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  One of the most troubling things I found in the movie was the portrayal of the Asian girls. There a few scenes in the film where the Asian girls are speaking to one another. Throughout the film, they are never shown speaking English; however, when they are shown, they speak only in “Vietnamese” and seem to be isolated from the rest of the high school society. I put quotes around Vietnamese because the “Vietnamese” girls cannot even speak Vietnamese properly. In addition to this, the translations in the movie were outrageously incorrect. In the scene where the girls are forced to gather in the gymnasium and confront their problems, the “Vietnamese” girls are shown talking to each other and one of the translation states that one of the girls says, “nigga please.” I understand and speak Vietnamese almost fluently and what she said is NOTHING CLOSE TO “nigga please.” The girl says, “làm ơn đi mày, không dám đâu,” which basically translates to, “Oh, please.” I was appalled when I saw what the translation said. There isn’t any word or phrase in the Vietnamese language that can be directly translated into “nigga please.” It seems as though the translations in the film were made to entertain the American public instead of accurately portraying Vietnamese culture or language. I understand that the movie is a comedy and many of the jokes in the film were made for comedic purposes; however, Mark Waters incorporates these jokes in a way that is disrespectful and hurtful to not only Vietnamese culture, but Asian culture as a whole.

  Additionally, I noticed that the “Vietnamese” girls in the film had Korean names such as Trang Pak and Sun Jin Dinh. There is nothing Vietnamese about either of those names and it is insulting to see my culture being carelessly exploited. It is offensive and disrespectful how Mark Waters decides to categorize Asians into one large group. Korean and Vietnamese are two totally different cultures. How does Mark Waters even think it’s okay to combine these two cultures together? To add to this, what’s even more infuriating is how the Asian girls are depicted as sluts in the film. Not only are the girls shown making out with the P.E. coach, it is being implied they are also hooking up with him. This follows the disturbing stereotype of how young, Asian girls date or marry middle aged, white men. It’s disgusting and enraging to see Asian girls being fetishized and exoticized in a film that is supposed to be promoting women.

  Mean Girls is not the only film that exoticizes Asians and throws them all into into one category. Western culture as a whole is guilty of doing this as well. Although Western media attempts to incorporate racial diversity in films and T.V. shows, most representations of people of color fail to accurately show diversity. Instead, Western media reduces people of color to one-dimensional stereotypes. Asian culture, in particular, is poorly represented in Western media and culture. It does not matter if you’re Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, or Japanese because according to Western culture it does not matter what ‘type’ of Asian you are- you’re just “Asian” and all Asians are the same.

^^^ This Buzzfeed video shows how Western culture stereotypes and misrepresents Japanese culture by mixing in a variety of different Asian cultures into a “geisha” costume. In addition to films and T.V. shows, even Halloween costumes misrepresent and exoticize Asians.

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  Iphis also explains that most of the main characters of the film follow some type of racial stereotype as well. She states that “the Plastics are a trio of caricatures: the dumb blonde* (Karen), the Jewish American Princess (Gretchen), and the backstabbing popular girl (Regina).” The Plastics are infamously known and referred throughout the whole film as “high school royalty.” Although these girls are considered to be the main characters of the movie, they are pretty much just one-dimensional stereotypes. It seems as though in every high school film there is always a dumb blonde or white, backstabbing bitch. There’s nothing special or different about Regina George or any of the girls in The Plastics. Actually, there’s nothing special or different about ANY of the characters in the whole film. 

  Many may argue that Cady Heron is a unique character; however, she is probably the most unrealistic character in the movie.  I mean, come on, Cady is a white girl from Africa. Isn’t it just a little strange how Cady, a clueless sixteen-year old from Africa, shows up and ends up changing all of the social dynamics of her high school? Iphis states that Cady is a “mythical figure.” She explains, “[Cady] is a magical Outsider immune to all this stereotyping in the first place […] while everyone else fixedly adheres to stereotype, allowing the film to side-step truly challenging stereotypes or addressing the sources of internalized misogyny altogether.” Mean Girls is praised for being a female-centric film; however, Mark Waters fails to stray away from the typical racial stereotypes.

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 Many people may argue that the jokes and racial stereotypes portrayed in Mean Girls are just jokes that are not made to be taken seriously; however, most, if not all, of those people do not belong to these racially stereotyped groups. The jokes and stereotypes in the movie do not effect them in any way whatsoever. Although these racist comments and stereotypes were made for comedic purposes, it is hurtful and disrespectful to the groups that are being made fun of and misrepresented. The racial stereotypes portrayed in the film are unamusing and just plain racist. Although Mean Girls has a few important themes regarding bullying and body image, its misrepresentations of people of color are appalling and undoubtedly racist.

^ Me when people tell me that Mean Girls is their favorite movie.

Although Mean Girls has many flaws when it comes to racial representation and stereotypes, the film has many iconic scenes and lines that will always be remembered and laughed about. Here are some of my favorites:

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Works Cited

Barnes, Katie. "Feministing." Feministing. N.p., 12 June 2015. Web. 12 Oct.2015.

Bockhorst, Erica. ""Mean Girls": More Mean Than You May Have Realized (Draft #2)."

    Bockhoem. WordPress, 02 Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Gittel, Noah. "Beyond Ferguson: Pop Culture through the Lens of Race | Balder and Dash |      Roger Ebert." All Content. Erbert Digital LLC, 22 Aug. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Hodge, Jarrah. "How to Do Feminist TV Analysis." Gender Focus How to Do Feminist TV

    Analysis Comments. Gender Focus, 26 June 2013. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Iphis. "Mean Girls: Feminist Review and Analysis." The Rogue Feminist. Tumblr, 12 Feb. 2015.

    Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Mean Girls. Dir. Mark Waters. THEVID Technicolor Distribution Services, 2004. DVD.