“Mean Girls”: A Formal Analysis

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“Mean Girls”: A Formal Analysis It is often said that our high school experience are the best years of an individual’s life. Whether we were home-schooled, attended public school or a private school, these differences do play a major role in our lives in terms of identity and culture. Our experiences in high school are all different from each other. These memories and experiences stick with us for life and usually play a key role in our way of life, beliefs, and values beyond high school. Television shows and movies often try to portray what high school life is really like. Though high school can be a dramatic time, it is just not quite as dramatic as television portrays it. In the movie “Mean Girls”, we follow the story of 16-year-old Cady Heron, as she makes her transition from being home-schooled in Africa to the first day of public high school in the United States and face many social rules that many teenagers face today. The culture shock takes a toll on Cady as she witnesses the different norms, values and beliefs in North Shore High School. She was no longer in the jungle surrounded by trees, plants, and animals, but by the harsh reality of social rules that exist today in high schools. She learns what is accepted in high school and what isn’t. She befriends social outcasts Janis and Damien and learns about the various cliques. Cady quickly realizes the bureaucracy of the school, how everyone was conformed in different groups, how every girl praised the “Queen Bee”, Regina George, how The Plastics is the “A-crowd” with most power and authority. She notices how the cafeteria was split amongst the Preps, Asian, Nerds, Cool Asians, Girls-who-eat-their-feelings, The Plastics, Jocks, etc. Cady described her first day of public high school as a “stressful, surreal blur” as she got in trouble for the smallest things such as using the wrong color pen. She was easily

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