Sociological Themes In Mean Girls

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

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).

After I read this article, I was shock. I was shock about the fact that woman-on-woman harassment was a huge problems in the U.S. As the Workplace Bullying Institute stated, “Thirty-five percent of Americans reported being bullied at work.” Also, female bullies are more frequently than male bullies. There are many reasons to cause woman-on-woman harassment. For example, women’s appearance, women’s unapologetic use of power, and the sexist environment. Unlike the man, men are usually help each others out. I believe the cause of woman-on-woman harassment in work is jealousy in lower level workers and negative stereotypes to the lower level in higher levels workers. Even though they are not willing to be

The 1998 film, Pleasantville, written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross is a “swell” example of the three perspectives of sociology. Two 1990 teenagers get trapped in the blue-sky world of a 1950’s sitcom. While spending time with the people in the small town of Pleasantville, the teens begin to drastically change the the bland ways of the townspeople and alter their world completely. Throughout these events, viewers can find examples of the functionalist perspective, interactionist perspective, and conflict perspective.

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.

Mean Girls (2004) follows the journey of sixteen year old Cady (Lindsay Lohan) in her first year at a public school in suburban America - a stark contrast to the previous twelve years of her life: being homeschooled in Africa. Cady moves to Evanston, Illinois and soon finds herself in with 'The Plastics ', the "teen royalty" of Northshore High School, led by the 'Queen Bee ', Regina George (Rachel McAdams).

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.

This movie is a great example of social groups, leadership, culture, norms, society, nature and nurture, and social lives. This movie represents how the American culture chooses our social class in society. Some sociologists believed that lifestyle choices are an important influence on our social class position (Giddens, 209). Our class position is the way we dress, where we eat, where we sleep, and how we relax (Giddens,

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.

Sociologists use many different theoretical perspectives to study the behavior of people in society. According to Macionis, sociology uses both a micro-level and macro-levels to look at both the big picture and the smallest details (p.17). There are three major analytical models in sociology that include functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction. Both functionalism and conflict theory are macro-level and symbolic interaction is micro-level (Macionis, P.19). Each one looks at society in a different way and can in this paper I will analyze the movie “The Breakfast Club” using these perspectives.

Commonly referred to as a classic by millennials, Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters in 2004, allows an interesting critique of racism when viewed through a sociological lens. The story follows Cady Herron, a normal teenager- except for the fact that she grew up in Africa, homeschooled by her scientist parents- as she is forced to integrate into the public-school system in Illinois. Never having been in an institution like a public school, Cady quickly learns what not to do and who to hang out with. Through trial and error, Cady assimilates and becomes a ‘normal’ American teenager who is part of the ‘popular’ crowd, befriending “The Plastics”; Karen Smith, Gretchen Wieners, and their leader, Regina George. The story of Mean Girls is not as superficial as it seems. This film illustrates the perils of not only teenage life, but current life in America, and accurately depicts the struggles that minorities face. Looking at this movie through Functionalist theory, the racial aggressions present are part of a larger institution of the public school system; insinuating that the micro and macro-aggressions directed towards minorities are part of developing the future generation and teaching them to perpetuate racial inequality in America, allowing white people to remain the majority race and to reap the benefits that come with it. The complexity of the movie lies within an interesting discourse that examines the effects and functions behind the racist

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