Film Analysis: Mean Girls

This movie is about institutionalized girls who are receiving treatments for multiple mental health disorders. Claymore Psychiatric Hospital is in Belmont, Massachusetts, this movie is based on a true story. Daisy Randone, Susanna Kaysen, and Lisa are the three main characters in this movie. Mrs. Randone’s is hospitalized for depression and bulimia nervosa disorder. The way this movie portrays numerous mental health disorders is excellent. A variety of clients from different cultural and diversities are being treated at Claymore. It is an awesome movie, the way the patients’ act out the personalities and disorders gives an excellent understanding of the disorders. Susanna is being treated for depression, and borderline personality disorder. While, Lisa is a sociopath and isn’t very complaint with treatment regimens and has been in and out of the facility several times. While Susanna attempts suicide by chugging a bottle of vodka with at least twenty – five aspirin and is unsuccessful, Daisy sadly ends up hanging herself from harsh words and manipulative, provoking from Lisa. She is successful in her attempt by hanging and the day of her death is on her birthday.

In the film “Mean Girls” there were many types of peer relationships expressed. Friendships are described as a reciprocal liking, trust, and loyalty between all participating dyadic parties. An example in the film is the relationship that Damian and Janis hold because they are loyal to each other and the liking is mutual. Peer acceptance is to the degree one is liked by their peers. In the film Aaron Samuels is very much liked by his peers. Perceived popular is a child that is considered popular based on their peers’ perceptions. Regina George is a prime example of teenage girl perceived as popular. When students described Regina George in the film these type of comments were made, “Regina George is flawless”, “One time she punched me in the faced. It was awesome.”, and “she always looks fierce.” Cliques are polyadic social groups that are voluntary. A main clique in the movie is “The Plastics” which consists of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. These forms of peer relationships are a lot more complex than just a group of friends, these relationships of dynamic in early adolescence.

The movie Mean Girls shows examples of many social-psychological principals. Three of the major social-psychological principals depicted in Mean Girls are prejudice, discrimination, and conformity. According to Social Psychology and Human Nature textbook, written by Baumeister and Bushman, prejudice is a negative feeling toward an individual bases solely on his or her membership in a particular group. Discrimination is unequal treatment of different people based on the groups or categories to which they belong. Lastly, conformity is defined as getting along with the crowd.

The movie Mean Girls is set in a high school setting. The movie starts with a new girl coming to the school as a first time public school student. Cady, the new student, is immediately accepted into a group of friends, but later invited to another. The first clique she joins pushes her to become friends with the second group. This subsequently led to a typical high school drama scene. The ways these high school students go about their normal life seem very alike to the “typical” high school. Even though the movie Mean Girls by Mark Waters, uses humor to portray some questionable realism, it effectively depicts characteristics of ordinary high school life and uses realistic characters.

In the movie, Mean Girls, Mark Waters uses key elements, such as plot, to express the different themes in the film.

Expression is everything. In the quote from Angel Haze she says that, “True artistic expression lies in conveying emotion.” This is taken literally in Unkei’s wooden statue Nio, which brings an extra sense of imagination along when viewing the statue. For example, one might believe features of the statue alone portray flamboyance and disgust through exaggerated posture, facial expression, and hand gesture.

The second section features the women of the play Margaret, Elizabeth and his mother the Duchess of York interacting with each other; however in Act 4 where they are interacting together they all mostly join in venting about their hatred for Richard. As women, Miner informs us that they have even less power thanks to Richard’s growing tyranny but they still join together and curse the latter altogether. To her, she inferred that even though Richard subverted them that the real affect comes from the “emotional solidity” that the women provided (Miner 266). The point she is making is that when the focus shifts towards the female, the readers are allowed to see and feel the human emotions that they display, rather than just the brute, cunning

Picture this, waking up every morning to a new issue to face, but not completely finishing the ones from yesterday or last week. Imagine being overburdened with stress, low income, neglect, needs and wants, death and heartbreak, but still having to function to survive for your loved ones. The film, “For Colored Girls”, directed by Tyler Perry in 2010, narrates the lives of the everyday struggles of several black women in Harlem, New York. Their lives connect together by the different hardships they face from not only, being a woman of color, but a being woman in general. Tory Floyd’s Interpersonal Communication textbook, copy written in 2009, teaches communication concepts and how they affect personal, academic, and professional relationships. The specific communication concepts seen throughout this movie are the need to belong, profanity, slander, the power and control aspect of haptics, sadness, denial, empathic listening and closeness.

Social Influence occurs every day in many different setting, in this case it’s in the movie ‘Mean Girls.’ This movie takes place in a high school setting which consists of various different main characters, they are Kady and ‘The Plastics’ which consist of Regina, Gretchen and Karen. There are two main concepts that relate to many scenes throughout this movie, they are a Groupthink and Deindividuation.

Traumatic experiences, difficult home lives, and the effect of drugs can leave a significant imprint on the rest of an individual’s life. The context which individuals are surrounded by during their developmental years has a significant impact on their mental health and development. In the documentary, The Bad Kids this idea is depicted through the portrayal of adolescence and early adulthood periods of the individuals at Black Rock Continuation High School. The film portrays the lives of at risk teens, who are given a second chance to get their life on track and earn a high school diploma. However, there are complications and set-backs that are holding them back from accomplishing their goals.

“White Chicks” is a comedy film based on two African-American FBI agents, Marcus and Kevin. Marcus and Kevin goof up a drug bust. As a punishment the chief makes Marcus and Kevin escort two blonde spoiled sisters, Tiffany and Brittany Wilson, to the Hamptons. The FBI got word that the Wilson sisters may be kidnapped. After a small accident the sisters get a few scratches on their faces. When the sisters see the scratches they refuse to go. Marcus and Kevin transform themselves into the two blonde sisters in hopes that they catch the kidnapper. After living the life of Tiffany and Brittany, Marcus and Kevin finally catch the

Girl Interrupted is a film, based on the 1993 book by Susanna Kaysen. The film is set in the 1960’s and depicts a young woman who is committed to a psychiatric hospital after attempting to cause herself physical harm. There, she is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She spends a substantial amount of time in the psychiatric hospital, which is very different from today, due to deinstitutionalization.

"Cold, shiny, hard, PLASTIC," said by Janice referring to a group of girls in the movie Mean Girls. Mean Girls is about an innocent, home-schooled girl, Cady who moves from Africa to the United States. Cady thinks she knows all about survival of the fittest. But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when she enters public high school and encounters psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teen girls deal with today. Cady goes from a great friend of two "outcasts", Janice and Damien to a superficial friend of the "plastics", a group of girls that talks about everyone behind their back and thinks everyone loves them. Adolescent egocentrism and relationships with peers are obviously present throughout the film. I

The premise of both Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004) and Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008) is very similar: awkward girl moves to a new high school where she becomes popular. The construction of popularity in the films underlines a larger cultural understand of what popularity is. Both films create a similar narrative of what goes in to popularity: conventional attractiveness, whiteness, wealth. However, the films treatment of the actualities of being popular and the whether or not it’s a worthy goal are disparate. In Mean Girls, the narrative treats popularity as teachable or trainable quality, but one that is, in the end, insignificant to actual life and unreflective of a person’s self-worth. In Twilight, popularity is an innate quality that reflective of a person’s inner ‘specialness’. Further, despite these differences, popularity is shown in as a desirable construct in both films, even though both narratives attempt to undermine that belief.

Girl, Interrupted follows Susanna Kaysen 18 month experience in a mental hospital. Transition. Despite her privilege as a white, upper-middle class girl from a high school with a high college acceptance rate in the 60s, her lax attitude about the future isolates her from her peers. Transition. The beginning of the film flashes back to her stomach being pumped after she chased sleeping pills with vodka, most likely after her affair with her married English teacher. After her failed suicide attempt, her therapist suggests that she needs proper rest at Claymoore, a nearby mental institution. Although initially shocked and reluctant, she signs herself into a place where she encounters several other patients, including the rebellious, sociopath Lisa. Unlike Susanna, Lisa embraces her label as a sociopath, and Lisa’s charm and free spirit, despite her environment, gave Susanna someone to emulate. Their misadventures begin with spitting out daily medication, behaving combatively during resisting therapy, and climaxes with their escape attempt.