A TikToker just pointed out the most iconic and completely overlooked joke of the 2004 film Mean Girls, and it has to do with Lebanese.
Mean Girls fans will remember how Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) hated Regina George (Rachel McAdams) for spreading rumors about her being lesbian – and that she had a crush on her.
However, a TikToker Sabrina Alease points out that there may have been a huge misunderstanding behind that… and it’s truly brilliant.
She reminds us that at the end of the movie, Janis is asked if she were Puerto Rican to which she responds that no, she’s Lebanese.
“The whole premise of the movie was based on the fact that Regina didn’t understand the difference between Lebanese and lesbian,” she said. *facepalm*
Yep, it’s probably time to watch Mean Girls again…
Actually, it’s not the first time Western media portrayed confusion between the words Lebanese and lesbian.
There was that time in Glee where Brittany (Heather Morris) gave Santana (played by the late Naya Rivera) a t-shirt that said ‘Lebanese’ when it in fact was supposed to read ‘Lesbian’.
Even Fox News got it wrong (can you believe it?) saying that, “Hezbollah condemned Israel’s bomb attacks on lesbians”…
Also, in the 80’s sitcom Golden Girls, there was an episode that humorously poked fun at the confusion between the words.
And like many Lebanese living abroad, actress Salma Hayek had to experience her own real-life taste of the confusion in an interview that got pretty awkward.
