Revisiting 90s flick Jawbreaker brought up something I can’t believe I’d missed before: it’s essentially a darker version of Mean Girls.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: how does a movie about three girls who wear pink midweek compare to a movie about three girls essentially murdering their friend?
Fair — Jawbreaker is ten times more fucked up than Mean Girls. But here’s the thing — it feels like they’re exactly the same movie at the core of it — and if I must suffer with this revelation, then you should too.
Let me count the ways.
The guinea pig
As we know, in Mean Girls, Regina George (Rachel McAdams) takes it upon herself to make over new student Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan).
I mean, it’s hardly the first time it’s been done — making over the “loser” to become “hot” and “popular” was basically a staple of the high school drama, from She’s All That‘s Laney Boggs (Rachel Leigh Cook) to Clueless‘ Tai Frasier (Brittany Murphy).
But in Jawbreaker it’s not for a fun game, bet or some type of misguided altruism.
Courtney Shayne (Rose McGowan) promises she’ll make Fern Mayo (Judy Greer) the most popular girl in school, but only if Fern doesn’t tell anyone what she saw: three girls lugging their best friend’s dead body into her teenage bedroom for her shocked parents to find.
There’s a clear villain
Think Regina George (Rachel McAdams) owning the gold-hoop earring was a shit move? Enter Courtney Shayne (Rose McGowan), who deep-throats a popsicle en route to a staged root that’ll help her cover up a murder.
The villain arc is there, and it’s one we see time and time again in high school dramas, as well as the leader-of-the-pack mentality. Courtney rules Reagan High in the same way that Regina does Northshore and no one dares upset the hierarchy, namely because everyone’s scared shitless of them.
Unless it’s one of their own creations.
They both show how fucked (and great) friendships can be
Should we be surprised that both Cady and Fern take on the Queen Bee? Should we be surprised that we relish in such a knockdown of pegs?
While we love a redemption arc, we love it when someone who previously faded into the background and was “just happy to be here” finally grows the smackos to squash someone who’s been squashing others for too long.
Both the foursomes in Jawbreaker and Mean Girls explore the toxicity of female friendships and the harsh reality that some people will step on whatever toes they need to in order to dominate the food chain.
We’ve all been to high school, we’ve all been there.
… And a bunch of other things too
I’ll be honest: the immediate parallel that stuck out between Jawbreaker and Mean Girls wasn’t the convertibles that Courtney and Regina both drive, the three-way call, lunchtime cafeteria rules or how colourful the most popular group happen to dress in both films — it’s that damn hallway scene.
Sure, Cady toppled into a bin during her Plastics hallway debut, but the similarity between the two is so stark it hurts. In fact, Jawbreaker director Darren Stein himself admitted he felt “a little bit bitter” after watching Mean Girls.
“I felt like structurally it was pretty clear that it was influenced by Jawbreaker,” Darren told Dazed.
“But that being said, without Heathers, there would be no Jawbreaker. Jawbreaker was influenced by Heathers. So I feel like it’s all very space-time continuum in a way? A teen movie hierarchy slash the passing of the torch.”
Count me in for whatever the fuck’s next.
P.S. Forgive the swearing, Courtney Shayne has that effect on people.
You can watch Jawbreaker on PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION on November 2 at 8pm AEDT and November 3 at 6pm AEDT.