Sweet Revenge: Watch Underdog Girls Weaponize Dessert

There’s more than one way to have a food fight. Sure, sometimes flinging your lunch around the room can be a blast, but you don’t have to get covered head to toe in mashed potatoes to have a good time - and get what’s yours. When it comes to taking edible revenge and showing the bad guys who’s boss, geek girls are the best at getting creative. I mean ANYBODY can have a food fight, and a lot of people can have a pie fight, but smashing a chocolate ice cream cone into a cheerleader’s clean white uniform? That’s style. It’s definitely a dirty fight when food’s involved, but an underdog girl has gotta do whatever it takes, no matter how messy the method. Enjoy the following clips from movies where underdog girls (and women) used sugary treats in many forms to stick it to the man and get sweet, sweet revenge.

Ellen Page is at her finest in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It, where she plays the small town Texas girl Bliss, a misfit who escapes her suffocating life by taking on an alternate roller derby identity in the big city as Babe Ruthless. Most of her newfound teammates are supportive and affirming, but Iron Maven, a veteran derby girl, is none too pleased when Babe Ruthless joins the team. At a post-match celebration, Iron Maven flicks a ketchup-drenched fry at Babe’s face. For a moment, Babe just smiles; then she gets Maven right in the face with a handful of banana cream pie. Maven retaliates by carefully pouring a chocolate milkshake on Babe’s head and pandemonium breaks out when Babe jumps up and throws Maven to the ground and Smashley Simpson (aka Drew Barrymore) screams “FOOD FIGHT!” Now that’s the way to show ‘em.

Oh, Kalteen bars. How amazingly full of nutrition you are! How cleverly you burn carbs! How thin and attractive we become when we eat you...NOT. If you haven’t seen Mean Girls (directed by Tina Fey, starring a pre-drugs Lindsey Lohan), please stop reading this and go fix that sad, sad part of your life right away so you can enjoy the way that former homeschooler Cady takes down The Plastics (then becomes one, then becomes nice and normal again). If you love Regina George’s high calorie downfall and wish it were real, wish no longer, because Dylan’s Candy Bar has made it. Check it out along with a host of other clever Mean Girls themed treats and gifts (my favorite is the “Is Butter a Carb?” Popcorn Flavored Jelly Beans). And, BONUS, in case you didn’t know, there’s a deleted scene from Mean Girls featuring Kalteen Bars (and Amy Poehler, hilariously playing Regina’s permissive mom) that you’ve got to see.

If you were a girl in the 90s you probably watched (and loved) Anne Hathaway’s The Princess Diaries. What was the best part? The time Mia’s cool mom throws darts at paint-filled balloons with her? The way Mia sends her friend/more-than-a-friend Michael an M&M topped pizza to apologize for standing him up? Watching Julie Andrews - as the Queen of Genovia - attempt to eat a corn dog? I can’t choose, but one of the very best moments of that movie for me is when Mia smashes a chocolate ice cream cone right into obnoxious cheerleader Lana’s spotless white and pale blue uniform in front of a tittering crowd who begins chanting “Lana got coned!” at the urging of Mia’s BFF Lily Moscovitz. The scene stops short of any homoeroticism and is totally satisfying - who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity? The best part is that Mia’s principal just lets it happen and suggests Lana take care of her own dry cleaning. Poetic justice served, one scoop at a time.

I readThe Help before I saw the movie, so I already knew exactly what Minny Jackson had up her sleeve...or perhaps I should say, in her pie. That didn’t make it any less amusing to watch Bryce Dallas Howard’s horrified reaction to discovering the not-so-sweet truth for herself. Now Minny isn’t a girl, but she’s definitely an underdog, and it’s so satisfying to watch her revenge plot work just like she planned it. If you haven’t read or watched The Help, go do both - it’s got perfectly conceived characters that you’ll remember for a long time.

The Trunchbull is one of the scariest villains of children’s literature, and the screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda does a great job capturing her evilness. In this scene, it looks like the evil Trunchbull is about to make poor little gluttonous Bruce puke up the giant chocolate cake she’s just served him in front of the whole school when Matilda saves the day. Poor Brucie’s about to give up on the whole thing when Matilda stands up and yells “You can do it, Bruce!” The rest of the class takes up his cause, chanting “Bru-CIE! Bru-CIE!” and he pumps his fist in the air, shovels the rest of the cake into his face, and shows Trunchbull what’s what. The brilliant part of underdog Matilda’s brave stand here is that she doesn’t just defend herself - she takes up for her friend, which makes her a real hero.

There’s something pretty satisfying about seeing a milkshake in someone’s face, and a boyfriend gone bad is no exception. In Grease, Keneckie’s mouthing off to Rizzo (as per usual) so she tosses her strawberry shake in his face, spraying Frenchie in the process. Admittedly Rizzo’s got faults of her own, but she’s an unquestionable underdog in Grease-land. If you don’t like her much, maybe read this essay by a grown-up Mara Wilson (yes, the same Mara Wilson who played Matilda, coincidently - she clearly has this underdog girl dessert revenge thing down cold). It’s called “Worse Things”: Sandy and Rizzo and Me. Either you think she’s a slut or you think she’s “tough and tender” like they say in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; no matter which camp you fall in, you’ll think about the whole movie differently after you read Mara Wilson’s essay.