Mean, Meaner, Meanest

"Women would run the world if they did not hate each other." Interesting words uttered from the mouth of Chris Rock but also very true. Where ever you look examples of girl on girl hate is prevalent; books, TV, film and music, we are all party to seeing young women treating each other badly. These are issues that author and educator, Rosalind Wiseman tackies in her book, Queen Bees and Wannabees where she looks at ways of handling aggressive girl behaviour. She also goes into the secret world of school cliques and breaks them down into six categories: Queen Bees, Wannabes, Messengers, Bankers, Targets, Torn Bystanders. Queen Bees and Wannabees is an important book because not only does it give us an insight into the socio-political inside of girl world it is also the inspiration for Mean Girls. Defined as a combination of Heathers meets Clueless, Mean Girls was released in 2004 to critical acclaim and is now regarded as one of the best teen films of all time. The success of the movie might have had something to do with the hotness of Lindsay Lohan at the time but Mean Girls is truly all about Tina Fey and her brilliant script writing skills.


Mean Girls was Tina's debut as a writer and actor in a feature film and I supposed you can say that it was also a semi bio project as the movie touched on a lot of things that she experienced at high school. The cast also includes performers from Saturday Night Live of which Tina is an integral part of. This teen dramady is the story of Cady Heron played by Lindsay Lohan, a teenager who moves to a new school after having an idyllic upbringing in an African country. New to the social rules of high school she finds herself an object of interest by The Plastics ie the Mean Girls who run the school. The Plastics are headed by Regina George played by Rachel McAdams and they take her under their wing and she finds herself escalating into the school popularity ranks. However, unknown to The Plastics, Cady is secretly plotting with social outcasts Janis Ian played by Lizzy Caplan and Damien played by Daniel Franzese to bring down Regina. As she becomes immersed in life as a Plastic Cady usurps Regina to become the new Queen Bee but pretty soon she gets addicted to her new found power and starts to neglect her real friends.


The character of the Queen Bee runs similar in a lot of films and TV shows from Heather Chandler in Heathers, Taylor Vaughan in She's All That and Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl. Rosalind Wiseman defines the the Queen Bee below:

"She holds the combination of charisma, strong will, looks, money, force and manipulation. She is the centre of the group not because she is well liked but because of the fear that she holds over the group. She sets all the rules and changes them to suit her own purposes."

As enjoyable and funny as Mean Girls is, the film also has a steely edge that is a tad bit disturbing. As Tina Fey describes, the film shows how girls know how to mess with each other. Talk about art imitating life.

Whitney in the City

So Whitney Port made her debut in her new show, The City which aired last night on MTV with a bumper edition. The City is a spin off of the popular so-called reality show, The Hills which is set in LA and in which Whitney is a co-star. After spending many years as an intern at Teen Vogue and stylist at PR company, People's Revolution as well as lending a sympathetic ear to the doe eyed Lauren, Whitney has swapped LA for NYC. She lands a plum job as PR for Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) and moves in with her old mate Erin Williams in a cool apartment in the Gramercy area of Manhattan. The perks of moving to a new city means meeting new people and checking out exciting bars and restaurants. We are introduced to Whitney's co-worker, the divine Olivia Palermo who is a high profile socialite or social as she prefers to be called. Olivia is quite clearly the catalyst to Whitney as Heidi is to Lauren in The Hills but with much better connections. Erin offers the fun factor and a lending ear particularly when it comes to guys. Talking of guys this is where the intro to The City differs from The Hills in that the guys are featured in the opening credits. One of then is Jay Lyons, a musician who Whitney met when she came to NYC for her job interview. She is quite clearly smitten with him but whether he feels the same way about her is to be seen. Then there is Adam Senn, a restaurateur and Jay's flatmate who is new to NYC as well.

This new reality show has been covered extensively in the media and blogsphere which is no surprise considering the phenomenon of The Hills. Aesthetically, The City is definitely easy on the eye and with the almighty Big Apple as a backdrop, how can you go wrong? As a TV show the plot leaves a lot to be desired; a considerable amount of time was spent on Whitney's love life. Is Jay a two-faced, two-timing snake? The answer is that Jay lacks so little charisma and presence that it was hard to care. Aside from her first day at work and New York Fashion Week, very little is seen of Whitney in her workplace which is very worrying as it was Lauren and Heidi's glam jobs that made The Hills the success it is. Olivia is a very different proposition; yes she has a life fuelled with dinner parties, lunches, fashions shows and celebrity galas but she has an edge to her that makes her interesting. For a start she is described as a real life Blair Waldorf; she even has her own publicist and is constantly being mentioned in gossip blogs and newspapers and she even has a fan blog that focuses on her life. Rumour has it that she runs her own PR agency which would make sense as she is trying to build her brand. I would say that The City has a long way to go before it earns the right to be called the reality version of Sex and the City. Still it was good to see Kelly Cultrone in the programme and more interesting are the reports that Kelly is to get her own show.

Check out the official blog for The City here.

Gossip Girl premieres - "You Know you Love Me"

The US do things big. Over here we have premieres for block buster films but when a TV show launches it is greeted with some adverts and a few magazine covers. Well that is just not good enough for the Americans, when a new TV series is about to air the TV company puts on a massive launch which is not too different from the one that you see for films. Take the premiere for Gossip Girl, the much awaited teen drama based on the novel by Cecily von Ziegesar of which I blogged about in July. The stars turned out in frocks galore and tuxedos, trotted down the red carpet and smiled till their cheeks hurt to promote their new show in front of snapping lenses. I watched the first episode on youTube which is kindly posted by GossipGirlTV and it did not disappoint. I found the show totally addictive and I loved the glossy and gossipy elements. The characters are great and posses a vulnerability that makes you root for them. The creator of The OC, Josh Schwartz has done it again.

Check out lovelies, Leighton Meester who plays Blair Waldorf (left), Blake Lively (centre) who plays Serena van der Woodsen and Taylor Momsen (right) who plays Jenny Humphreys in the picture above.

Picture from cw.com