PremiumTill Mean Girls 2024 arrives, check out these five rom coms that depict the best way to navigate the social jungle named ‘high school’
The revamped Mean Girls hits the theatres on Jan 8, 2024.Till that happens, check out these five films that tell you the best way to defeat the Queen Bee and navigate the high school jungle safely.
Mean Girls 2024
Last Updated: 06.09 AM, Jan 08, 2024
High school is no joke and the relevance of Mean Girls in 2024 is proof of that. As times have changed, high school social norms and cliques have upgraded themselves to be known by the latest Gen Z lingo. Perhaps that is why creator Tina Fey remains enshrined in the success of her hit coming-of-age comedies. If high school drama excites you, while you wonder how to belong to its creme-de-la-creme, then give these five films a watch while the Plastics get ready to take you shopping.
Easy A (2010)
Directed by Will Gluck, this Emma Stone and Penn Badgley-starrer hits the peak of high school satire by emulating Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter’s ‘shameful’ badge for adultery and promiscuity in a quirky way in the story. The film shows a bold and risky way of standing up to the entire notion of spreading skanky rumors in order to shame a girl, both for her prudishness and her provocativeness. The film is a fun and motivating ride regarding peer bullying and shaming.
The film is available on Prime Video.
Wild Child (2008)
This teen comedy reminds one of Enid Blyton’s boarding school stories, with Emma Robert’s spoiled American Poppy Moore being sent to her late mother’s alma mater, a boarding school in England, in order to make her sensible and responsible. Despite promising to make a nuisance of herself, Wild Child follows a cute story of sisterhood and the toppling of the British version of a Queen Bee from her pedestal, due to the latter’s inherent corruption.
The film is available on Prime Video and Apple TV for rent.
Legally Blonde (2001)
This romantic comedy tops the list with its positive approach to peer and gender-based bullying and competition in college. A wonderful story of a beauty with brains, Elle Woods, the film follows her reign at Harvard, with a kind and helpful tone, instead of the cruel, nasty one we are accustomed to from the ‘pretty, popular girl’. Not only does Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods break the stereotype of blondes being ‘dumb’, but she also enforces the fact that a pretty, smart girl does not feel threatened by other women, and lifts them up instead of throwing them under the bus.
The film is streaming on Prime Video.
She’s All That (1999)
This Robert Iscove-directed rom com is based on the classic trope of the hero placing a bet with his guy friends regarding a woman, and later falls for her. But She’s All That adds another touch to it, fresh on the market back then, of altering a nerdy outcast’s appearance and manners in order to make them fit in and prove one’s own superiority. The film wins heart by its ending, which shows that a bold and mature social pariah doesn’t need validation from a bunch of vapid teenagers, the right person will always adore them and be proud of them for who they are.
The film is available on Prime Video for rent.
What a Girl Wants (2003)
This heart-touching tale features a double love story which is enveloped by a family drama. Daphne is an American girl, who comes to know at the age of seventeen who her father is. Full of questions, nervousness and excitement, Daphne runs with a sincere heart to meet her famous father who is running for the post of Prime Minister of the UK. But there she meets her father’s gold-digging fiancée and her daughter, who would do anything to get rid of Daphne, except maybe short of kill her, especially since Daphne’s father, Henry seems exceedingly fond of her. That would be so, for he had been misled by his advisor cum future father-in-law, for a long time, by separating him from her mother as well as hiding the news of her birth back then.
The film is available on Prime Video for rent.