If this is true, might Mean Girls actually be a tragedy? A tragedy of a woman who wants to be loved for her self, but can't free herself from the patriarchal mental infrastructure of her upbringing, leaving her isolated and angry instead. 

A fully embodied Regina wouldn't be a mean girl. The 'mean girl' is a persona who acts to keep feelings suppressed. As Lowen stated, this meanness is a reverberation of how a person treats their self.  However, a fully embodied Regina might still be considered mean by others, but for an alternative reason. In juxtaposition to the mean girl persona, a fully embodied and actualized Regina would be "mean" because she is not apologetic about her selfhood.  

Were Regina self-actualized, she would not be the ideal woman under the male gaze. In fact, she would be threatening to men as she would reposition herself from object-of-desire to competitor. Her self-acknowledgment would allow her to express her feelings for Janis proudly despite the objection of others and therefore, reclaim her self. This sense of self is the true seat of personal power. However, while Regina in Mean Girls has the audacity, she lacks the authenticity and therefore cannot step further into real, sustainable power. 

This is why I was a mean girl sometimes in high school. For me, growing up in West Texas in 90s/00s evangelical culture, girls were not allowed to envision themselves as anything else but straight. Even for those who considered themselves secular allies, few of us could imagine ourselves as experiencing such feelings about another girl. Affection such as holding hands, linking arms, or near any other physical contact with another girls was nearly as forbidden with girls as it was with boys. Though it was assumed one was doing such things with boys in private, it would be a heresy greater than sin itself to be caught doing so with girls. 

Which is why Mean Girls is such a pivotal story to be told in 2026. Regina represents an inner struggle within those who have grown up embedded in the hegemony. A struggle of maintaining the status quo in order to retain privilege versus allowing the self to express itself. If Regina hides her feelings behind a mean girl identity, what might many class, religious, or political identities be concealing underneath? 

Regina's struggle is a struggle of all humanity. What parts of our selves do we give up in exchange for the power our roles, identities, and comfort? The classic Faustian deal is not a single offering up one's soul to the devil - but the accumulation of years of perpetual abandonment of the self in exchange for perceived safety. It is only one day when we have finally gone too far that we realize along the way we have lost our selves. In that, Regina holds up a mirror in which we see the tragedy of the lost self. 

That is what makes the ending of Mean Girls so exceptional. In the end, if Regina lets go of her IT girl status and the privilege it affords her, she can pick up her own power and choose her own way instead. In the same way, we are invited to examine the tools we are also using to keep our selves at bay. How might we improve our lives, were we only to allow our selves to actually exist?