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. …show more content…
Similar to the stereotype of physical appearance connected to identity, appearance is also connected to power among the girls in Mean Girls. Because of the role appearance plays in one’s identity and power, Regina George in Mean Girls pays close attention to her appearance. While watching Regina and her friends attend their P.E. class, Janis and Damian explain Regina George to Cady.
JANIS: Regina George. How do I even begin to explain Regina George?
RANDOM COMMENTS ABOUT REGINA: Regina George is flawless. She has two Fendi bags and a silver Lexus. I hear her hair is insured for $10,000. I hear she does car commercials in Japan. Her favorite movie is “Varsity Blues.” One time she met John Stamos on a plane. And he told her she was pretty. One time she punched me in the face. It was awesome.
Regina’s “flawless” appearance established her power among other girls. Among high school girls, power is stereotypically established through looks. As shown in Mean Girls, girls will look up the person they feel has the ideal appearance. The random comments said about Regina indicate that she is idolized by many of the girls attending North Shore High School. Other girls know everything about her, because they want to be just like her. This entrenches Regina’s position at the school. In contrast to Regina and other girls from Mean Girls, the boys on the island use fear to establish power. There are
Regina started to spent less time at home and more time reading in the woods. They move again to Rocky Point during the winter, once they get there Cookie leaves to be with new boyfriend Red Devil, leaving them alone, not registered for school, without food and without heat. Regina’s older sister Cherie get’s sick of pneumonia and social services took them away once again. After Cherie recovers Cookie regains custody and Karl has agreed to return if Cookie stops drinking, the day Cookie came home smelling like alcohol Karl left. That year they go visit their grandparents are rejected and for the next two months they are living in their mother’s car. They are left alone in the car at night when she goes with someone to spend the night. When they do find someplace to live they have to leave due to the neighbors noticing the children are not going to school, are again living in the car. A few months later both Cherie and Camille moveout. When their mom gets a job at a Deli live in a room upstairs from it. Cookie gets upset when Regina comes home late resulting with her mother throwing a pan when Camille intervene her mother pushes her down the stairs. She was taken to the hospital. The hospital staff did not ask about their mother or went deeper into the story they told. Regina knew her sisters were not going to stay she decided to get a job at age 11 at the same place her mother works in. Her mother would
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
Regina George is a sixteen-year-old Caucasian female. She is a junior at North Shore High School, and comes a very wealthy family. Regina is in great physical health and participates in sports at her school. She is known as the meanest girl at her school, which allows her to reign as the “queen bee” of her clique, the Plastics, and of her school. Regina suffers from Histrionic Personality Disorder, which is a Cluster B Personality Disorder, classified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-Fifth Edition.
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.
Perception has three important components: the perceiver, the target and the situation. Different perceivers have different life, which leads them to have different experience and situations. Perceivers may have different targets base on their surroundings and friends. These are all the conditions to make perception existence and diversity. In the movie mean girls, the main role Cady Heron used to live in Africa, since she is a home-schooled, she has never experienced the school life. As a perceiver, In Cady’s perception, although she is familiar with the
The teen comedy Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters, welcomes the protagonist (Cady Heron) 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. The use of satirist and comedic scenes throughout the film show the different sexist lenses and stereotypes that women are viewed with.
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 about this new girl Cady Heron who becomes friends with The Plastics. Cady befriends this group of clique as a way to spy on them with the help of her friends Damian and Janis. In the Plastics Regina George can be seen as the Alpha of the group, Gretchen Wieners can be seen as an insecure person and Karen Smith was portrayed as an airhead. In the movie Cady begins to have a crush on Regina’s-ex boyfriend, Aaron Samuels, Regina finding out about this Kisses Aaron Samuels and become his girlfriend again purposely hurting Cady. Throughout the movie Regina can be seen doing mean things or saying mean things to other. According to the DSM-5 Histrionic Personality Disorder is categorized as a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionally and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.
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.
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 need to create an identity for oneself is a strong human desire with an intensity that is equaled only by the craving to become part of a community. With such strong yearnings for individuality as well as a sense of attachment within a group, the most familiar consequence is conflicting emotions that are all too easily persuaded. The 2004 film Mean Girls exhibits various examples of identification and social influence as well as the level of persuasion they hold over the decision making process of the main character, Cady. After arriving at a new school, Cady is immediately accepted by two unpopular students, but then attempts to become noticed by the most popular group of girls, The Plastics. Once Cady is accepted by The Plastics, her moral compass, belief systems, and actions change in order to more closely reflect those around her and solidify her status
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
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.