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Mean Girls: The Rise and Fall of Cady Heron

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Mean Girls has become a modern classic comedy that is adored by millions of fans. There are so many funny moments and iconic lines that people can not stop quoting. Furthermore, at its core, this is a film about all of the struggles that come with high school. The film is told through the perspective of Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who is going to a new high school. We see Cady go on her journey to discover how to live through high school and how to make friends. She goes through a lot of ups and downs in her experience, and she proves that high school is certainly not the easiest. However, she has to push on through. So what causes these ups and downs? Here are all the answers as to what made Cady’s time in a real high school so chaotic.

Why was going to high school significant for Cady?

The movie starts with Cady going off to her first day of junior year at North Shore High School in suburban Illinois. This is important for Cady because she had never been to a real public school before. She had previously spent 12 years in Africa where her parents home schooled her. Going to an actual school is an entirely new concept to Cady and it can be pretty scary. She does not know the rules and conventions of an actual school, and being homeschooled can make these students believe that Cady is weird. She has spent a lot of time around animals in the wild, now she has to deal with teenagers in the wild.

What causes Cady to be angry with Regina?

At first, even though Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) tell Cady that Regina George (Rachel McAdams) is an awful person, Cady thinks Regina seems nice. She believes that Regina is a good person that actually wants to be her friend,and Cady does not want to participate in Janis and Damian’s plans for revenge. However, after Cady told Regina that she liked Aaron, Regina immediately decides to kiss Aaron and get back together with him. This infuriates Cady as Regina knew that Cady liked him, but decided to put moves on him. That is the catalyst for Cady deciding to team up with Janis and Damian to take Regina down.

What is Cady’s relationship with math?

When Cady first arrives, something that is made clear about her is that she loves math. As she explains, math is the same in every language, to which Damian responds, “That’s beautiful.” Even though Cady does not understand high school dynamics, she knows that she will thrive in math class. However, when she develops a crush on Aaron, she decides to fail all of her tests as a way to get him to talk to her. Towardsthe end of the movie, Cady joins the mathletes to make up for her bad grades. Because of her intelligence, she solves the final problem at the mathletes’ competition, winning them the math tournament.

How much gossip does Cady put in the Burn Book?

Towards the end of the film, Cady takes full credit for the Burn Book, the book of gossip that Regina, Gretchen (Lacey Chabert), and Karen (Amanda Seyfried) made together. This causes the students at North Shore to turn on Cady. However, most of the book was already written by the time Cady had arrived at North Shore. Despite that, there was one piece of gossip that Cady put in the Burn Book. At one point, Cady is mad at her math teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey) for trying to push Cady to do better. Therefore, Cady spreads a rumor in the Burn Book that Ms. Norbury is a drug dealer. That causes Ms. Norbury to be investigated by police when the Burn Book gets out, and Cady takes full responsibility.

What is Cady’s fate?

After everyone gets mad at Cady and her parents ground her, Cady sneaks into the mathletes competition to help them win, and then she sneaks into the Spring Fling dance. While there, she gets elected the Spring Fling Queen and makes a speech. In her speech, Cady talks about how everyone should be kind to each other and we should praise each other for our accomplishments. She then breaks off a piece of her crown for everyone. After this, she finally gets together with Aaron, solidifies her friendship with Janis and Damian, and becomes civil with Regina and the Plastics. By the end of the film, Cady has figured out how to survive high school.