Summary
The next day in math class, Cady gazes absentmindedly at Aaron Samuels instead of focusing on her work. As she approaches him after the bell, she's interrupted by another student named Kevin Gnapoor, captain of the school's "Mathletes" team. He asks Cady to join, and at Ms. Norbury's encouragement, Cady agrees. After school, Cady waves at Aaron at soccer practice before Regina pulls up in her silver Lexus convertible, calling to Cady, "Get in loser, we're going shopping." At the mall, The Plastics strongly discourage Cady from joining the Mathletes, calling it "social suicide." Cady likens the social arrangement of people at the mall to animals on the African savanna. After spotting Jason with yet another girl named Taylor, Regina becomes spiteful on Gretchen's behalf and calls the girl's mother anonymously, pretending to be a Planned Parenthood representative with urgent test results.
The Plastics retire to Regina's house, a mansion with four giant columns flanking the front entryway, and Gretchen advises Cady to compliment Regina's mom's "boob job." In the living room, The Plastics pass by Regina's little sister, who is dancing suggestively to a music video on television, before Regina's mother rounds the corner in a pink jumpsuit holding a chihuahua with a feather boa. She puts the dog down and hugs Cady, telling her she's a "cool mom," with "no rules." Upstairs, The Plastics enter Regina's room—a massive, sprawling master bedroom with lake views. The word "PRINCESS" is mounted above the bed. Cady spies a picture of Regina and Aaron on the wall, and the girls take turns complaining about their various physical flaws in front of a floor-length mirror. In voice-over, Cady marvels at the array of imperfections The Plastics are able to come up with.
Regina's mom re-enters with her dog and a platter of drinks styled like cocktails, although she reassures Cady that they do not have alcohol in them (before adding she can have some if she wants). Her mom tries to engage the girls in conversation, but fails to feel her dog chewing on her breast implants, prompting Regina to ask her to go "fix her hair." On one of Regina's shelves Karen finds the "Burn Book," a collection of various mean comments about the various girls in school. On Janis's page, Gretchen finds the word "dyke," and a photo of her and Damian, who Cady casually remarks is "too gay to function." When the Plastics laugh and Regina tells them to add the comment to the book, Cady feels a twinge of guilt.
At the soap store in the mall where Janis works, Cady tells her about the Burn Book, but lies and says she was not in it. While Damian browses the soap products, Janis tries to persuade Cady to steal the book so that they can expose The Plastics for being a socially toxic influence on the school, treating it like a moral imperative, but Cady refuses to steal. When Ms. Norbury happens upon the group in the store, she once again encourages Cady to join the Mathletes, prompting Damian to warn Cady that it's "social suicide"—echoing Regina's comment earlier. After she leaves, Cady tells Janis that spying on Regina and The Plastics has become "too weird," but Janis assures Cady that it will stay "our little secret"—recalling Gretchen's comment to Cady.
At home, Cady gets a phone call from Regina, who tells Cady that Gretchen has confessed to her about Cady's crush on Aaron Samuels. Regina, however, acts cool and nonchalant, offering to "talk to him" on Cady's behalf, before demanding to know whether Cady thinks Gretchen's disclosure was "bitchy." When Cady tepidly agrees, Regina says "See Gretch?" revealing that Gretchen is on the line too, who has taken offense at Cady's words. In voice-over, Cady calls the event a "three-way calling attack," but admits that Regina's "blessing" meant she could now get to know Aaron Samuels without fear of reprisal.
In math class, feeling frustrated by the few, awkward words she has managed to exchange with Aaron, Cady feigns not understanding the material as a way to talk more with him. Aaron flirtatiously invites Cady to a Halloween party, hinting that she should come without a date. On her way out of class, Kevin asks her if she is staying with the Mathletes meeting. Cady lies and says yes before heading home to work on her costume. In voice-over, Cady explains that in "Girl World," unbeknownst to her, Halloween is in fact a pretext for girls to dress in sexy and revealing outfits with impunity—usually, "lingerie and some form of animal ears."
Later that night, attending the party in full zombie-bride attire with rotting teeth, Cady finds Gretchen and Karen. Karen spills her drink in fright at Cady's costume and then admits she has a crush on her first cousin. Aaron finds Cady and compliments her costume, offering to get her a drink. Regina intercepts him, wearing a Playboy bunny outfit, and says she has something to tell him about Cady—however, when Regina sees how charmed Aaron seems by Cady, she instead tells him a stream of lies that make Cady's innocent crush on him seem like a deranged and predatory obsession.
From across the room, Cady waves at Regina and Aaron, assuming that Regina is praising her to him, rather than making her seem increasingly pathetic. As Regina instead brings Aaron in for a deep kiss, Cady angrily cries out, "Slut!" in her voice-over narration, and flees the party. She finds Janis and Ian alone watching an old horror movie and tearfully tells them that Regina betrayed her and took Aaron back. Janis reaffirms once more that Regina is a "life ruiner," and an "evil dictator," who needs to be deposed. With Cady now fully onboard with revenge, Janis devises a formal plan to bring about the destruction of The Plastics, by first isolating the sources of their social capital: "high-status man candy" (Aaron Samuels), "technically good physique" (desirability), and "ignorant band of loyal followers" (Karen, Gretchen, et al.).
Analysis
One of the film's major themes is authenticity versus inauthenticity, and the math subplot reveals the extent to which Cady must become less authentic in order to win friends. In this sequence, Cady feigns not understanding math so that she can flirt with Aaron and perhaps make him like her more. Ironically, it is not only The Plastics that warn Cady that joining the Mathletes is social suicide, but Damian as well. Another uncanny parallel between Janis/Damian and The Plastics occurs when Janis tells Cady, "It'll be our little secret," echoing Gretchen's earlier line in the cafeteria. These repetitions suggest that at this point in the film, Cady is finding it difficult to view either The Plastics or Janis and Damian as completely trustworthy.
Unlike Janis, Cady at first believes sabotaging The Plastics is immoral, even after witnessing Regina's cruel prank on Jason's girlfriend at the mall. The film develops the metaphor of Regina as a "queen" and The Plastics as "royalty" by showing Regina's car to be a silver, Barbie-like convertible, and her house to be a mansion with an imposing, palace-like facade. Additionally, Regina resides in the master bedroom, with the word "PRINCESS" above her bed. The Plastics' obsession with traditional physical perfection contrasts with Cady's indifference to appearance and the intentionally campy and outrageous aesthetic of Janis and Damian.
In Mean Girls, betrayal and manipulation often lay just beneath a thin veneer of friendship and conviviality. The "three-way calling attack" scene reveals this theme of duplicity, by showing how Regina keeps her "queen bee" status by controlling and causing infighting among the other girls. Regina's tone throughout the phone call is sweet and innocent but completely insincere, given that she knows Gretchen is secretly listening in. Cady constantly refers to the world of The Plastics as "Girl World": a deceitful, treacherous realm where very particular rules apply.
Mean Girls has two party scenes in which Cady manages to embarrass herself in very different ways. At the Halloween party, Cady's naïveté leads her to fail to realize that her costume should be sexy rather than scary, although ironically, Aaron likes her costume anyway for its effort and humor. Cady's horrifyingly detailed "zombie bride" outfit re-inscribes her outsider status relative to the other partygoers, who are all dressed in revealing, low-effort costumes. Cady's humiliation is compounded by having to watch Regina (dressed as a Playboy bunny) kiss Aaron in front of her. The fact that Cady cries out "Slut!" in voice-over anticipates the fact that Ms. Norbury will later lecture the junior girls to stop calling each other "sluts and whores."
Regina's betrayal of Cady marks the moment in the film when Cady becomes fully dedicated to Janis's plan to sabotage The Plastics. Fey's script develops the metaphor of The Plastics as "royalty" by investing Janis's scheme with revolutionary overtones. "How do you overthrow a dictator?" Janis wonders. "You cut off her resources." Not unlike the leader of a political junta, Janis formally charts out a three-point plan that will enable her, Cady, and Damian to sap The Plastics of their social capital in school.
