Mean Girls - the Hero's Journey

     Almost Famous (2000) is a dramatization of writer/director Cameron Crowe’s real-life experiences as a teenage rock reporter for Rolling Stone. Based on thinly-veiled autobiographical material from the precocious beginnings of Crowe’s early career, the screenplay shapes sentimental memories into movie magic. But how did Crowe give his own coming-of-age tale such universal appeal? A closer look reveals that Almost Famous, like most films worth their salt, is yet another incarnation of the greatest and only mythological adventure, “The Hero’s Journey.” This relationship can be explained using the framework of Joseph Campbell’s phenomenal book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,

In the movie Mean Girls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEQV2OJVBx4), there is a scene where the Plastics all go to visit Regina George’s house (Regina is the Queen Bee of the Plastics). In this scene we meet Regina’s mom who greets the girls like they are all friends, she then proceeds to tell the girls that there are no rules in the house. This is apparent when we then see how Regina speaks to her mother, and how she treats others throughout the duration of the movie.

Leonard. S., & McCLure. M. (2004). Myth & knowing: An introduction to world mythology. New York, NY:

Cady is known for her fiercely feminist beliefs, and these began to form when she was still a young girl. Her mother gave birth to eleven children, but only five survived to adulthood. This left the family with four girls and only one son, who eventually died at age twenty. Cady’s father was incredibly upset that he had lost all the male heirs in the family. At the time, Cady was just eleven years old and tried to reassure her father. He replied “Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy”. (Miller) This reaction from her father motivated Cady to show her family that she could be as equally skilled as any man, and she tried to please her father by training in subjects such as Greek

Through Cady’s subjective narration, the audience is able to experience how Cady transformed from a sheltered, homeschooled girl into a girl in the world of mainstream schooling. This helped to shape the subject of egocentrism throughout the film by showing how often times the pressure to fit in causes one to become vain. For example when the film begins, the audience hears how Cady is confused in the “world” of public school. She does not understand the social norms or how there is a sort of “hierarchy of classes” within the school due to the different levels of popularity. As the film progresses and she tries to fit in with the popular group of girls, the plastics, the audience notices how she begins to become self-absorbed. Cady tells the audience that she could feel herself getting more and more annoying and that she knew that the things that she was doing, such as ditching her friends and family for the plastics, were wrong but

As Cady moves to America from Africa where she was homeschooled for the past fifteen years, Cady has little to no idea of the expectations of high school. As you can expect, Cady undergoes obvious character transformation from

The family of Cady consist of her educated mother and father who were both encouraging and loving, they help shape Cady to who she has become during her early stages of life. While transitioning into girl world Cady has forgotten the valuable lessons taught to from her parents. Cady was fully aware of her own decision making in school and knew some of them were wrong. The feeling of belonging to a group and having Solidarity of common similarities that unite a group was a very important to her. This was shown when singing the Christmas carol with Regina and friends wearing very tight skirts and dancing inappropriately. Secondary agent of socialization integrate people into society social norms. In that school it was absolutely acceptable to act "in slot-ish ways" because that’s is considered to be cool. Cady's parents expression showed shock and disbelief, that their daughter acted inappropriately on

The focus of the two concepts on the group of the ‘mean girls’. The ‘means girls’ approach Cady to join the group for lunch at their table for the first time and Regina tells Cady that she is now a part of the group. The two concepts I have chosen for this essay to focus on is obedience and deindivisualisation. This scene exhibits the concept of obedience in multiple examples.

This motion picture is a well-written teenage comedy filled with raging hormones, cliques, humiliation and retribution. Cady Heron is a teenager who is about to encounter the rapture and horrors of high school for the first time. Homeschooled her whole life, Cady’s parents raised her in Africa for twelve years while they completed research for their careers in zoology. After returning to America, Cady must walk the line through one of the worst times in her life.

The film follows the life of Cady Heron and her encounters with a group of girls called “The Plastics”. Cady is often faced with the concept of “girl world”, which she is entirely unprepared to handle. Wiseman and Fey each put a unique

Cady Heron grew up in africa and was homeschooled by her scientist parents. Cady moves to Illinois and enters the scary reality of public high school. She is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school. They are gorgeous, rich, exclusive girls led by a evil Barbie doll named Regina George. Cady be friends with social outcasts Janis and Damian. She makes the mistake of liking Aaron Samuels, Regina’s ex boyfriend. Regina is quick to resolve the problem resulting in a very angry Cady. Cady stays close to The Plastics in order to give Regina a dose of her own medicine. The trouble is, the more Cady pretends to be a Plastic, the more she becomes one. She sets out to teach Regina a lesson, but learns a valuable one herself:

Anne Provoost: "Through mythology we are trying to define ourselves as humans next to this big concept-call it "God"-that we don 't understand. The thunder, the lightening, the floods, the fires. We are, through history, bringing ourselves more and more to the foreground. So mythology is really about finding your own spot in your perception next to the gods."

The documentary “Gods and Goddesses” introduces and explains various figures of Greek mythology and the presumed powers they held over the human world. It also provides explanation of Greek heroes, rituals, and stories that traveled throughout Ancient Greece and other cultures. It’s through the use of interviews with historical experts and Greek artifacts that the documentary provides a detailed introduction of Greek mythology and the ancient civilization it thrived in.

Myths were stories that were created and used to teach the nature of the world, and to also explain the importance of practicing certain rituals within their religion. These tales were also used to discuss man’s experience to teach an important

Zeus hurls his thunderbolt and the world trembles. Odin invites fallen warriors in the halls of Valhalla for a drink. Jesus Christ spreads the words of his father and gathers disciples. Buddha sits and meditates the meaning of the universe. Across the world there have always been mythological stories. From the first civilization to modern times, mythologies help explain the vents of the world and attempt to provide answers for unanswerable questions. Though every mythology appears different, if one looks close enough, commonalities appear. Joseph Campbell spent his life studying mythologies and religions along with compiling the commonalities amongst them. This study on the works of Joseph Campbell focuses on the following areas: