okieinexile
Well-Known Member
Saved Mean Girls
By Bobby Neal Winters
With three daughters, it costs a $50 dollar bill going to the movies if you include popcorn, so “Thank God for DVD” is what I say. This weekend my family viewed two movies which were designed for the sensibilities of the thinking teenage girl. Having been immersed in the culture of teenage girlery for the last three or four years and getting more deeply immersed all the time, I was well-prepared to view these two DVDs: “Mean Girls,” and “Saved.”
These movies are well-matched as they each are set in high school and deal with power.
“Mean Girls” is a Lindsay Lohan vehicle. She is the latest Disney child star who is trying to make the same transition Jodie Foster did from children’s roles to more adult fare. She’s still on the high-school end of the process. (Foster had to lay out a few years and undergo cosmetic surgery, if I recall.)
The plot is fairly standard. Outsider who is a bit different enters new environment, discovers its power structure, enters into battle with it, and topples it. In this case, she takes over it, in fact. She has allies, a sexually ambiguous girl and a gay boy. I am sure you are coming up with your own mental list of any number of similar such movies with exactly the same plot, but as has been pointed out, there are only a relatively few plots in existence in human literature. What makes something better or worse is how the plot is handled along with the other elements of the story.
Under the umbrella of “other elements,” “Mean Girls” fares pretty well. There is a portrait of the “cool mom” that was worth the rental on the DVD all by itself. It would be interesting to see the reaction of a “cool mom” to seeing this portrayal. Sometimes it is good to look in the mirror.
The other DVD was “Saved.” While I had noticed “Mean Girls” at the local theater, “Saved” slipped through unnoticed, if it was here at all. While I am for freedom of expression and the free marketplace of ideas, I can also understand a desire the managers of the local theater to live a simple life. “Saved” would cause controversy.
Jena Malone, a quietly appealing young actress, stars in “Saved” which is set in a Christian school of the evangelical, quasi-Baptist stripe. This movie is satire of something that is difficult to satirize. Which is to say, one can hardly invent things more unbelievable that those that happen.
If one were attached to a evangelical Christian school and watched this, it would be hard not to feel attacked. However, it might be worth the time and discomfort.
As one who is sympathetic to the Christian cause, being a part of it, I am aware that one of the traps we are liable to fall into is that of self-righteousness, having fallen into it myself on occasion.
While the movie itself is certainly set against the environment it portrays, there is embedded in it an understanding of Jesus’ message. As in “Mean Girls,” the heroine of this movie is equipped with a couple of sidekicks. (This time it is a wild Jewish girl and a crippled boy.) These are at once the biggest “sinners” and the ones through which we see the most compassion. While this portrayal could be viewed by some to be anti-Christian, we need to think a bit about the parable of the Good Samaritan before we throw it away entirely.
In the end, “Saved” has quite a few insights; however, while it accuses evangelical Christianity of having a simplistic view of sexuality, it suffers from the same shortfall itself. But for its shortcomings, it is kinder to its subject than it could have been.
By Bobby Neal Winters
With three daughters, it costs a $50 dollar bill going to the movies if you include popcorn, so “Thank God for DVD” is what I say. This weekend my family viewed two movies which were designed for the sensibilities of the thinking teenage girl. Having been immersed in the culture of teenage girlery for the last three or four years and getting more deeply immersed all the time, I was well-prepared to view these two DVDs: “Mean Girls,” and “Saved.”
These movies are well-matched as they each are set in high school and deal with power.
“Mean Girls” is a Lindsay Lohan vehicle. She is the latest Disney child star who is trying to make the same transition Jodie Foster did from children’s roles to more adult fare. She’s still on the high-school end of the process. (Foster had to lay out a few years and undergo cosmetic surgery, if I recall.)
The plot is fairly standard. Outsider who is a bit different enters new environment, discovers its power structure, enters into battle with it, and topples it. In this case, she takes over it, in fact. She has allies, a sexually ambiguous girl and a gay boy. I am sure you are coming up with your own mental list of any number of similar such movies with exactly the same plot, but as has been pointed out, there are only a relatively few plots in existence in human literature. What makes something better or worse is how the plot is handled along with the other elements of the story.
Under the umbrella of “other elements,” “Mean Girls” fares pretty well. There is a portrait of the “cool mom” that was worth the rental on the DVD all by itself. It would be interesting to see the reaction of a “cool mom” to seeing this portrayal. Sometimes it is good to look in the mirror.
The other DVD was “Saved.” While I had noticed “Mean Girls” at the local theater, “Saved” slipped through unnoticed, if it was here at all. While I am for freedom of expression and the free marketplace of ideas, I can also understand a desire the managers of the local theater to live a simple life. “Saved” would cause controversy.
Jena Malone, a quietly appealing young actress, stars in “Saved” which is set in a Christian school of the evangelical, quasi-Baptist stripe. This movie is satire of something that is difficult to satirize. Which is to say, one can hardly invent things more unbelievable that those that happen.
If one were attached to a evangelical Christian school and watched this, it would be hard not to feel attacked. However, it might be worth the time and discomfort.
As one who is sympathetic to the Christian cause, being a part of it, I am aware that one of the traps we are liable to fall into is that of self-righteousness, having fallen into it myself on occasion.
While the movie itself is certainly set against the environment it portrays, there is embedded in it an understanding of Jesus’ message. As in “Mean Girls,” the heroine of this movie is equipped with a couple of sidekicks. (This time it is a wild Jewish girl and a crippled boy.) These are at once the biggest “sinners” and the ones through which we see the most compassion. While this portrayal could be viewed by some to be anti-Christian, we need to think a bit about the parable of the Good Samaritan before we throw it away entirely.
In the end, “Saved” has quite a few insights; however, while it accuses evangelical Christianity of having a simplistic view of sexuality, it suffers from the same shortfall itself. But for its shortcomings, it is kinder to its subject than it could have been.