Chloe Bourgeois - Not a Typical Mean Girl
No, I am not going to sit here and talks about Chloe's family, or issues, or one writers seeming obsession with her. No!
I am here to discuss what I think is a very common misunderstanding about Chloe's character and the show in fandom that often crops up in discussion regarding her.
Namely that the thing Chloe needs most is to be chastised, rejected & punished for her mean behavior, that will sort her out!
As though that wasn't already a thing that happens?
Bear with me and I'll explain that claim first:
The school does not like punishing any students. The only reason Alya was punished for coordinating an effort to break into Chloe's locker is because Chloe threatened the principle.
The only reason Marinette was almost expelled was because Lila framed her for cheating, theft & assault all in one day & she still needed to make a scene of the whole affair.
There's one teacher that punishes students, but she does so unfairly, cruelly and haphazardly and in season 1, Chloe was not shown getting any special treatment from her.
Special treatment from the faculty was not a thing unless we are counting later retcons.
So now that the faculty is out of the way, wat I mean is that Chloe is not a typical mean girl because she is not popular.
In stuff like Mean Girls, Heathers and so on, the usual standard is that the mean girls are mean, but they are also revered, beloved, popular in one way or another despite their horrible behavior.
This is not the case with Chloe.
Even in Season 1 where only Marinette & Nino seems to start the season disliking Chloe. (Her presence unpleasant but hardly traumatic given the Origins level bickering) Chloe was still not widely well liked by the class or school.
She had one friend in Sabrina and a second oh so briefly in Adrien, which did let her absorb some of his celebrity by proximity. But within 48 hours of having him she lost him; with Adrien becoming more distant to divorce himself from her behavior.
That's it and while one can say her haughty attitude and ego are the reason we know from season 2 she is aware everyone hates her & it upsets her.
S1-Chloe did get invited to some class events, but even then her presence was not largely welcomed with most far less prone to be patient with her than they were with others even if they exhibited similar behavior. Such as Kim bullying Ivan, or Nino expressing blatant frustration with Mylene, ETC.
By late season 2 she was pretty much entirely segregated from her peers, barring Sabrina, and her presence welcomed with shades of disinterest, disdain or outright hostility. Sometimes evoked on her part or just in general.
This is a big difference from the usual Mean Girls = Popular Girls trend but I often don't see it acknowledged in fandom discourse.
This especially feels to be the case given so often I see people arguing Chloe "needs" to be rejected, or told her behavior is bad, or that no one likes her... But she is, all the time, she is entirely aware people don't like her and unhappy about it.
The issue is not that her bad behavior is being rewarded in school. The issue is that bad behavior is what she was taught at home and what is encouraged there and what is shown to work for her parents. But it doesn't work for her and she doesn't know why, because no one really bothers to teach her why. hey just get angry and snap at her or ignore her.
& sure you can say its not her peers job to explain morality o empathy to someone who was explicitly taught by their father how to cheat at & win elections by intimidation. But the fact is no one at home is going to do so because they are modelling, encouraging & teaching the opposite up until it impacts 'them' personally.
Not sure if there's a greater point to this, but...
I often find people acting like the thing Chloe needs is for her bad behavior not to be 'rewarded' or 'indulged' by her class and to instead be 'rejected' and for her to face 'consequences'.
But she does! That's basically all she does; & When she doesn't usually an Akuma tries to murder her anyway!
So yeah, Chloe isn't a typical mean girl.
She's actually deeply unpopular among classmates and the school has a discipline issue all over, it didn't come from her.
More negativity is not going to magically make her "better".