Just War Theory and Mean Girls

On the surface, just war theory may seem simple.  There are three parts to this theory.  Jus ad bellum refers to justice in going to war, and states that a force must have just cause, proper authority right intention, and the like on their side.  Jus in bello refers to justice in war.  While at war, soldiers must discriminate between civilians and combatants and make sure that they are following the rule of proportionality.  Jus post bellum refers to justice after war, and says that actions after war must be just as well.  The winning side must make sure that punishments are handled proportionally to the crime and that they, again, discriminate between civilians and soldiers.  If we delve deeper into its nuances, though, we start to see gray areas.  The idea of justice, as I have realised during the course of this class, is not always set.  Trying to define justice for war is even trickier.  The gray areas provide a wide breadth of topics for discussion.  And because it's always hilarious whenever anyone tries to relate the movie Mean Girls to an academic topic, I will do so now.

I am going to write this under the assumption that the majority people know about, and probably have seen, this movie.  But just for the people who have not, here is a quick summary:  Cady Herron is a teenage girl who is raised in Africa, and is home-schooled.  She moves to America and starts attending a high school.  As I'm sure most of you remember, high school is full of unnecessary drama and Cady slowly succumbs to the pettiness that is high school cliques.  If you would like to read a more detailed plot summary, you can do this here.

When her new friends Janice and Damien initially get her to "wage war" against "The Plastics," (or more specifically, Regina George, who is the power behind this exclusive group), it seems that they are doing it for a good cause.  The Plastics are mean to everyone else.  They exclude everyone and put other people down because they believe that they are better than everyone else.  They are malicious simply for the sake of being malicious.  So it seems that jus ad bellum is being practiced in this case.  According to just war theory, Cady and her friends must maintain their right intention throughout the entire "war".

However—as this clip showed—over the course of "war," Cady's intentions change.  They are no longer for the good of all but for selfish reasons.  Even though Cady and her friends first started out with seemingly good intentions, it's clear that jus ad bellum was not applied all the way through in going to war.

And as the movie progresses, the way in which they conduct themselves "during war" is not exactly just either; there is no discrimination of civilians and combatants, to the extent that no one knows who is fighting and who is not, nor is there proportionality to the acts that these girls commit in "war":

I think it's safe to say that this movie is a prime example of the fact that although someone could enter war with all the right intentions, justice can get a little messy along the way.  This is, of course, ignoring many other parts of just war theory.  We could very well argue that Cady and her friends were not practicing jus ad bellum at all, since they didn't have proper authority, nor did they publicly "declare war" against the Plastics either, although I'm sure it wouldn't have fit the context of the movie had someone suddenly broken out into an eloquent declaration such as when the US declared war on Germany during WWI or FDR's Pearl Harbor Address:

I'm sure something like the proper adherence to just war theory would have ruined the mood of the movie. 

Sources (in order): 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT8wMBeVffk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPYqRaOm1ak
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/usofficialawardeclaration.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufoUtoQLGQY