In Defense Of 'Bachelorette's' Mean Girls

Confession: I Liked The Mean Girls Of 'Bachelorette'

Before I saw “Bachelorette,” the relatively new comedy starring Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher as three coke-snorting, shit-talking, emotionally damaged bridesmaids, now showing in theaters and On Demand, I was expecting a movie about three women from hell. The reviews of the film not only positioned the stars as the “Bridesmaids” chicks gone rabid, but as emotional relatives of Charlize Theron in Diablo Cody’s “Young Adult” and Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher,” characters who were intentionally heinous, detestable and unredeemed. Whether one liked “Bachelorette,” or loathed “Bachelorette,” found it hilarious, disgusting or somewhere in between, the three women in it were supposed to be capital B bitches. Imagine my surprise when I just flat-out liked them.

Expectations played a part: I was expecting the worst women in the world, and the chicks just turned out to be pretty effed in the head. Regan (Dunst), Gena (Caplan) and Katie (Fisher) are mean. They are petty and lost, reflexively cruel and drug addled. They are wretched and condescending to Becky, the soon-to-be-married high school friend they still insist on calling “Pig Face.” They have a horrible attitude about her wedding, a poisonous mixture of “how could it happen to her when we’re all so much prettier?” condescension and jealousy. Where Gena and Katie are, respectively, defensive and ditzy, Regan is a stone-cold horror show, belittling and merciless to most everyone she knows and absolutely everyone she does not. Upon spotting her, members of the service industry would be wise to run the other way.

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