Mean Girls and The Chocolate War

10/2/2024

Mean Girls and The Chocolate War by Kristie Jolley

Kristie Jolley is a CUWP Fellow/Teacher Consultant for the Central Utah Writing Project and is currently a graduate student at Brigham Young University focusing on English Education. She reaches into her experience as a secondary language arts instructor to inform her reading, research, and advocacy for young adults and the teachers who work with them. Her classroom-based research in using non-traditional texts as bridges for remedial or reluctant readers crossing over toward identities as readers has been published in the English Journal in “Video Games to Reading: Reaching Out to Reluctant Readers.” She can be reached at [email protected].

“It’s a cautionary tale of fear and lust and pride
Based on actual events where people died!
(No one died.)”
–Janis and Damian from Mean Girls (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

Literally within 20 minutes of finishing Cormier’s The Chocolate War, I was listening to the sound track from Mean Girls. This line hit me just about as hard as Jerry gets tackled in Cormier’s opening line, “They murdered him.” I paused the music and drove in reflective silence for a moment. “Is there something here?” I mused to myself. “Can more comparisons be made between Cormier’s The Chocolate War and Tina Fey’s hit comedy Mean Girls?” Then I really got excited as I wondered, “What can an intersection between a Young Adult hit from 20 years ago with another Young Adult hit from 50 years ago mean today?”

Generational Longevity

Both Mean Girls and The Chocolate War have survived far longer than audiences may have initially expected. In fact, if measured by Ted Hipple’s standard in “Young Adult Literature and the Test of Time”, these two texts are pushing four and ten generations, respectively. Hipple explains since Young Adult authors must aim at an ever-moving target of experience of about five years in order to connect with their audience, they have a much shorter generational span of approximately 5 years. (Hipple, 1992) If a piece written for Young Adults can last longer than this five years, it’s considered a classic within the genre.

We will be celebrating Mean Girls Day tomorrow, marking 20 years since the original movie was released. Who knew when Rosalind Wiseman wrote her first edition of the girls’ clique self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabees back in 2002, it would get picked up by comedy mastermind, Tina Fey and turned into a movie (Mean Girls) in 2004, then into a musical by the same name in 2017, then into a YA novel (Mean Girls, A Novel) in 2017, then into a Shakespearean parody (Much Ado About Mean Girls) in 2019, then into a graphic novel (Mean Girls, Senior Year) in 2020, then back into a new interpretation of the movie and the musical in 2024?

Cormier’s The Chocolate War was first published in 1974, 50 years ago and about 30 years before Mean Girls. Within two years it was the most widely read and recommended book for Young Adults across multiple library, school, and magazine lists. It quickly became one of the most censored texts too, much to the outrage of many young adults and teachers. Today, students and academics alike are still riveted by Cormier’s realism that mirrors their own emotions and experiences of Young Adulthood. A quick search on google scholar brings up peer-reviewed articles of The Chocolate War published as recently as this year. Cormier’s The Chocolate War changed the landscape of how authors talked with and respected the experiences of Young Adults. Cormier couldn’t have anticipated this attention, but he solemnly used it to bring light and deep respect to the experience and validity of young adulthood.

Realism in Mean Girls and The Chocolate War

As I continued to drive along with the Mean Girls soundtrack, more words filled the silence,

“But how far would you go
To be popular and hot?
Would you resist temptation?
No you would not!

Just admit it, sometimes
Mean is what you are
Mean is easier than nice
And though mean can take you far

Maybe this will make you think twice” (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

Before The Chocolate War and Mean Girls, few books and media took seriously the cognitive dissonance Young Adults experience when they know they should do one thing but just can’t bring themselves to do it. Books and media catering to young people were full of trite consequences and didactic lessons that alleviated young adults’ need to challenge their thoughts and change their behavior. Both Cormier and Fey thought adolescents deserved a little more credit. They could see that what young adults were dealing with were internal, polarizing issues that could not be repaired within 2 hours or a 200 page novel. They brought to light the complexity of the adolescent experience we all can relate to.

The writers of Mean Girls are reflecting the harsh reality of life. “Mean is what you are/Mean is easier than nice.” In thinking about Cormier’s The Chocolate War, we have a protagonist, Jerry, who consistently almost stands up for himself, supporting characters who almost take a stand against bullies, antagonists who almost feel remorse for their choices, and adults who almost reach out and make positive connections with the youth they have stewardship over. Do any of these characters actually do these things? No. Why? It’s easier not to. “Dare I disturb the universe?” Cormier’s protagonist Jerry asks himself, just before he does nothing. No. “Mean is easier than nice.”

The Characters

Cady from Mean Girls and Jerry from The Chocolate War are similar in their habit of falling just short of sainthood. Their names mean Pure and Mighty respectively yet they are anything but. Cady observes the social hierarchy of her high school just long enough to know how to manipulate it for her own gain. Jerry begins to take a stand against the Vigil gang running his school and coercing the faculty, but he never really follows through with enough “might” to disturb the universe. The similarity between the characters in relation to their habits of falling short of their namesakes is worth noting. How many times have young adults felt this pull to be great and then felt the crippling disappointment of falling short?

Regina from Mean Girls and Archie from The Chocolate War are antagonists cut from the same cloth. Regina’s power lies in others’ willingness to follow her. She would be nothing without Gretchen and the Plastics to do her bidding. Archie knows the moment Obie turns on him, he will lose power within the Vigils gang, the school and the faculty. Archie works intentionally to keep Obie below him so his empire doesn’t crumble.

We can see Gretchen and Obie both hate their respective antagonists. Gretchen gives a full speech in the 2004 version of the movie and concludes, “Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What’s so great about Caesar, hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus as much as they like Caesar. WE SHOULD TOTALLY JUST STAB CAESAR!” and Obie, in The Chocolate War, clearly manipulates Archie, calling on him to meet in the gym because Obie knows exactly how much Archie hates sweat. In this uncomfortable place, Obie challenges Archie with Jerry’s stand against him and the Vigils to continue not to sell chocolates despite the gang’s mandate to do so. Obie is sick of Archie’s bullying just as Gretchen is sick of Regina’s manipulation but the force still keeping both of them in place is fear of the antagonist. They don’t progress further than resentment because their fear keeps them both in check.

Invitation for Dialogue and the Most Powerful Intersection Point of Mean Girls and The Chocolate War

It is in this place of being paralyzed with fear that both texts converge to open a powerful invitation for dialogue. Cady and Jerry feel trapped by circumstance. Regina and Archie are trapped by the power they exert over others; one casual misstep and the empires they’ve built to their self-importance topple. Gretchen and Obie feel trapped by their own resentment toward powers they want to break down but don’t know how. It is in this delicate balance of empowerment and entrapment that the wobble of venturing out into a new territory of thought is most felt by the audience. It is at this point in both texts we see an opening for us to enter as a participant in the dialogue extended by Cormier and Fey.

Interestingly, this moment for dialogue happens in the gymnasium.
A place of action.
A place where one must win or one must lose.

Inviting the audience to self-reflect in the face of reality and the frustrations that come with it is one of the most powerful elements these two texts share. No answers are given. Fey actually makes a joke out of the possibility of having the answers as she has Regina get hit by a bus. (No one dies!) Cormier leads his audience to believe Jerry has failed without first fulfilling his call to disturb the universe.

For today’s young adult readers of The Chocolate War, it can be intimidating to jump into a text that is 50 years old and expect to find relevance. Is it worth the try? Yes. How can educators make it accessible and relevant to their students? Build on the momentum of the more recently published Mean Girls phenomenon. The intersection points of longevity, realism, characters, and dialogue can be catalysts for a fresh look at the common adolescent experience of knowing what one must do but not quite knowing how to traverse from old habits to actually do it. Both texts offer a powerful tool to cross this difficult bridge: reflection through dialogue.

As the girls are gathered in the gym and asked by Ms. Norbury, “Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by Regina George,” the viewer is immediately drawn in as girls stare straight into the camera and make their confessions. Even teachers participate. Likewise, in Cormier’s primal scene of the fight in the gym, the reader is gathered as a spectator that cannot turn his back on the violence that is unfolding in the organized fight. Cormier made sure the reader could not turn his back because we zoom out to see Father Leon, a “trusted” authority figure, literally turn his back on the boys and the reader together. In these pivotal moments of each text, the audience is forced to consider and reflect on their position and make a choice of what they would do.

To what degree “[d]are I disturb the universe?” Jerry asks himself.
Cady might very well respond with, “The limit does not exist.”

No direct answer is given, the audience is free to work out what their own response would be.

If that isn’t fetch, I don’t know what is.