Disclaimer: Mean Girls isn't mine; it belongs to Paramount Pictures and other related companies.
Author's Note: I have my sister, Kalie, to thank for this -- she made a beautiful wallpaper that inspired me to write this. This goes out to her.
Just to clarify, this is in Cady's POV, and set right after the movie.
Plastic.
What does it mean to be that? Cold, fake, something that's not real, but looks like it is? What does it mean to be plastic, to be a Plastic?
To me, it's always been the epitome of extreme popularity and snobbery – if you weren't a Plastic, you were a nobody.
Someone with no name, with no identity. Nothing they could use to tell who they were, or what they were. They were just lost, grappling in the darkness for a name.
The Plastics offered that to me; an identity. I found myself changing into something, someone I hadn't been before. And at first I liked it – but when I found out what it did to everyone I loved and cared about, being a Plastic wasn't worth anything anymore.
Being cold, shiny, hard wasn't what I wanted to be. The Plastics offered a different me – the one I wanted so desperately to be, but couldn't be. A popular, somewhat well liked person, revered by the whole school. A goddess and role model to some. But in the end, I wasn't a goddess or a role model – I wasn't worth any respect.
And in the end, I learned what it meant to be a Plastic – nothing. Absolutely nothing. It made me cold, hard, aloof – like plastic was. It turned me into a backstabbing, snobby bitch, a person who wasn't worth any respect at all. I didn't care about my friends – I only cared about myself. That was what a Plastic was; someone who cared about only themselves and cared for nobody else. And they were happy that way.
Or maybe they were not. Maybe, deep down, they wanted to be well liked – the person whom everyone praised and truly looked up to, not just because of their fashion sense and popularity.
Maybe they knew what being a Plastic was worth – it wasn't worth anything. Being popular and backstabbing wasn't going to get you anywhere – so why do it? I learned that I didn't want to be a Plastic anymore – it wasn't who I truly was.
Being Cady Heron was what I was – not Cady Heron, Plastic. Being myself, and being happy with it, was all I needed. That was all I wanted – just to be myself, with no regrets. And in the end, who I had been before I became a Plastic – was who I was happy to be. And being a Plastic wasn't on the agenda – it had never been.
What an idiot I was, to think that being a Plastic meant something. Now I knew that what it was worth was that you had to be true to yourself, no matter what. If you were true to yourself, and happy with who you were, that was all you needed. If you weren't happy, you were nothing. You would be nothing – you wouldn't be a real person. Just plastic; hard, cold, bitter, shiny. Someone who wasn't real, but looked like they were real. That was the beauty of being a Plastic – I could fool anyone into thinking that I wasn't feeling anything; that I was cold, aloof, unfeeling.
What foolish thinking that had been. I was (hopefully) much wiser now, and knew that being a Plastic didn't mean or was worth anything. It didn't mean nothing, it was worth nothing.
That I knew now. Being a Plastic didn't mean anything, and never would. And I was sure that Karen, Gretchen and Regina knew that now too. Being a Plastic caused you nothing but headaches, heartache, guilt and grief.
Being perfect, without any flaws, or looking as if you didn't have any, didn't do you good at all. It only made you less of a person, less human and more rotten. You knew you had flaws, and weren't perfect, so why conceal them? It would make you less of a person, and you wouldn't be yourself. Not at all. If you were imperfect, with flaws, and you weren't afraid to show them, you were human. Not Plastic.
Backstabbing and gossiping wasn't worth the popularity, wasn't worth knowing that you were wanted, that you "belonged." We all had learned that the hard way; now we knew the truth and threw away all our stuff, the things that had told us that we were Plastic, but we honestly weren't.
We threw away all the pink outfits, the Book – everything that spoke of Plasticity or was Plastic. We threw all that away, and somehow, we started anew, with each other for support. Of course in some way we were Plastic – we couldn't help that. But now we knew to be ourselves, and were happy.
Being a Plastic had taught us something: Being something you weren't, especially when you wanted to be popular and admired by everyone else. That was all a dream; something that we conjured up to become true. In the end, it never became true, although it looked like it. Being a Plastic was an illusion to us.
And in the end, I knew being a Plastic – cold, unfeeling, shiny – was something I shouldn't be. And I knew Aaron felt the same way, too.
Being a Plastic might have meant something one time, but now it held no meaning anymore. And I was glad that it didn't – as Regina, Karen and Gretchen were.
Plastic. Something that didn't mean anything.
That's what being plastic was.