Mean Girls Movie Analysis

The movie “mean girls” is about a sixteen-year old homeschooled girl named Cady Heron who lived in Africa for the last 12 years of her life. After 12 years she returns to the United States and is now going to High school. Attending public school for the first time in her life. The homeschooled girl entered girl world that is full of lies, drama, gossip, boys and rules. She started hanging out with the “Plastics” and become friends with. The movie showed many example of conflict management styles, it reflects on the American culture values and beliefs, and power style.

The movie Mean Girls is filled with characters that are easy to relate with, quotable lines, and a hilarious but realistic plot line. One other major thing that the movie has is concepts of the development that occurs during late adolescences including social, emotional, and cognitive development. Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady that is attending a public high school for the first time after being home schooled in Africa for all of her life. She knows nothing of the American teenage culture or customs or about the public school system. During her first week of school Cady becomes friends with two people in one of her classes named Janis and Damien, who unbeknownst to her are a part of the

After reading over the description of our film analysis paper, the movie "Mean Girls" that was produced in 2004, came into my mind because this movie contains several sociological themes. Although the film is over a decade old, most high school students seem to be able to relate to this film today since it shows us examples of sociological conflicts such as social conflict theory, social class, and sexuality.

Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady who joins an elite social group at her new school known as the Plastics. While socializing with the Plastics, Cady develops a new, mean girl, personality and ends up sabotaging the group’s leader, Regina, and becomes the new leader of the Plastics. Regina retaliates by spreading the burn book, a book the Plastics filled with insults and gossip about other students, around the school leading to a riot and Cady takes the blame. Cady realizes that her new personality is wrong and apologizes to the school, makes amends with her old friends, and forms a truce with Plastics who disband and become regular students (Mean Girls, 2004).

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.

As Cady gets to know the plastics they begin to introduce her to The Burn Book. This book is a perfect example of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is hostile or negative feelings about people based on their membership in a certain group. Discrimination is behavior directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group. The Burn Book was a book that singled out anyone in their school whether it was fellow students or even faculty members, and would basically list things that were wrong with that person. For example, they stated in the book that one of their newly divorced female teachers was selling drugs on the side and that certain girls were fat and ugly. Some examples would also stereotype because of a part of sports team or group those students were part of. For example, the students that were part of a more man like sports team such as lacrosse or field hockey was considered “lesbians” or “dykes”.

The story begins when Cady meets two friends, Janis and Damien, who show Cady the ways of high school. This is a very normal way in reality and most would not think much of it. Unconsciously, Freud would say, that there is some sort of motive behind this behavior and that there is no possible way that there doing it just to be nice. But as the story goes on we do find out that Janis used to be best friends with Regina (queen bee of “the plastics”) and that their friendship ended due to Regina spreading a rumor that Janis was a lesbian. When Cady is asked by Regina to hang out she is very hesitant to do so and tells Janis what is happening. Janis gets overly excited and instantly her id, the pleasure seeking principle, of her behavior jumps into play causing her to completely ignore

The movie Mean Girls follows Cady Heron as she experiences high school for the first time in her life. As she is thrown into a new society, this film provides the opportunity to socially analyze high school. From figuring out her new culture and society that she is engrossed in to realizing how social status can both negatively and positively affect her values and beliefs, there are many concepts that Cady learns and is taught as she makes her way through her first year of public school.

Stereotypically, men and women have very different roles in the eyes of society. Gender roles and stereotypes have a history in religious, political, legal and economic systems. In reality, men and women are more alike than most people assume. Throughout the world there are struggles with identity, power, and violence occurring everyday between both men and women. The film Mean Girls, directed by Mark Walters, follows a young girl, Cady’s, transition from being home schooled to public high school. Cady enters the school’s group of mean girls, otherwise known as “the plastics”, which consists of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. Throughout the film each character struggles with their true identity.

In our world today, there are many different types of cultures. In America especially, there is so much diversity within culture that it's what makes America what it is today. What is culture you may ask? Culture is basically a human’s way of living life through values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects. In the well-known movie, Mean Girls, there are a lot of different types and aspects of culture throughout the movie. The movie Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady Heron who lived in Africa and was homeschooled for most of her life, has to attend a public high school called North Shore. She is clueless at first and after a while she makes friends with a group of popular girls known as the Plastics. She fits in quickly and tries to adapt through high school. There are different types of cultures and subcultures at North Shore such as the Plastics, the Jocks, the Nerds, the Cool African Americans, the Cool Asians, the Foreigners, and the Losers. Everyone at North Shore high wants to be like the Plastics so some of the girls like to copy everything the Plastics do such as the way they speak and dress. In addition to that all the students are desperate to fit in so in order for them to do that they have to value sex, drinking, partying, makeup, and other typical teenage stuff. Mean Girls did in fact have a lot of different types of cultural aspects to it and there are strong examples to prove this.

Mean Girls is about a young teen girl Cady Heron who just moved from Africa to attend a public high school in America for the first time. This is very different for Cady because the high school setting in America will be extremely different from how it was when she was living in Africa. It’s not easy for her because she is not used to the American customs or “norms”. Within the first couple of days of school she becomes really good friends with two people named Janis and Damien. In the school there are many many cliques, and Janis

The last psychological perspective of psychology to compare “Mean Girls” to is the behaviorist approach. This approach emphasizes the importance of environmental and situational determinants of behavior. Simply because of the new environment that Cady is thrust into her entire behavior is changed. She acts completely unlike her normal self, adapting and becoming an expert at backstabbing and manipulating. Through her manipulation she learns to control everyone around her, because according to this theory people and situations influence each other

The story that Bully shares are about five youths who get heavily perpetrated by cruel acts, that end them up in unhealthy situations. The characters possess different qualities: racial backgrounds, sexual identities or medical challenges. Furthermore discussing the problem of the ongoing need to belong somewhere, yet not being truthful to oneself. This brings into consideration of the parents and school administration. School is tough as it is, yet a handful of people make it worse by unfairly treating someone based on superficial reasoning. Mean Girls tells a story of Cady Heron, who moves to North Shore high school after a twelve-year research trip in Africa, she is forced to assimilate into the American culture, one she is unfamiliar with. In the process of making friends, she gets involved with the problematic clique, The Plastics.

In the teen comedy Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters, the protagonist (Cady Heron) is welcomed into the stereotypical high school setting after being raised in Africa for all of her educational path. Cady, never being in a public-school setting, comes across the Plastics: Regina George (unspoken leader), Gretchen Wieners (gossip queen), and Karen Smith (the stupid, clueless one), who are at the top of the social pyramid. Befriended by the girls, Cady is left to decide whether or not she belongs in this clique or if her place exists in a different one. Throughout the film satirist and comedic scenes are used to show the different sexist lenses and stereotypes that women are viewed with.

This will be an introduction to a few of the functions of education and how they relate to the experiences of Cady Heron in the movie “Mean Girls”.