In the beginning of “Mean Girls,” we saw the girl to the right of the Coach, who is a kick-butt head football player. Then in episode three, the head football player, Khalid, starts off by asking the girl who is wearing the “perfect skirt” if she’s been a virgin. The female student says that she has not and he replies, “I’m so sorry to hear that.” By the end of the episode, he’ll probably have one of his girlfriends, who likes to play football, masturbate into the end of her shirt.
But the scene itself is awkward because Khalid and the girl just don’t seem to be on the same page. In other words, Khalid is trying to get under the girl’s skin and by his very appearance, it is evident that he feels this is necessary to achieve this. His reaction is funny because, in addition to being a football player, he is also the school’s strong leader. His actions when he approaches the girl are probably meant to send a message that girls are vulnerable and easily taken advantage of, which is precisely what the girl is looking for.
Even his friends will look at his personality as well as his body language to make a judgment on him. His first friend, Coach, asks the girl who is standing next to him, “You still think he’s cute?” to which the girl responds, “Oh, he’s definitely not cute.” He apparently does not believe that he can be affectionate toward the girl as his friends and his girlfriend seem to do.
In any case, since Khalid’s image of the girl is that of a sexual being, then he has a powerful desire to take care of her and control her. The joke comes when he tells her that they should go to the store together. She says that the store does not sell sexy lingerie or “dangerous clothes.” At this point, the girl reminds him that she is a virgin and that even though she is a girl, she is not one that should be treated as such.
In fact, there is no shortage of places where this episode could have gone but the same room from which the Coach came is not one of them. Khalid can be seen doing things in the classroom that no woman should be able to do, like using his work station to masturbate. Of course, the school’s assistant principal cannot intervene because all it took to do that was the girl’s statement that she is a virgin.
The fact that the girl did not actually become sexually active with Khalid when she found out about her virginity is only a piece of evidence for how she may have felt. Her position of leadership and the fact that she had the power to get him fired means that she was able to influence a situation where she had the upper hand. Later on, she gets upset with the coach for not understanding that she cannot have sex. She even calls him a pig because the coach is too old to understand things like sexual relations between a man and a woman.
The key point here is that the girl’s ability to control an important issue does not mean that she is not vulnerable. In fact, it is a strong sign that she is a very powerful woman. The woman to the left of the Coach in the Coach’s office can drive things in a very powerful direction by dominating an event. Perhaps, it is her status as a teacher or her gender that makes her powerful. But either way, she should not be allowed to play games with the dignity of a young girl.
When this episode of “Mean Girls” aired, it was a great move to include a little background about how white girls get sexual education in school. If you are a woman and you would like to get an inside view of how men really think, then watching this episode is a good place to start.
