"It's funny because it's true!" was the first review I heard about Mean Girls. "Yeah, it really is like that," said another friend. "I was blown away by how utterly accurate it was," said a third, "Things like that really did happen at my High School."

Jolly Roger Ebert wrote, "Mean Girls dissects high school society with a lot of observant detail, which seems surprisingly well-informed. The screenplay by Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey is both a comic and a sociological achievement." The highly respected reviewers of FilmThreat praise the movie for its intelligence. James Berardinelli went so far as to remark that the movie wasn't mean enough.

In the face of all this anecdotal and historiographical evidence, I decided to see this sociological phenomenon myself. 100 minutes later, I walked out feeling sick to my stomach. This is supposed to be a highly accurate portrayal of female teenage behaviour? Those girls were vicious, licentious and conniving. Not having any real knowledge about the cattiness of teenage girls, I am struck with disbelief at what I saw onscreen. The depths of human nature and its capacity for destruction were fully on display.

I can't confess to understand any of it. I just hope it isn't as true as it appears.

Someone please tell me- are girls like that all over, or is it just American girls? I know I have readers on several different continents, so once you've seen the movie, please let me know your opinion or the opinion of the girls around you (Ming, you can ask your entourage of girls that follow you around- the movie opens in Singapore next week).

EDIT: This interesting article reviewing books about teen culture in schools contrasts different approaches to the issue without shedding much new light on the subject. The two authors who put forward interesting theses are undone by poor writing, while the competently written book seems to be a simple examination of a largely homogenous, upper class school.