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When Mean Girls Are Not Stopped
NY Times ^ | January 26, 2005 | JASON ZINOMAN

Posted on 01/26/2005 5:38:07 AM PST by sully777

Braidie is just your average kid. She's a little melodramatic, maybe, and a handful for her mother, but nothing too out of the ordinary. So when she sees her friends cruelly hazing a girl at school, she does what most kids would do - absolutely nothing.

Joan MacLeod's sober and gripping one-woman show "The Shape of a Girl," produced by a Canadian company, the Green Thumb Theater, and playing at the Duke on 42nd Street through Jan. 30, adds to the growing consensus in popular culture that "sugar-and-spice and everything nice" might have been overstating the case.

In recent years, girls have been increasingly portrayed in everything from serious journalistic studies to light comedies like "Mean Girls" as tyrannical, bullying and devoted to a ruthless caste system.

Inspired by the real-life murder in 1997 of the 14-year-old Reena Virk by two high school girls in Vancouver, this memory play tells the fictional story of a less horrific act of brutality told from the perspective of a not-so-innocent bystander. By making the play about her failure to act courageously, Ms. MacLeod has turned what could have been a simple after-school special into a much more complex drama with thornier moral issues.

Through Braidie's eyes, the audience sees the plight of Sophie, an innocent, awkward girl who is bullied by her classmates. She is ignored, mocked and referred to as a thing instead of a person. Braidie sympathizes with Sophie, but also seems to resent her inability to stick up for herself.

Jennifer Paterson is brilliant in the role, winning our sympathies and communicating with painstaking articulation the weakness of being unable to stop something that you know is wrong. This subject has been explored before. Neil LaBute, for one, is a master at revealing the failings of the ineffectual everyman.

But Ms. MacLeod doesn't have his killer instinct or his cruel streak. She struggles mightily not to judge her main character, who feels so much more real than most portraits of young people onstage. Ms. MacLeod writes dialogue that sounds like the way girls talk, without being a bit condescending. Of course, the fact that Braidie and her situation seem so familiar only makes the drama that much more troubling.

"The Shape of a Girl" is at the Duke on 42nd Street through Jan. 30.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: alphafemales; badgirls; bullying; education; meangirls; playiznews
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I thought of Barbara Boxer and HRC when I found this news article.

Although I found this item in the NY TIMES top news section I'm not sure if this is news, a review of a play, or social commentary?

1 posted on 01/26/2005 5:38:07 AM PST by sully777
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To: sully777

I do my best not to find anything in the NYT ;-)


2 posted on 01/26/2005 5:40:42 AM PST by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitor)
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To: sully777

As one who interacts a lot in our local schools, I would say it is a commentary. In another world, it may be news. You don't like to think of girls being like this but it is reality to one degree or another.


3 posted on 01/26/2005 5:45:22 AM PST by daybreakcoming
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To: sully777
Human nature hasn't changed since there have been humans.
Girls/women can be just as nice or vicious as men. They are no different in their emotions, their determination to get what they want or in the intensity of their quests for money, power, status and fame.

HOW they accomplish these things is how the sexes differ. Women use men. Men are suckers for sex and have been used since the beginning of time by girls and women.

Women are suckers too, mostly for lies they want to hear and for security (money).

This is just p.r. for a movie and an agenda of some sorts.

Barbara Boxer is a perfect example of a vicious woman who does whatever it takes to stay in power. For her, it's all about power, status and fame. She lives for it. Lol. She started out as a humble secretary for John Burton. He was out of office because of term limits, so he talked his secretary into running...insuring her win by gerrymandering his district so that 99% of it was Democrat. All it took was crossing the San Francisco Bay SEVEN times by just a few blocks. Totally absurd. And here she is, a U.S. Senator and still a worthless piece of shit.

My 2 cents.

4 posted on 01/26/2005 5:47:45 AM PST by starfish923
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To: sully777
I'm not sure if this is news, a review of a play, or social commentary?

I cast my vote for (B).

5 posted on 01/26/2005 5:49:34 AM PST by newgeezer (Just my opinion, of course. Your mileage may vary.)
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To: sully777

When Mean Girls Are Not Stopped


They turn into my sister.


6 posted on 01/26/2005 5:51:07 AM PST by bmwcyle (Washington DC RINO Hunting Guide)
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To: TheBigB

Do you know any mean girls?

My personal experiences have found women to be territorial, which is positive or negative, depending on which side of her borders you reside.


7 posted on 01/26/2005 5:55:22 AM PST by sully777 (our descendants will be enslaved by political expediency and expenditure)
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To: bmwcyle

When Mean Girls Are Not Stopped
They turn into my sister



Did you warn your brother-in-law?


8 posted on 01/26/2005 6:11:43 AM PST by sully777 (our descendants will be enslaved by political expediency and expenditure)
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To: sully777
My personal experiences have found women to be territorial, which is positive or negative, depending on which side of her borders you reside.

Sounds like you are describing dogs.

9 posted on 01/26/2005 6:13:53 AM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: sully777

Sex makes men stupid.


10 posted on 01/26/2005 6:21:14 AM PST by bmwcyle (Washington DC RINO Hunting Guide)
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To: bmwcyle

Mine too.


11 posted on 01/26/2005 6:22:06 AM PST by dg62
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To: bmwcyle

Liberal politics makes them stupider. (?)


12 posted on 01/26/2005 6:22:33 AM PST by small voice in the wilderness (Quick, act casual. If they sense scorn and ridicule, they'll flee..)
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To: starfish923

"Barbara Boxer is a perfect example of a vicious woman who does whatever it takes to stay in power. For her, it's all about power, status and fame. She lives for it. Lol. She started out as a humble secretary for John Burton. He was out of office because of term limits, so he talked his secretary into running...insuring her win by gerrymandering his district so that 99% of it was Democrat. All it took was crossing the San Francisco Bay SEVEN times by just a few blocks. Totally absurd. And here she is, a U.S. Senator and still a worthless piece of shit."

This was such a great paragraph I just felt it needed to be repeated :o)


13 posted on 01/26/2005 6:30:36 AM PST by Liberty Valance (Grateful Heart Tour 2005)
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To: sully777
Perhaps the moderators here on FR should read the article.

Some of the threads here perfectly illustrate what an unrestrained mob of women looks and sounds like---ugly, mean, and irrational.

14 posted on 01/26/2005 6:33:08 AM PST by independentmind (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité --NOT)
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To: Rodney King

When a woman is near the end of her pregnancy, people notice that she begins cleaning the house, rearranging furniture, etc.. Many books refer to that as "nesting". Women can be nesting without being referred to as birds, women can be territorial without being referred to as dogs.


15 posted on 01/26/2005 6:33:42 AM PST by sully777 (our descendants will be enslaved by political expediency and expenditure)
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To: bmwcyle

Sex makes men stupid.



No doubt about that! Like an ox led with a ring in the nose.


16 posted on 01/26/2005 6:38:08 AM PST by sully777 (our descendants will be enslaved by political expediency and expenditure)
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To: starfish923

Yep Kelley Bundy put it most succiently when she said : "All men are stupid and women are liars"


17 posted on 01/26/2005 6:41:29 AM PST by joesnuffy (Truth is truth, even if no one believes it..and a lie, is a lie, even if everyone believes it.)
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To: sully777
When mean girls are not stopped?

Stopped? Really, who can stop them?

18 posted on 01/26/2005 6:42:14 AM PST by fortunecookie (My grandparents didn't flee communism so that I could live in Kerry's Kommune - and I won't have to.)
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To: independentmind
Some of the threads here perfectly illustrate what an unrestrained mob of women looks and sounds like---ugly, mean, and irrational.

Yep.

19 posted on 01/26/2005 6:46:36 AM PST by Chemist_Geek ("Drill, R&D, and conserve" should be our watchwords! Energy independence for America!)
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To: Chemist_Geek
LOL. I was hoping someone else had noticed.
20 posted on 01/26/2005 6:47:49 AM PST by independentmind (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité --NOT)
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