Amanda from 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait: She’s a little too sentimental, is all. She was the most popular girl at her school and somehow ended up dating Ethan Embry’s character, Preston Meyers. And, I mean, listen: This is not an admonishment of Ethan Embry. He is handsome, and he is cool, but he’s definitely only handsome and cool in an unexpected way, which is not the same as being handsome and cool in a regular way (like, say, Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You), or in an obvious way (like, say, Josh Hartnett in 2000’s The Virgin Suicides). So Amanda is out. (And I know these two movies aren’t connected in any real or significant way, but since they both came out around the same time I’m going to take this opportunity to go ahead and nix everyone from 1999’s American Pie.)
Zack Siler in 1999’s She’s All That: Extremely popular and extremely handsome and extremely perfect, yes, but he’s out for the same reason that Amanda is out.5 (Dean Sampson Jr., Paul Walker’s character from this movie, is a much more likely candidate for inclusion in Regina’s circle. He’s the one who set the bet in place that Zack couldn’t take a nerd and turn her into a prom queen.) (Taylor Vaughan, Zack’s original girlfriend who dumped him to date an MTV Real World star, is also a potential pick for the circle.)
Ferris Bueller from 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Remember how in Mean Girls there were some inconsistencies in the stories that Regina and Aaron were each telling about who broke up with who? That’s what I figure would happen with Ferris and Regina here. They’d date for a little while, then they’d break up after either Ferris made a few too many jokes that Regina didn’t like or Regina did something truly mean to someone and Ferris realized he wasn’t built for that kind of lifestyle, and then they’d both get caught in the middle of a he-said-she-said about why they broke up.
Biff Tannen from 1985’s Back to the Future: He’s too oafish to ever even exist in Regina’s orbit, obviously, so that’s one reason he’s not getting a seat. A larger problem for him here, though, is that he tried to rape a classmate in front of his friends and also in front of her date. I don’t want to put him in anyone’s circle of friends, unless we’re talking about a circle of friends in prison.6 (It was always strange to me that George McFly, Marty McFly’s father and the guy who punched out Biff when he was sexually assaulting Lorraine, chose to hire Biff later to work for him when they were all adults.)
Isis from 2000’s Bring It On: Regina needs people in her group that she can control, that she can bend in whatever direction she needs them to bend. And while Isis is many things that would be appealing to Regina, she is not, in any way and for any reason, susceptible to that kind of pressure. (Big Red, the cheer captain from Bring It On who preceded Kirsten Dunst’s character, would be a much more likely candidate, as would Courtney and Whitney.) (Also: I often wonder what life was like for Isis in her remaining high school and college days after ISIS became a thing that people in America largely knew about and were concerned with. That was some very bad luck for her. Usually it’s like the school year ends, summer happens, then the next school year starts and a kid shows up and they have a new haircut or whatever. Poor Isis had the school year end, then summer happened, then the next school year started and suddenly she was sharing a name with a terrorist organization.)
Kathryn Merteuil from 1999’s Cruel Intentions: Rich and merciless and vile and willing to ruin multiple lives just because she’s bored. She gets a seat. She’d be perfect. And more than that: We would be looking at unprecedented levels of chicanery if Kathryn was able to convince Regina to try cocaine like Kathryn was doing in Cruel Intentions. If you had Regina and Kathryn together all teamed up and vicious and regularly using cocaine, it’d take about two weeks before the hallways in Movie High School looked like some combination of the last ten minutes of Escape from New York and the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
Claire from 1985’s The Breakfast Club: None of the other characters from The Breakfast Club would be granted entry into the circle—not John Bender (the criminal), not Allison Reynolds (the basket case), not Brian Johnson (the brain), and not even Andrew Clark (the athlete)—but Claire would. Because more valuable than even her spot as an unquestioned high school princess is her dogged dedication to upholding the status quo. She would be the ideal member for Regina’s circle of friends: a subservient debutante who adds value to the group without ever threatening to make a run at the throne. (She would, in effect, be the new Gretchen Wieners.) She gets a seat.
Harry Osborn from 2002’s Spider-Man: Beautiful and a little dumb and able to be vicious and vindictive when necessary. He gets a seat.
Troy Bolton from 2006’s High School Musical (too sweet); Roxanne from 1995’s A Goofy Movie (too young7); Olive from 2010’s Easy A (too resourceful) and Marianne from 2010’s Easy A (too Christian) and Woodchuck Todd from 2010’s Easy A (his name is Woodchuck Todd); Steff McKee in 1986’s Pretty in Pink (too creepy); Joey from 10 Things I Hate About You (too much of a doof8); Cher from 1995’s Clueless (too oblivious); Tyler Gage from 2006’s Step Up (too poor); Madison from 2015’s The Duff (too uninteresting); the human version of Scott Howard in 1985’s Teen Wolf (too dorky) but possibly not the werewolf version of Scott Howard in 1985’s Teen Wolf; Billy Loomis from 1996’s Scream (too poor, and also too much of a literal murderer); post-injury Boobie Miles from 2004’s Friday Night Lights9 (too heartbreaking10); any of the Power Rangers from 2017’s Power Rangers (too preoccupied with saving the world to dedicate the appropriate amount of time and energy into advancing Regina’s legacy11); Lara Jean from 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (too wholesome); any of the vampires from 1987’s The Lost Boys12 (“Get in, loser, we’re going to kill some children”); Napoleon from 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite (not enough skills); Darcy from 1999’s Varsity Blues (“Is whipped cream a carb?”); Tracy Flick from 1999’s Election (too ambitious); anyone from 1993’s Dazed and Confused, but especially Ron Slater (too untethered to the high school caste system);13 Hugo in 2001’s O (too handsome); Seth from 2007’s Superbad (too weird looking) and Evan from 2007’s Superbad (too penis-based); any of the guys from 2012’s Chronicle who gained powers from the alien ship thing (too odd); any of the guys from 1989’s Dead Poets Society (too bookish); and all of the people from any high school movie where the school was set in a tough neighborhood, including but not limited to 1988’s Stand and Deliver,14 2007’s Freedom Writers, 1995’s Dangerous Minds,15 1989’s Lean on Me, and 1997’s One Eight Seven.16
If we stick to the thing earlier about each cafeteria table having six seats, then that means we’re still left with two seats to fill, what with Regina getting a seat, Kathryn from Cruel Intentions getting a seat, Claire from The Breakfast Club getting a seat, and Harry Osborn from Spider-Man getting a seat.
I think I’d fill one of those final two spots with Dionne from 1995’s Clueless. She, same as Claire from The Breakfast Club, is someone who adds an instant and prominent value to the group without pulling too much of the spotlight away from Regina. And I know there’s a tiny risk here that we might find out after dropping Dionne into the group that Regina, who we already know is homophobic, is also a racist, but I’d like to at least start out the discussion by assuming that she is not.
And with that very last spot, let’s go with Ryan McCarthy from 2008’s Never Back Down, a talented mixed martial artist with perfect teeth, perfect abs, and the kind of gray morality that would let him feel good about making fun of a kid whose dad died just so he could goad him into a fight so he could beat him up in front of everyone. He’s the closest we’ve ever come to seeing a male version of Regina George.17
There you go. That’s the lineup: Regina George, Kathryn from Cruel Intentions, Claire from The Breakfast Club, Harry from Spider-Man, Dionne from Clueless, and Ryan from Never Back Down.
Actually, you know what? I’ve changed my mind on the Harry from Spider-Man pick. His name feels weird in this group. It made sense at the time, and he seemed like a strong pick at the time because of star power, but I don’t think it’s going to work out well with this mix of people we’ve built. (This is one of those Shaquille O’Neal in Phoenix situations. They signed Shaq going into the 2009 season and everyone was like, “Oh shit, that’s a good idea.” But then they started playing actual games and everyone was like, “Oh shit, that was a horrible idea.”) So let’s cut him. And I know that this is breaking the rules because this is supposed to only be movie characters, but I’m going to drop a new name into all of this, because it’s a name that can’t be ignored, because it was a performance that can’t be ignored.
The final spot goes to Julie Taylor from the TV version of Friday Night Lights. She was smart, and she was funny, and she could be mean, and she could be menacing, but she had just enough innocence in her that Regina would probably be able to press into shape whenever she really needed to. Also, she was an underclassman, so if we’re looking at legacy here, she’d be able to slide into Regina’s spot as the new leader of the group after Regina eventually graduated.
So there you go for real. That’s the lineup: Regina George, Kathryn from Cruel Intentions, Claire from The Breakfast Club, Dionne from Clueless, Ryan from Never Back Down, and Julie Taylor from the TV version of Friday Night Lights.
That’s who’s in the Regina George circle of friends.