene. All Aaron does is kick the ball during soccer practice and that even proves to be a tall task for him.
His awkward run up to the ball makes him look like a guy who hasn't played the sport for very long, if at all — despite the fact that he's supposed to be a senior on the team. Somehow the soccer ball still manages to find the back of the net, though there wasn't much power behind it because ... Hollywood.
It's also implied that Aaron is a member of the swim team when he follows a sign stating that swim team practice will be held in the projection room, but we never actually see him competing in the pool. If his swimming was anything like his soccer playing, it was probably for the best.
The ending is super sappy
If there's one part of the movie that guys might have trouble stomaching, it's Mean Girls' cheesy ending. When Lindsay Lohan's Cady is named Spring Fling queen, she opts to deliver a nearly two-minute speech in front of her classmates that oozes with sappiness, complete with overly dramatic background music and all. She basically tells her peers that they're all winners in her book ("I think everybody looks like royalty tonight") and shows them that sharing is caring when she breaks her crown and passes the pieces out. Her parents are also there just so we can see how proud they are of her for putting aside her differences with her classmates. Ugh.
The only redeemable part of the whole thing is Principal Duvall interrupting Cady to let her know a speech isn't required, which is the film's way of acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all.
Regina should have been ejected from her lacrosse game
We're told that Regina found her calling at the end of Mean Girls with lacrosse. She channels all her aggression into the sport and is shown roughing up defenders with her elbow and lacrosse stick on the way to scoring a goal. The action was obviously exaggerated for comedic purposes because no way would that sort of behavior fly in real life.
Any half-decent referee would have called a foul on Regina for striking her opponents in the face and sent her off with a red card. There almost certainly would have been a suspension involved. And if that would have happened nowadays, the clip would have possibly gone viral like the one of the nasty female college soccer player did. But this is a movie, after all, so no foul was called. Instead, Regina is able to celebrate the goal with her teammates, who pile on top of her, and she gets a happy ending that — let's be honest — she didn't deserve.
Gretchen's upset stomach contradicts a certain long-held theory
Karen dropped an unexpected truth bomb on male viewers during the Kumbaya session in the gym and nothing has ever been the same. The spaciest member of The Plastics revealed that gal pal Gretchen once had diarrhea at a Barnes & Noble, which completely goes against everything guys have believed about girls and their bowel movements. In other words, it contradicted the long-held male theory that girls don't poop.
Some male truthers likely dismissed Karen's revelation as nothing more than a made-up gag for Mean Girls and blindly insisted that girls do no such a thing — especially not someone as radiant and delicate as the lovely Gretchen. But other guys likely had their minds blown. They came to grips with the truth about the female anatomy in that moment and realized that girls perhaps aren't made of sugar and spice after all.