I dont think I ever hated the "mean girl" side of monster high cause it felt like realistic teenage girl meanness. Not in the way that girls are inherently mean at that age, but that people are mean sometimes due to outside context or just not realizing it. That's such a common thing in highschool, just as much as people being mean out of malice.

I actually loved that G1 dared to give characters the edge of being mean girls. G2 only had Moanica (who was flat by comparison) and G3 has everyone be nice, which is so unrealistic for a high school setting. 😅

I like how Cleo was often the antagonist for quite alot of G1 and it's wepisodes, made her redemptions all the better and fits really well with her whole Egyptian queen and mummy's curse esthetique. Ghoulia stays my favorite though, her not talking in G1 adds so much and makes it so when they need to charecterize her they have to do observational storytelling.

The mean girl critique really shows people dont get basic storytelling- you NEED antagnists for a story to actually works, its what results in g3’s storytelling feeling blend and boring , its has no actual antagnoists everyones just nice and are all friends - it wants to be a show like for example amphabia with this big epic story but forgot even with story driven shows like amphibia it still had various antagnists , not everyone instantly liked the three main girls - hell sasha and anne started as litreal rivals at first

I had people get angry at me for saying g3 nefera is boring in comparison to g1 bcus “g1 nefera was just mean!!!” But sorry but its true-nefera was a great way to teach kids the difference between a healthy sibling relationship and an unhealthy one not all siblings get along not every pair of siblings in media have to be nice now its good to have variety

Even g3 toralei who started as an antagnist instantly got reedeemed and again it just made the show boring there was no actual conflict

I actually really liked that despite Frankie's personality she had a lot of crushes and dated, and she was allowed to make the first move. Because that is rare in media for girls, only the female villains are allowed to flirt or make the first move.

1:59: Cleo's meanness was rooted in classism and had to do with the monster social hierarchy as well.

I like your whole point about Frankie and her “relationships”. I never really got why it was so controversial that she had a lot of crushes.

"They're mean girls!"

And it's just female characters who have complex motives and emotions. Who aren't good 24/7 and make mistakes.

Like..oh no a girl being petty? Mean girl! Like???? 😂 Also what's wrong with romance or fashion? It's funny how people complain about those things when that's what majority women like. The romance genre alone is written/consumed by nearly all women. Same with fashion.

Materialism? In OG Sailor Moon all Girls wear a new Outfit in every episode.
Rral Life people don't wear the same Clothes every day

I honestly liked how they developed Toralei as a character in G1. They highlighted her backstory that she grew up fending for herself and only trusting the other Werecat twins because they were like her. I got the impression that the creators were implying that Toralei grew up in a foster care like system before coming to monster high, which is why she's never fully friends with the main ghouls. Its always clear that she's interested in wanting to tryst them, but is too scared to act on it because of how many times in her life she's felt rejected. I found that very clever writing in G1 and i feel it doesn't get talked about enough.😊

Frankie is also just really friendly with everyone. I feel like she's a genuinely sweet person and people just enjoy making it weird because they can't understand why she would be that way unless she had a crush or was trying to "steal" another ghoul's boyfriend. We've seen time and time again that all she does is care about other monsters, but all anyone can see is the "romantic" aspect of her friendliness.

i feel like most of these criticisms are from people who havent seen g1 since they were kids. it kind of gives me the vibes of those "why the disney princesses are actually bad role models" articles from the 2010s. its a shame cuz it seems like mattel internalized these complaints about mh, which i feel like is why g3s characters are so watered down and why the storytelling is so bland (i like g3 otherwise)

Frankie lost her life to save her friends and yet people still call her a bad character

TBH, I don't mind all the boys Frankie got with, I just wish they could last longer than a movie because I thought a lot of them were cool, especially the zombie-unicorn and Holt/Jackson

Thank you so much for pointing out the undateable black friend trope with Clawdeen.

The materlizism critique also feels s3x1st as hell - “oh this girl franchise likes to focus on fashion that means its a shallow and materialistic franchise!!!” No one would claim shows like amphibia , owl house or star vs , etc ( gender netrual shows that dont lean to be feminine) as being “too materialistic” same with outright boy franchises like sonic , mario , etc even tho in both games it litrealy encourages you to collect items for your character but bcus their masculine instead of feminine then their not “materialistic” its only ever “materialistic” if a franchise focuses on more girly aspects

Also i agree with the g3 critique like why did we need frankie to become whole aaa static shock 2.0 , people didnt like the brand cause of the characters’ superpowers , the brand works best when it treated them like regular kids not as whole aaa superheros it rlly feels like their boderline ashamed of being a girly franchise which just proves my point that its only seen as “Materialistic and shollow” if a franchise is girly and to not be that a franchise has to become either gender neutral or masculine

0:54: Dumbest criticism ever because Cleo was the only one that was ACTUALLY mean in the beginning and she changed! Also Torelai and Nefera were the mean girl antagonists! That was the point of their characters! But the other girls were nice! These people didn't even watch the show.

I miss when the dolls were school related, like they had different focuses on classes and clubs, sports and cheerleading, spring break, shit like that. Now they just be dressing them in whatever and throwing them in closets. Like can they go to school?

"I don't consider the new comics to be part of OG canon anyway" was music to my ears

I actually like how messy the characters were because that made them feel real and unique. We definitely knew someone like that in our lives. And it also kinda helped people see how different everyone is. The good and bad because that's what makes us human. It was refreshing to see soo raw emotions or just how girls actually are with each other (shit does get messy). G3 just boils it down to being "we're all good and respectful" which yea that's good but it won't get you far in terms of story telling.