Slang usage in the film Mean Girls

Slang as Used in the Film Mean Girls

Slang" as used by "Mean Girls" (2004)

Slang is an unusual subset of language. It is, intentionally or unintentionally, the language of exclusion rather than inclusion. All language to some degree defines a particular group against another group, if only the French 'against' the Germans, or even a Southern-accented American against someone from California. However, slang is unique in that it is often recently derived. It is particular to a subset of individuals who may not be defined by geography, ethnicity, or a common heritage or tradition. They develop a language that only they can understand, to communicate something necessary about a subject that bonds all of them together, like a marathon runner talking about "hitting the wall" after twenty miles of a marathon, or the girls of the film "Mean Girls" referring to the most popular subset of popular girls as "Plastics."

Slang can seem to derive organically, but it is not part of a long-standing tradition of communication like a fully-fledged language. It is piecemeal, made up of scraps and patches of existing language, but reconfigures that language in such a way to communicate with greater subtly and subtext, so that someone who is not 'in the know' may have trouble interpreting the full meaning of what is being said, unless he or she is entirely socialized to the context in which the slang is used. or, the outsider may misinterpret the meaning because they know the slang word's usual or denotative use and meaning, but not the connotative use of the word as it is being deployed by the exclusive, slang-using group.

Adolescent's generation of slang terms is often extremely fertile, because quite often the most popular slang words used by previous adolescents have already become incorporated into 'regular' language, and thus are denuded of their excluding power. "Cool" and "hip" were once adolescent slang words, then the generation that used them grew up, and made them part of accepted dialogue, even part of the dictionary. In defense of their language growing too comprehensible, adolescents must create new slang. Also, because so much of adolescent culture revolves around the new, references to new technology and culture, like Rock n' Roll in the 1950s, and cell phone lingo today like 'LOL' means that slang must constantly reinvent itself to keep pace with adolescent culture, a culture that may contain elements unfamiliar to their parents and teachers.

Groups of adolescents are often particularly preoccupied of defining themselves 'against' others groups, whether members of their own peer group, adults, or both. Thus, they are often the most fertile generators of slang. Unlike some of the slang used by adult hobbyists, adolescent slang is often deliberately created to be cruel and to exclude. The term "hitting the wall" for runners, or "boinking" for cyclists is not designed to make people who are not runners or cyclists feel bad about themselves, but as a way to describe a physical sensation that is difficult to put into words unless you have experienced it yourself. However, in the film directed by Tina Fey that depicts the cruelty of an exclusive group of "Mean Girls," ordinary things for which there is already descriptive language is rendered into slang so adults do not understand the full cruelty of what is being said. Some adults may know that Regina and company are 'mean' but not to the extent which they rule the school and use exclusion as a way of enforcing their own mini-regime of terror. One of the strengths of the teacher played by Fey, Ms. Norbury, is that she is 'hip' to the language used by the mean girls, like when she tells them to stop using slang like "sluts" and "skanks."

The exclusive nature of the language of adolescents is underlined by the fact that the main character, named Cady Heron, in "Mean Girls" has grown up in South Africa, so she is initially uninitiated to the social structure of a typical American high school and the language of adolescents. She may speak English fluently, but she is not fluent in the mannerisms and interplay that is expected of her as a teenage girl. She was homeschooled, so she does not even seem to understand the 'adult vs. adolescent,' 'us vs. them' mentality of slang adolescent culture in general. Adults like her parents have always treated her and talked to her like equals, so the covert subtext of hostility in adolescent dialogue initially escapes her.