"Mean Girls" movie reference in essay - Page 2

MomofNEA · 10-08-2012, 07:41 PM

Thank you!

GladGradDad · 10-08-2012, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Some movie references are so big that you don't really need to have seen the movie. I really did work on an outstanding essay with a Darth Vader reference.

Hanna:
Maybe I've been living under a rock or something but I think 'Mean Girls' isn't nearly as big of a movie as and has a much more limited target audience (i.e. teenage girls) than the others you mentioned. I'd bet far less than 50% of adcoms (based on gender and age) have seen it or know detailed references to it.

momofthreeboys · 10-08-2012, 08:19 PM

I've never seen it...only know that was the name of a book Tina Fey wrote but I had/have three boys. What if it's a guy adcom reading the essay....will a young to middle age guy get the quotes?

EarthPig · 10-08-2012, 08:42 PM

Recently, a guy approached me for a job, sending me a cell phone message (meaning too short, lacking punctuation and filled with abbreviations) asking me if we needed an MD for Europe.

I was wondering why we needed a doctor in Europe. Eventually, I figured out that he wasn't a Medical Doctor, and wanted to become the Managing Director for our European subsidiary (and we don't have a European subsidiary).

I was thoroughly confused, and this guy's lack of clarity made him look like a buffoon.

The same goes for your daughter's essay. Unless the movie reference is so much a part of everyday speech that everyone with an 8th grade education or higher will recognize it, she needs to assume that the admissions committee member hasn't seen the movie. In that case, she'll need to provide context from the movie so her essay will make sense. Mean Girls isn't a movie where every phrase (or any phrase) has become part of the American language.

If her essay won't work if she has to take a paragraph to explain Mean Girls and the scene from which her reference is coming from, she should leave that reference out of her essay.

Midwestmomofboys · 10-08-2012, 08:51 PM

I have a college freshman son who is fluent in Mean Girls, and had a heyday on Oct 3. The movie is huge among this generation of teens.

Still, I suspect this would be similar to quoting a a totally cool movies from my youth, I don't know what, maybe Rocky Horror, Repo Man -- (none of which I saw until they were long past cool) that I would probably not have expected an admission rep to be familiar with.

Agree that if you have to explain it, it isn't working as an expression of yourself.

qialah · 10-08-2012, 08:53 PM

I think adcoms, by virtue of the fact that the spend a lot of time interacting with teenagers are very much up to speed on teen popular culture. I wouldn't think there would be any problem with a Mean Girls reference.

jaylynn · 10-09-2012, 12:15 AM

I agree, especially if it's for a short essay and not the all-important Big One. It references this generation's pop culture milieu, and I think that's valid, as long as the essay isn't just about the quote and takes the quote and the essay somewhere interesting and germane.

victoriaheidi · 10-09-2012, 12:25 AM

I really think it's hard to make a call on this without knowing what the essay is about/what the reference is/a lot of things we don't know (and the OP shouldn't actively post on here).

BTW, when Mean Girls is on TV, #MeanGirls always trends on Twitter. When I was on facebook (no longer use it), all of my friends used to post statuses about it, too. It's the kind of movie that's so deeply permeated teenage culture that I have to believe that at least some adcoms are familiar with it (not to say that she should use it; again, I don't think I could give a "yes" or a "no" to such a vague question).

But I must be honest with you. I have a fifth sense. It's like I have ESPN or something. My breasts can always tell when it's going to rain...actually, they can usually just tell me when it's raining.

Consolation · 10-09-2012, 09:46 AM

I've seen Mean Girls. I enjoyed it. But I don't think I could quote a single line from it. Princess Bride, on the other hand....

wyograd76 · 10-09-2012, 11:05 AM

It's like I have ESPN or something.

jaylynn · 10-09-2012, 11:06 AM

See, that (Princess Bride vs Mean Girls) is generational. And at least some old people on this board know Mean Girls, which means that our kids' generation really knows Mean Girls. I still think it would be fine. And if it talks about the book that Tina Fey referenced (she didn't write it), Queen Bees and Wannabes, well that is a well-respected nonfiction book about girl bullying and culture. So it could be a really interesting essay, imo.

Is butter a carb?

mumof2 · 10-09-2012, 11:25 AM

Hi, she decided not to use the reference because it was a very short essay and she had to cut it way down. It is about bullying and she was going to say something like, "although we laugh at that behavior in the move Mean Girls" blah blah blah.

So she wasn't actually quoting anything from the movie.

Thanks for all your input and by the way, even as an "old mother" I find the movie very funny!

mathmom · 10-09-2012, 11:51 AM

^mumof2, in that context it's definitely fine. I haven't seen the movie - or is it a tv show? or both?

Pennylane2011 · 10-09-2012, 12:43 PM

Yes I too am one of the "old people" who knows the movie well, but only because I have a daughter in the age group that knows it. I even caught the Janice Ian reference.

And I am not even a "cool mom", probably more an embarrassing mom because I also liked Twilight.

Hanna · 10-09-2012, 04:14 PM

GladGradDad, that's why I concluded by saying, ""Mean Girls" ain't "Star Wars.""