Mean Girls (2004)

Lindsay Lohan makes a big film comeback in Falling For Christmas, a 2022 Netflix holiday comedy movie that is centered around Ms. Sierra Belmont, a newly engaged and spoiled hotel heiress who finds herself in the care of a handsome, blue-collar lodge owner and his precocious daughter after getting total amnesia in a skiing accident. Many people who know Lindsay Lohan remember her as a former child star and teen idol, playing starring roles in Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, and The Parent Trap. Now that she's an adult, this holiday comedy marks her return to the big screen after over a decade. Lindsay's acting style, voice, and stunning good looks land her in the spotlight once again.

Lindsay Lohan singing the lyrics to "Jingle Bell Rock" is a noticeable easter egg. Her singing voice to the Jingle Bell Rock song is a reference to Cady Heron who sings the Jingle Bell Rock song in Mean Girls.

The outfit Sierra Belmont wears in the hotel lobby reflects her status as wealthy, as her father Beauregard Belmont (Jack Wagner) owns the hotel. Her outfit is an off-the-shoulder red strapless dress with lace sleeves, complete with gold hoop earrings and green heels. She dislikes her outfit getting ruined and has a spoiled attitude. Her character transformation from spoiled into sweet is similar to Poppy Moore from Wild Child.

The catalyst in Falling For Christmas is the skiing accident Sierra Belmont experiences at the top of a snow mountain in a danger zone. Tad, Sierra's boyfriend who soon becomes her fiance, proposes to her at the top of the mountain, but a strong snowstorm blows Sierra away. She suffers a minor concussion and has lost her memory; she doesn't remember anything prior to the skiing accident. Also, she doesn't remember who she is. The hospital staff and sheriff find no trace of her identity when she was in the accident.

Until Ms. Belmont discovers her identity, she passes herself off as Sarah. As Sarah, she meets a young girl named Avy (Olivia Perez) whose mother passed away two years ago. Sarah tries to adapt to her surroundings but finds that doing daily chores isn't easy for her since she's used to having everything done for her by hotel security and staff. Though she doesn't remember her identity, she does remember her mother and acts like a motherly figure to Avy. Viewers see a softer side to Sarah's personality. Her character growth is shown when Sarah learns to do things herself.

As Netflix scrambles to stay ahead of its much-documented decline, it is easy to dismiss the onetime streaming behemoth’s abundance of original productions as Hail Mary distress signals. They throw so much optimized content at the increasingly overwhelmed viewer that it is impossible to determine what will truly stick, what films will puncture the noise of algorithmic promotion and bring something new and timely to the screen. After death scrolling the pits of categorized and recommended films, it takes a certain blind faith to press “play” on one that may (or may not) be worth your time. Do Revenge does more than earn the viewer’s time, it rewards them.

The film, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and co-written by Robinson and Celeste Ballard, amalgamates the sociopolitical commentary of Election with the dark Hitchcockian twists and turns of Strangers on a Train and the timely quintessence of Mean Girls. Do Revenge recapitulates the essence of the teen dramas of the mid-to-late nineties through the progressive and inclusive lens of 2022 to update the genre and make a case for authenticity. Where standoffish-ness and exclusivity previously determined the in-group, inclusivity and alliances now reign supreme.

Camila Mendes (reprising the archetypical role of the teenage “it” girl she portrays in Riverdale) stars as Drea, the alpha-female of her private school’s elite student body. She’s cutthroat and fabulous and the object of desire of every student who falls below her in the social pyramid. That is, until a sex tape, sent privately to her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, Max (Austin Abrams), is leaked during the summer between junior and senior year. After she punches Max in front of the student body, blaming him for the transgression, Drea finds herself in unfamiliar waters, suddenly deemed a social pariah; Max has been able to utilize his boundless social and monetary resources to recast himself as the victim, and win the sympathy of Rosehill High (the 1%’s choice private school in Miami) as well as the eccentric principal (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in a nod to the film’s genre predecessors).

Enter Eleanor (Maya Hawke), a transfer student with an obscure past who befriends Drea before the start of senior year at tennis camp. Recognizing the shame of Drea’s social ostracization—Elanor is gay and recounts a story in which her first crush denied and cruelly outed her—Eleanor proposes they secretly team up and exact each other’s revenge, a narrative device transposed from Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Drea agrees and coaches Eleanor throughout her infiltration of Max’s circle while she pursues revenge on the socially fringe student, Carissa, who is culpable for Eleanor’s former suffering. The plot unfolds over the course of the student’s senior year through a series of pranks, betrayals, and battles of authenticity, co-narrated by Drea and Eleanor. Do Revenge delves into the daily concerns of high school students of the highest pedigree (awaiting Ivy League acceptances), as well as the sociopolitical commentary implicit in the microcosm of high school social stratification.

It would have been easy for the film to paint the sides of good and evil along familiar lines: Drea, the female student unjustly painted as the irrational aggressor alongside her gay accomplice in revenge; and Max, the popular, beloved male student at Rosehill High who has everyone wrapped around his finger as the untouchable villain. And while Drea and Eleanor’s aim remains corporeal, the film pinpoints a much larger, less tangible enemy.

As minor as it may be, if there’s any silver lining to the lumpish state of the quarantine era, my argument is the push to revisit older cinema.

I mean to some level it was mandatory; these were days that a Sunday trip to the local cinema was deadly. But still, I do enjoy that we all learned to appreciate what has already come, including myself. As I was rewatching the bigger releases, I noticed a troubling phenomenon emerge ever so subtly. There was what I expected: films that I viewed as progressive, and films that I knew were troubling and still are. But the newest addition were films that in my youth felt like a point in the right direction, but on the revisit felt more like they were way behind me. And nothing fit more into that category than the 2010 release Easy A. Easy A is pretty anti sex.

Now before we plan my execution, I would like to say I still enjoyed the film! It exudes a charming energy that makes it fun to watch, the cast are all pretty good actors, and the script had a lot of dialogue that feels both cringe inducing and also extremely nostalgic. And speaking of the late 2000s, it’s not lost on me that Easy A features somewhat forward female depictions in a time when those were effectively endangered. None of the ladies involved are supposed to be good or bad really, more so unconscious players in a system where they are set up to lose. The film does have nods to how female sexuality is weaponized and used as a pseudo-Star of David, informing how we should all treat them. This is why I like the tie in with The Scarlet Letter and the idea that visual metaphor carries. The setup of this conversation is fine. Where things become murky for me is in the execution. By the end, the film revels in the idea that there is nothing wrong with being a woman with a sexuality, and I agree, but there’s one problem: none of the women do!

This Pride month, I was thinking about what kinds of LGBTQIA+ characters films portray. I found a list on Wikipedia that identified LGBT characters in film, so I narrowed that list to only films in the United States, and limited the years to 1990 to 2020. After that, I was left with 331 characters (some within the same film). This list also identified characters as Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander or White — there were no other races/ethnicities acknowledged.

I never fully trust Wikipedia, so let’s consider the 331 a sample, as I am sure there are film characters missing. Of the 331 total characters in our sample, 85% are White, 8% are Black, 5% are Latinx, and a whopping 2% are Asian/Pacific Islander. See the chart above for a visual representation of this information, with the glaring majority of White characters.

Not dissimilar to the rest of Hollywood films, White people dominate the market. For a breakdown of this disparity, see my previous article on the overall representation of race and gender in film. LGBT characters are not spared from underrepresentation in film. Actually, it’s even worse.

Let me put these 331 characters into context. Again, since there are probably many which were overlooked on the list, so let’s round it up to 400. According to Box Office Mojo, 17,892 films were made from 1990 to 2020. For the sake of argument (statisticians, please look away), let’s pretend it is 400 individual films and not characters. Our 400 films out of the 17,892 total mean only 2% of films made over 30 years have LGBT characters. One more time — two percent of films had characters who identified as LGBT. And, as we just learned, most of those characters were White.

So of these characters, I wanted to see what kind of characters made up the 15% BIPOC. I narrowed my analysis to the last 10 years (2010–2020) and marked each as a leading or supporting character. The chart below shows the results for the Black, Latinx and Asian/Pacific Islander LGBT characters.

TW: Sexual Assault & Misogny // Spoilers Ahead

The height of subversive horror cinema is Jennifer’s Body. No, I will never budge on that. Yes, Cabin in The Woods is funny, Scream is very well made, and the Scary Movie franchise is …. there. But nothing is quite as satisfying as watching the teenage succubus that is Jennifer Check rip apart boys. In the post #metoo era where the industry is far from changed, watching revenge flicks like these is probably one of the most cathartic experiences due to the slow-moving progress being made. This 2009 film was so far ahead of its time and continues to be the ultimate metaphor, both on and off the screen, for revenge against misogynistic Hollywood. Megan Fox, the perfect casting choice, leads the film as Jennifer — whose body she reclaims power over after an assault by using it to seduce the men in the small town of Devil’s Kettle to their deaths. She feeds on their frightened, vulnerable (and rather unintelligent) souls and sustains her good looks through this. Her best friend, Needy Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried), is caught in between her moral reservations about her BFF’s murder spree and grappling with her own “loyalty” toward Jennifer (hint: it's not just gal-pal platonic-ness). The film examines so many themes concerning romantic leanings in female “friendships,” sexual assault, and female empowerment all without falling victim to the male gaze or objectifying its stars. At its core, it's a fulfilling tale of revenge upon the perpetrators of misogyny and about young women finding their own justice in a world that is aimed against them.

The cast and crew being primarily made up of women is one of the reasons the film feels much more authentic and less exploitative than other revenge films such as I Spit On Your Grave. Director Karyn Kusama takes so much care in keeping the film from turning into torture porn (like the previously mentioned film) and instead focuses on the evolution of Jennifer and Needy. Needy goes through the classic She’s All That nerdy-to-cute transformation but also learns how to stand up for herself and use the succubus powers she later receives for good. Even Jennifer changes to the audience from seemingly together it-girl to the revealed abusive, power-hungry friend that she’s been all along — now heightened in her new supernatural form. Essentially, these women are given complexity that does not revolve around retaining their femininity. It’s about survival and testing the bounds of their tumultuous but co-dependent relationship. Standard horror films with female protagonists, usually written by men, make women’s unhinged struggles revolve around puberty and/or a need for male validation. This allegory examines a nuanced struggle in female friendships that can often lead to toxic codependency and the blurring of romantic and platonic feelings. Jennifer’s Body is the perfect example of why more diverse voices are needed in horror to give some truth to the framework of metaphorical storytelling that is central to horror films (I’m looking at you Midsommar). I mean, can you imagine Get Out if Jordan Peele was white?