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Comparing Mean Girls And Cady's Obedience

Decent Essays

“On Wednesdays we wear pink”, is a famous quote by Gretchen Wieners from the movie Mean Girls. While this may seem like a cheesy high school tradition, authors Erich Fromm and Ian Parker would suggest that an act of authority was taken by the Plastics and obeyed by new girl, Cady Heron. . While both authors agree that authority was obeyed, Parker claims that people only obey to comply with the demands of their authority figures and what conditions surround them; while Fromm claims that people must disobey in order to be individualistic and create a new haven of obedience. Ian Parker, author of “Obedience”, would describe Cady feeling the need to obey orders because of her new high school surrounding as well as well as her being an “ordinary” …show more content…

Ian Parker believes that Cady felt the need the obey Regina George because her fear of what the outcome might have been if she didn’t obey. Ian Parker mentions the Holocaust and how the Nazi crimes “had been committed by people obeying orders…” and can be thought of as “ordinary” people (97). He claims the Holocaust crimes were only carried out since the Nazis only feared what the outcome would’ve been if they were to not obey. Parker would describe Cady’s obedience towards a Regina a result of Cady’s internal fear of what Regina may do to her if she were to not obey. Erich Fromm claims that people must disobey in order to be more individualistic. Fromm would explain Cady going behind her first highschool friend, Janis’, back through the story of Adam and Eve. Fromm describes Adam and Eve as a mythological story in which Adam and Eve lived in harmony with nature but decided to branch off and “cut the umbilical cord” in order to become more independent (124). So according to Fromm, Cady went behind Janis’ back because of her desire to loosen ties with Janis and become more individualistic. While these authors stem their claims from different pastimes, they both include real world examples to further analyze …show more content…

The Burn Book had previously been created by The Plastics and it consisted of cruel comments towards high school peers. After Regina found out Cady was only friends with her to to ruin her life, Regina went behind Cady and The Plastics’ back and released the book for the school to see. Fromm and Parker explain this sequence of events because of their individual claims towards obedience. Parker mentions that Stanley Milgram expected his test subjects to not comply with the demands of authority but was shocked when he found out the majority of his test subjects complied with little interjection (96). So while Regina thought she had Cady wrapped around her finger Cady was really going behind her back and trying to ruin her life. This was not anticipated by Regina and resulted in unexpected outcomes that in turn ruined the “friendship” they had. Fromm says “...obedience might very well, as I have said, cause the end of human history” (124). While the Burn Book did not end human history, it created an overdue amount of chaos throughout the school and ended the friendship between Cady and Regina. In total, both Fromm and Parker would agree that unexpected outcomes are a result of people complying with the orders of authority figures.

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