Take a Movie’s Advice is a weekly column attempting to discover the similarities between our favorite movies and real life. Grab some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show. 

It’s human nature to seek acceptance from others. While it’s great to stand out from the crowd, it’s natural to feel good when another person reassures that we’re “doing the right thing.”

As a response, we may end up participating in organizations that don’t align with our true passions or hang out with people who don’t appreciate us. We might even decide on a college major because a professor or classmate commended us for our high performance on an exam.

If you’re a people pleaser like me, you’ll soon realize how much more beneficial it can be to do less of what you’re expected to do and more of what you want to do.

According to Brene Brown, living inauthentically can have consequences:

“Many of us suffer from this split between who we are and who we present to the world in order to be accepted. But we’re not letting ourselves be known, and this kind of incongruent living is soul-sucking.”

Although college is the time to discover who we really are, it’s also a time when we can easily lose ourselves in the shuffle. Fortunately, we have a cautionary tale to help us out. Cady Heron from Mean Girls can teach us quite a few things about being true to ourselves.

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About the Movie

Directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey, Mean Girls (2004) is an American comedy turned cult favorite following Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), a young teen attempting to navigate the shallow waters of high school.

After completing a 12-year research trip to Africa, Cady’s parents settle down in Evanston, IL. Cady, as a result, attends public school for the first time. On her first day, Cady encounters Janis Ian and Damien Leigh, two students who inform her of the school’s various cliques and groups. They then warn Cady to be wary of the “Plastics,” led by Regina George (Rachel McAdams), alongside Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) and Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried).