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Key Elements In Mean Girls, Directed By Mark Waters

Decent Essays

In the movie, Mean Girls, Mark Waters uses key elements, such as plot, to express the different themes in the film.
Some of the first areas of plot seen in the movie are the protagonist and the antagonist. As described by Greg Johnson and Thomas R. Arp, the protagonist is “the central character in a conflict” (98) and the antagonist is “any force arranged against the protagonist” (98). Most seem to think that the protagonist has heroic qualities, but as said by Johnson and Arp, this is often not true (98). But, in the case of Mean Girls, the protagonist of the film, Cady Heron, seems to “save the day” at the end of the movie. Within the movie, Cady makes some poor choices. An example of this is when she lied to Regina about the Kalteen bars …show more content…

Conflict can be defined as “a clash of actions, ideas, desires, or wills” (Johnson, Arp 98). Conflict is derived from the existence of a protagonist and an antagonist, so because Cady is the protagonist and Regina is the antagonist, the primary conflict in the film is character versus character. It is this conflict that helps support the theme. For example, conflict is noticeable through Regina and Cady’s changes at the end of the film. Even after Cady had tried everything she could to ruin Regina’s life, and Regina had tried everything to make Cady jealous, both still forgave each other as they went their separate ways. The audience can understand that the two girls forgave each other based on when Cady says, “all of the drama from last year just wasn’t important anymore” (Waters) at the end of the film. By saying this, the viewers recognize that Cady is stating that the two girls had finally forgiven one another. This evidence helps to support the theme because even though Cady did terrible things to Regina, and Regina did terrible things to Cady, they still learned to forgive one another. The evidence also helps to provide a theme for the audience that is meaningful and important. Through this description, the audience gets an idea of the theme’s place in the story, and how it is meant to teach society to

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