Cady’s behavior may have been partially explained by both the clique she belonged to and the power she felt among her peers at school. Mean Girls is a tongue in cheek look at the life of teenagers within a high school environment. It revolves around a girl named Cady who finds herself caught up in a wild world of backstabbing, manipulation and bullying. What started out as a sneaky plan to get back at “The Plastics” for being the mean girls, ironically, transformed Cady into a mean girl herself. The idea was simple.
As a teenager there will be a time where breaking the bonds of childhood, entering a world of rebellion, and being obsessed with popularity will be normal. For teenage girls, in order to acquire this popularity they need to be thin, busty, and wear revealing clothing while gossiping about peers and spending time worrying about boys and parties rather than their academics. But, where did this image of how to be a popular teenage girl come from? For decades, teen films have portrayed popular teenage girls this way and the film Mean Girls is no exception. This film not only displays how the world expects teenage girls to act, but also how difficult it is for teenage girls to resist acting this way.
Logically, when people want to make friends, and “up” their popularity status, they are nice to others. In high school, it seems that girls do this the opposite way, and are mean to one another in order to bond with friends and become more popular. This paper will discuss reasons why adolescent girls tend to put down others, rather than be nice and respectful as shown in the movie Mean Girls. Most of the aggressions between girls in high school are not a one-way system. The issue of aggression at hand is more of a two-way process of attack and retaliation.
She was homeschooled throughout her whole life, and lived in Africa. She moves to the United States and starts high school at North Shore High School. She starts off her high school career at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and eventually works her way up to the popular girls (The Plastics) and her plan is to sabotage them. This is an example of Reversal because she goes from the bottom to the top. Her plan to sabotage The Plastics eventually turns the whole school upside down and her cover is blown.
The movie explores the relationship amongst high school students who are socially separated, are forced together and find that they had more in common than they initially thought. The symbolic interaction theory supports this result saying, “Education emerges depending on the character of social interaction between groups in schools [and] schools are sites where social interaction between groups influences changes for individual and group success” (Margaret L. Anderson, 2008). Before the movie begins there is a quote from musician David Bowie saying, “..and these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They are quite aware of what they’re going through…” (Changes, 1972). The song expresses how people are aware of society’s views, so people try to change what society thinks of them and when they are trying to change they ultimately ignore what society thinks.
After realizing this, she fakes sick so she doesn’t have to go. This clip is very stereotypical of high school girls and is very overly dramatic. 1. Describe and explain the communication competence level of the characters in your scene. Although the words were hurtful, most of them were received as they were intended to be.
Mean Girls also follows a lower class group (The Art Freaks) trying to destroy the high class group (The Plastics). Cady Heron the new student who just moved from Africa helps undergo this plan because she is both good friends with both groups.
Kat is disappointed with teenage popularity and claims “I’m not hostile, just annoyed” This shows her choice to ignore the upcoming dramas of teenage normalcy and embrace her own individuality. Her attitude shows she has deep anger issues likely caused by her Mother’s abandonment and the fact that her younger sister is now the centre of attention. “I don’t only want to be an object to be adored” With the use of this quote it shows her anger towards today’s society and the only way to belong to something is to be ‘popular’ or to just be an object for everyone else’s entertainment. Kat is outspoken in class and expresses strong feminist views from Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Sylvia Plath, which help support her theory and aggression towards teenage ‘normalcy.’ But by the end of the movie Kat starts to fall in love with Patrick who is very similar to her and is happy not fitting in with the expectations of teenage popularity, therefore she finds her sense belonging and learns that pushing people away isn’t always the answer. With the interaction of the people around her they had shaped her into the girl she was and the women she
He didn’t want to harm anyone but the circumstances and the way people treated him forced him to appear as a monster. In addition he was left into a world that was prejudiced against him, and he was immediately rejected and stereotyped as an abominable and vile
A new study has found that girls at same-sex schools feel greater pressure to adhere to gender norms — and were bullied if they didn’t — than those at mixed-gender schools. Perhaps even more surprising, the same researchers say that girls at same-sex schools evaluated their self-worth based more on social confidence than cognitive confidence — while girls at mixed-gender schools weighed academics more heavily than social prowess. These results contradict a lot of the conventional wisdom that compels some parents to seek out an environment without boys — namely, less romantic drama, greater social acceptance and increased academic confidence. So which one is it? : Are girls more likely to empower one another or to make Burn Book–worthy comments about those who don’t fit in like in Mean Girls?