Quite a few traumatic things happened to each of the characters in Mean Girls, but what exactly traumatized them the most?
I’ve been posting a lot of Mean Girls content in recent months, and in all my research, I’ve realized that these characters have really been through the emotional ringer.
Even though the movie is meant to be comic and hilarious, their most traumatic moments still stand out to me a lot.
So these are my thoughts on the most traumatic moments for each character, in terms of events that were humiliating, isolating, and just overall completely jarring.
Cady Heron’s trauma
Cady Heron had several humiliating moments in Mean Girls, including the time she threw up all over herself and Aaron Samuels when they were about to share their first kiss at her house party.
But I don’t think that was the most traumatic moment she experienced throughout the film.
There are actually two moments that are pretty much tied for me.
The first was when her parents sat her down after discovering that she’d thrown a house party, preparing to ground her because they were so disappointed in the person she’d become.
Their reaction was a mixture of confusion, sadness, and disappointment rather than outright anger or rage. Cady had spent her entire life respecting her parents and maintaining a healthy relationship with them up until that point. Seeing the way they looked at her and realizing that they now saw her differently was probably soul-crushing.
But I also think the scene toward the end of the movie, when Cady was blamed for the Burn Book and the entire school turned against her, was equally traumatizing.
Losing the respect of her parents was difficult enough, but losing the respect of practically all her classmates and peers at the same time was another level of emotional devastation.
Gretchen Wieners’ trauma
The bullying Gretchen Wieners experienced at the hands of Regina throughout Mean Girls would honestly traumatize almost any teenage girl who already struggled with insecurity.
The movie makes it abundantly clear that Gretchen is deeply insecure. She’s terrified of being seen as irrelevant and constantly worried about losing her position within the Plastics. As a result, she tolerates an enormous amount of emotional abuse from Regina throughout the movie.
Several of Regina’s actions were genuinely cruel enough to leave lasting emotional scars.
Regina forcing Gretchen to give up her spot onstage during the Christmas performance so Cady could take her place was one example. Regina constantly snapping at Gretchen whenever she tried to introduce fetch into their vocabulary was another.
But the story about Regina telling Gretchen she wasn’t allowed to wear her white gold hoop earrings was particularly insane to me.
You can tell Gretchen had an emotional attachment to those earrings. She loved them, wanted to wear them, and was clearly excited about them. But Regina probably saw them, got jealous, and essentially created a rule on the spot to prevent Gretchen from wearing them.
And out of fear of Regina’s retaliation, Gretchen went along with it despite how much it upset her.
That’s what makes their friendship so unhealthy. Gretchen repeatedly sacrifices her own happiness, preferences, and self-expression to avoid upsetting Regina.
She allows herself to be controlled because she’s operating from a place of fear, insecurity, follower mentality, and a lack of self-love and self-respect.
Karen Smith’s trauma
Watching Mean Girls in its entirety and trying to identify the single most traumatizing moment for Karen Smith is a little more difficult.
Honestly, Karen spends most of the movie floating around in her own little world. She’s such an airhead that a lot of the things happening around her don’t seem to register on the same level they would for Gretchen or Cady.
Her questionable encounter with her cousin and her attempt to determine whether it was raining by feeling her own boobs are a couple of examples of what I’m talking about.
But when it comes to an actual emotionally painful experience, I think it was the four-way phone call drama when Karen discovered what Regina really thought about her.
When Gretchen told Karen that Regina had called her a slut, Karen understood exactly what that meant, and I think it genuinely hurt her feelings.
She was literally about to agree to plans with Regina when she found out, which probably left her feeling confused about why Regina wanted to spend time with her while simultaneously treating Gretchen so poorly.
And let’s be honest, aside from her questionable encounter with her cousin, Karen wasn’t portrayed as particularly promiscuous throughout the movie. Her love life was practically a non-factor, and there wasn’t much evidence that she was sleeping around.
So the fact that Regina labeled her a slut and suggested that it was the reason she didn’t stand a chance of winning Spring Fling Queen was particularly nasty.
Aside from that moment, I don’t think Karen experienced too much significant emotional trauma or heartbreak throughout the movie. She was largely oblivious to how toxic Regina and Gretchen’s friendship dynamics had become.
But being called a slut by someone you consider your friend is undoubtedly hurtful. It would hurt just about anyone.
Regina George’s trauma
When I think about Regina George’s most traumatic experiences in Mean Girls, two moments are pretty much tied for me.
First, I want to establish that I don’t consider finding out that Aaron discovered she was cheating on him with Shane Oman to be particularly traumatic. She was the one who created that situation, and I don’t have much sympathy for her there.
She made her dad cry with her Halloween costume, rocked her tank top after Cady and Janis cut holes into the bra area, and experienced plenty of other humiliating moments throughout the movie.
But I don’t think any of those compare to the two experiences I’m about to mention.
The first was discovering that Cady had befriended her and infiltrated the Plastics specifically to sabotage her life. Cady deliberately manipulated Regina’s relationships, friendships, reputation, and eating habits, ultimately contributing to Regina’s significant weight gain.
The second was, obviously, getting hit by a school bus.
Now, the weight gain caused by those Kalteen bars was both emotionally and physically traumatic for Regina. But getting hit by a bus was obviously a life-threatening experience.
One of these situations was much more immediately dangerous than the other, so I can understand why some people would automatically consider the bus accident the clear winner.
However, I think uncontrollable weight gain can also be an incredibly distressing experience, particularly for someone like Regina, who was naturally thin and seemingly had never struggled with her weight before.
Suddenly gaining weight without understanding why, feeling like you have no control over your body, and struggling to get back to the appearance you’re accustomed to can be an extremely difficult experience.
It can make you feel like your own body has become a prison.
As someone who has personally experienced the frustrations associated with PCOS, I wish I were exaggerating about how emotionally difficult that feeling can be.
Ultimately, though, I have to agree that getting hit by a school bus was probably Regina’s most physically traumatic experience. There was a very real possibility that she could have died, and the accident presumably had significant consequences for her physical recovery.
She had to wear a neck brace during her recovery, and the experience was obviously much more serious than anything else she encountered throughout the movie.
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