Copy Cats: Hollywood Being Very Hollywood
Mean Girls movie poster
Clueless movie poster
Many films have adapted the popular girls clique schtick after Heathers. We see this in Clueless (Amy Heckerling 1995), Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004), etc. Director, Mark Waters is actually Daniel Waters’s brother and was approached to direct Mean Girls first. The similar
elements that these teen flicks have in common is just the premise: High school is sometimes Hell, teen angst is inevitable, and popular girls suck. The dissimilar elements is not just the dark and
disturbing comedy in which these issues are displayed, but also the theme/ending. Heathers ends with the school almost blowing up and Veronica our heroine realizes that while nihilism is
important, it can also be taken overboard. In Mean Girls Cady just wants to fit in until she realizes
that it isn’t the most important thing. (She ends up with the guy and finding herself in the process.) In Clueless we see Cher realize that she doesn’t need to everything figured out (she also ends up with her love interest.) This appears to be of Reaganite approval.