It's October Third

Friends. Readers. Cool Asians and burnouts, desperate wannabes and unfriendly black hotties (because so many of those read my blog), sexually active band geeks, Plastics, and yes, even you home-schooled jungle freaks (I'm lookin' at you, Renee), today is October 3rd. And as we all know,

If, for some strange reason, you do not understand this reference, you should first be aware that you and I are not and have never been friends. Secondly and more importantly, you must immediately minimize this post and go watch Mean Girls, because it will change your life forever. 

In honor of today's famous date, I felt it was, like, the rules of feminism to dedicate a post to Mean Girls, also known as The Best Movie of the Twenty-First Century and Also Possibly of All Time. 

You see, for me and the millions of other American teenage girls - and guys - who grew up under the spell of Cady, Regina, Janis, and Aaron, Mean Girls is more than just a movie. It is the cultural lifeblood that has shaped us, made fun of us, and provided us with a larger quote arsenal than any other cultural product ever has or ever will. (For, after all, when it comes to how many times in a day you can quote Mean Girls, the limit does not exist.) It introduced us to the brilliant mind of Tina Fey, and it gave us that one last burst of Lindsay Lohan greatness before she moved to Indiana... dropped out of school, cut off all her hair, got totally weird, and now I guess is on crack...lost her mind. It didn't teach us how to be mean, because, trust me, we knew that already. It taught us to look critically at our meanness, showed us the consequences of cattiness (namely, that mean girls will get hit by buses, which is true like 90% of the time), and encouraged us to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It taught us a tiny little bit about limits that we all felt was vaguely familiar when we later learned it in calculus class. It taught us that on Wednesdays, we wear pink - which, for the record, you better have all done today. I did. And most importantly, it taught us that if we have sex, we will get pregnant and die. This, too, is true 90% of the time; just ask Notre Dame and/or Mitt Romney. 

That said, I would like to present you all with the best underrated Mean Girls characters. Everyone knows that Karen has ESPN or something. Everyone knows that Damian is almost too gay to function. Everyone knows that one time, Regina George punched me in the face, and it was awesome. But what about the other members of the North Shore family? Characters who aren't Plastics, Cady, Janis, or Damian need love too, and here it is. 

First, Kevin Gnapoor. There is not a word this kid says in the whole movie that's anything short of side-splitting comic genius. There is, of course, his brilliantly vulgar rap, topped off with the wholesomely hilarious "happy holidays!" There's his repeated assertion that he only dates women of color ("You Puerto Rican?" "Lebanese." "I feel that"). There's his classic piece of advice, "Don't let the hataz stop you from doin' yo thang." And finally, lest you forget, he is the speaker of one of the best lines in the entire film, practically thrown away following Mr. Duvall's question as to whether Ms. Norbury ever tried to sell students marijuana or ecstasy tablets: "What are marijuana tablets?" Let's not kid around. If I were to marry a character from this movie, it would, without a doubt, be Kevin G. 

Secondly, the character whom the script merely calls Michigan girl. "We have a new student joining us. She just moved here all the way from Africa." "Welcome!" "I'm from Michigan." 

Next up, Cady's mom. Amy Poehler may be the movie's cool mom (right, Regina?), but Ana Gasteyer is casually the funniest. "That is the fertility vase of the Ndebele tribe! Does that mean anything to you?" It should be noted that, within the first week of my African lit class this semester, the actual Ndebele tribe was mentioned with 100% seriousness. I know this, because I took one and only one note on the Ndebele that day: "That is the fertility vase of the Ndebele tribe!"

Joan the secretary. This woman spends the whole movie sitting back and being awesome. She gets the wonderful line, "The girls...they've gone wild!" and, in two of my favorite moments of the whole film, sheepishly raises her hand to answer both "who here has ever been called a slut" and "who here has felt personally victimized by Regina George." Joan is incredible. 

And finally, Mr. Duvall. Mr. Duvall holds the dubious honor of uttering my favorite line from the entire film, which is, of course, "Aw hell no, I did not leave the South Side for this!" This gem of a principal also introduces the character who would clearly be my favorite if he ever actually appeared in the film: Mr. Duvall's nephew Anfernee. "I know how mad he gets when I call him Anthony. Almost as mad as I get when I think about the fact that my sister named him Anfernee." 

So, folks, enjoy the rest of October 3rd. I hope all your Aaron Samuelses asked you what day it was today, and I hope that, in two weeks, you'll speak again. May you always be important enough for a page in the Burn Book and skinny enough to shop at 1-3-5. If not? 

You could try Sears.