a line from Lindsay Lohan's Spring Fling speech at the end of the film. The 2004 teen comedy written by Tina Fey was a hit when it first released, but has never strayed far from people's minds. The film is oft-quoted online, and many lines from Mean Girls are considered iconic. "She doesn't even go here!" and "fetch" are among the many that have entered the pop culture lexicon.
The line in question comes at the film's climax, during the North Shore High School Spring Fling dance. Former new girl turned member of mean girl clique "The Plastics," Cady (Lohan), unexpectedly won the title of Spring Fling Queen after pushing fellow Plastic, the ruthless Regina George (Rachel McAdams) in front of a bus. In a moment of realization, and to atone from the Burn Book that ostracized Cady from the entire school, she breaks her tiara and shares it among all the Spring Fling Queen nominees, popular and less-so. Cady then goes on to compliment all of them. Caruana's character, Emma Gerber, was previously mocked by the Plastics for her weight, saying she "eats her feelings." In Cady's speech, she is singled out and told she looks "really pretty" and that "her hairdo must've taken hours."
While this moment is one of the reasons Mean Girls' ending is cited as one of the best in teen films, Twitter Korey Kuhl called it out, saying, "I guess I just don't believe Emma Gerber's hairdo "must've taken hours." Caruana weighed on the matter herself to clarify. The actor explained that, in reality, she took just "25 minutes" to complete her look, but after director Marc Waters also noticed the same issue, Caruana was sent back to the hair department for it to be fixed, and "they stuck some flowers in it." Check out Caruana's post below:
Given the exorbitant cost of prom dresses, and the amount of time and effort many young people put into their makeup and outfits for school dances, it is understandable that Caruana's Mean Girls look was called out for potentially being swift to pull off. Emma Gerber's bangs are curled, while her hair is pulled back into a ponytail; hardly the time-intensive up-do favored by many a prom-goer. That said, despite her perhaps quite simple hairstyle, the character does have her moment to shine when she stands up to Regina late in the film, defiantly calling her bully a "fatass" after being subjected to Regina's weight-related jabs.
Caruana's Mean Girls hairstyle actually taking just an hour is ultimately a very minor detail in the film, which most viewers likely won't have noticed among the comedy's many, many other memorable moments. Sometimes, however, on the umpteenth viewing of a favorite film, a small detail can stick out all the more once everything else has been so thoroughly digested. Really, the fact that a tertiary character in an 18-year-old movie is still being discussed speaks to the incredible staying power and rewatchability of Mean Girls.
Source: Jan Caruana
