The Conflict Between The Protagonist And Antagonist In The Movie 'Mean Girls'

Examining the film Mean Girls, the use of tragedy in the film reflects on how the tragic hero goes through a rollercoaster of ups and downs throughout their high school experience. Johnson and Arp explain that the tragic hero has different parts of their character which contributes to what experience they are living through whether it may be good or bad experiences. Cady Heron, homeschooled at first for most of her life, is the new girl in school with little experience of what the outside world or society is really like but has a kind heart nonetheless. “He is great not primarily by virtue of his kingship but by his possession of extraordinary powers, by qualities of passion or aspiration or nobility of mind” (1294). Substantially, this is when the character starts the entirety of becoming a tragic hero. They begin by finding their good fortune or acceptance into society amongst them just like in Mean Girls Cady gets accepted into the “Plastics”, the classic queen bees who rule high school, as part of her acceptance into the highschool life and not knowing the problems yet to come as being a Plastic. The Plastics containing Regina, Gretchen, and Karen are known for being the most popular, having a lavish lifestyle, with snarky attitudes and creating drama around them. Furthermore, the next portion of a tragic hero is “middling” where the

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

Many know and it is obvious to realize that there is a dominant theme in the movie Mean Girls: manipulation. The theme

To start, characters are very similar in both Mean Girls and The Lord of the Flies. Two similar antagonists are Jack from Lord of the Flies and Regina George from Mean Girls; in both cases, they are a representation of savagery. While Jack paints his face and barbarically hunts pigs, Regina does nothing of the sort. She instead destroys confidence with sharp words and rules the roost with perfect smiles and lies. Both exemplify savagery, not necessarily in the traditional sense, but in a very real way. Contrastingly, protagonists appear very similarly through characterization and descriptions. Both Ralph (from Lord of the Flies) and Cady Heron (from Mean Girls) are charismatic and authoritative. Both start with a natural charisma, which in turn lends them

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

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 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.

Cady Heron is the main character (played by Lohan) who narrates through out the movie. She spent her whole

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.

Damian. Janis is your average outcast teenager who loves to wear all black and Damian is flaming gay. One of the first scenes in the movie Janis gives Cady a map she drew of the lay out of the lunchroom. Each table is labeled according to the social group they identify themselves with. Some of the social groups she mentions include the “Asian nerds, varsity jocks, the unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, the burnouts, and the worst of them all, the Plastics” (2004). Janis and Damian challenge Cady to “become one of the Plastics” so she can obtain the infamous Burn Book. The Plastics are the most popular girls in the school and the hottest and meanest of them was Regina George. Regina befriends Cady and she finds herself trying to acquire the label as an official Plastic so she will no longer be the new girl. Cady notices her classmates accept her new status and she uses this recognition in her favor. It is important to recognize that the behaviors of the Plastics are deviant and challenge social norms. Although this is obvious to the audience of the movie, the student body at North Shore does not recognize this because they are too distracted by the Plastics status quo. Cady’s primary deviance is seen in the scene where Regina invites her over to her house to hang out with the other Plastics. While hanging out, Regina shows her the Burn Book where she comes across a picture of Janis and her friend from math club, Kevin. The Burn Book includes

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).

The message of a film is what it revolves around, and what the filmmaker is trying to portray; a strong message makes for a successful film. Mean Girls and Bully have that in common. They correlate the message of not fitting in with a crowd, therefore the characters modify themselves in an attempt to please others. The Plastics initiate a conversation with Cady, where first they offer her an invite, followed by listing all the rules she needs to follow to be allowed to join the group. She goes along because it is for the purpose of the hoax that Janis plots (Waters 13:40). Cady is confined with how she dresses, who she is seen with and how she interacts, otherwise she is seen less as. It is unlike her personality to act so feminine and mean because she has a different taste. Even Gretchen is unhappy in the group, “She knew that it was better to be in The

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 film that I chose to do was the movie Mean Girls. This movie is filled with many funny characters and an amusing plot, but even though this movie has earned the crown of being the official “chick flick” it has a lot of psychological concepts that people really do not realize. However, when you really think about it, the movie has a lot to relate with when it comes to teenagers going into a new school because every teen that enters high school goes though the emotional and social stages of development. In this paper we will be looking at parts of the movie that focus on Cady and her stages of development as she goes through high school and deals with the Plastics, and then the Plastics themselves as well as certain aspects and things that revolve around them throughout the movie.

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