Mean Girls (2024)

image for Mean Girls (2024)

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Not suitable under 12; parental guidance to 13 (themes, coarse language, sexual references)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Mean Girls (2024)
  • a review of Mean Girls (2024) completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 12 January 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to themes, sexual references and coarse language.
Children aged 12–13 Parental guidance recommended due to themes, sexual references and coarse language.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Mean Girls (2024)
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, sexual references and coarse language
Length: 112 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Cady Heron (Angerou Rice) has been living in Kenya and home-schooled by her research-scientist mother (Jenna Fisher) for most of her life. Cady longs for a normal life and her mother realises this, so they return to the US. Cady is not prepared, however, for life at North Shore High School where everyone is part of a group, including the top of the pack, ‘Plastics’. This group is led by Queen Bee Regina (Renee Rapp), with her followers Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika) doing whatever Regina demands.

At first, Cady is rejected by all but the odd couple Janis (Auli’I Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) who accept her as a friend. Janis used to be best friends with Regina in middle school but they fell out and have been enemies since. When Regina takes a liking to Cady and invites her into her group, Janis sees this as an opportunity to take revenge on Regina. While the three plot the downfall of Regina, Cady becomes increasingly more ‘plastic’, much to the despair of her mother. She also makes the fatal mistake of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron (Christopher Briney).

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Musical; Stereotypes; High School; Bullying, Teenage Romance; Adolescence; Social Media Influence.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • A girl deliberately bumps into Cady.
  • Cody nearly gets hit by a bus.
  • A loud explosion occurs while Janis and Damian are watching TV. A window gets smashed.
  • Aaron yells at Regina and throws her ‘burn book’ in anger.
  • Regina falls heavily during a dance routine. The audience all film the consequences on their phones.
  • A teenage party gets out of control at Cady’s house. The kids are all drinking and the house gets trashed.
  • Some fighting breaks out during a dance sequence.
  • Regina gets hit by a bus and dies for 15 seconds but is revived.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Janis looks a bit scary with her facial piercings.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Cady comes to a Halloween party dressed as a scary-looking bride with blood dripping down and fangs.
  • At the party it turns into a black and white sequence with many scary-looking characters. There’s loud, sudden music and strobe lighting.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Lays chips
  • Cheetos.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A teacher leads a lesson on health and sexuality, discussing safe sex, abstinence and the use of condoms.
  • A boy says he can guess Cady’s bra size if she were to jump. Karen asks if she wants to have sex with him.
  • Damian tells Cady that Janis and Regina fell out because Regina thought Janis was an obsessed lesbian.
  • Sexualised dancing at a talent show.
  • Someone says they think they saw a nipple.
  • A girl talks about her virginity and her menstrual flow.
  • Cady and Aaron kiss romantically.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Many couples are seen kissing, overtly passionately, in school and at parties.
  • Several girls are seen wearing skimpy clothing, showing off large boobs.
  • Regina and Aaron kiss passionately.
  • Aaron finds Regina in a closet making out with another guy.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Drinking at a party. Gretchen, Karen and Cady all become affected by alcohol.
  • Regina’s Mum drinks and is seen drunk on occasion.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Shut up
  • Damn
  • Crap
  • Bitch
  • Arsehole
  • Oh my God
  • Bastards
  • Dick
  • WTF?
  • Use of middle finger.
  • Name calling, such as:
    • Loser
    • Idiot
    • Slut
    • Pyro Lez (for lesbian)
    • Dirty utter liar
    • Fugly Cow.

In a nutshell

Mean Girls is a musical version of the original, teenage comedy movie made 20 years ago. The film is more risqué than the original and pushes a lot more boundaries, even though this version has been classified ‘PG’, compared to the original, which was classified ‘M’. The new film also introduces the damaging results of social media, which wasn’t around back when the original was made. It is, therefore, not suitable for under 12’s and more suited to teens and adults.

The main messages from this movie are that it’s more important to be true to yourself than trying to fit into a group you don’t belong in; and that you don’t have to conform to what’s expected of you if it goes against your own better judgement.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Standing up for yourself.
  • Achieving at school is a good thing.
  • To stop being a victim and take responsibility for your life.
  • Admitting mistakes and learning from them.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • The difficulties young people face at high school, particularly with the prolific use of social media today. Bullying, slut-shaming and bitchiness are all behaviours young people have to deal with and this could be an opportunity for parents to discuss how to build resilience to these negative and far-reaching bad behaviours.