Analysis of American Mean Girls - Movie Review Example

Mean Girls Mean Girls Introduction The dissertation intends to study the America movie mean girls, which is a 2004 America film and is an Academy Award winning comedy. The main character, Cady Heron, is a teenage girl who was home schooled by her parents in the study of animal in Africa, and she enters high school in the United States for the first time. Not only is it her first time in a real school, she also has to adapt to the unknown world of high school life in the United States.” For example, the American high school life in the cafeteria that seating is determined by the group and there is a variety of rules. The ones who reign on the top of the high school hierarchy are “mean girls “. They are fashionable and popular, yet，they are “mean” characters or have talked about behind most of the students. The girl accidentally joined the ’plastic’ group, exposing her to a lot of troubles and drama of high school. Synopsis of mean girls Mean girls is a 2004 American teenager comedy-drama directed by Mark Waters. The screenplay was written by Tina Fey and is based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describe how female high school social cliques operate and the effect they have on girls .The film was produced by Saturday Night Live (SNL). Cady is a 16-year –old home-school student of zoologist parents. They come back to US after residing on Africa for many years. Cady is shook for her first day of public high school life. With the help of Janis and Damien, Cady knows about the social circles of school. She is warned to avoid the school’s most exclusive clique, the plastics, which take an interest In Cady and invite her to sit with them for lunch and go shopping after school. Once Cady has been accepted by the Plastic, Janis takes revenge on Regina, using Cady to infiltrates the plastic. Having joined their trio group, Cady learns about the “Burn book”, a top secret notebook of Regina’s filled with vicious, secrets, and gossip about all the other girls (and teachers) in their class. Cady soon fall in love with Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels. However, Regina successfully grab back from Cady because of jealous. Hurt and frustrated, Cady continues with Janis’ plan which regards cutting off Regina’s resources, which include separating her from Aaron , destroying her beauty by giving her high calorie nutrition bars by claiming that they actually help one to lose weight, and turning Regina’s fellow plastics, insecure rich girl Gretchen and sweet but ditzy Karen ,against her. She intentionally misleads Gretchen to think that Regina regards Cady as a better friend instead of her. In the efforts to get revenge on Regina, Cady gradually losses her individual personality and becomes as spiteful as Regina, abandoning Janis and Damien in the process and focusing more on her own image. Regina strikes back, spreading the entire contents of her Burn Book around the school, inciting a riot. Regina insets a fake slander of herself in the book in order to focus blame on Cady, Gretchen, and Karen. The riot is controlled by the principle and teachers in the end. Math teacher, Mrs. Norbury, who also appeared in the Burn Book in which Cady slandered her by saying that she sold drugs, makes the girls realize that all of them are guilty of hurting their peers. She has each girl confess and apologize to the rest. When Janis turn came, Regina made an insulting joke about her sexuality, at which the rest laugh. Janis attacks by confessing her plan to destroy Regina with Cady’s help and openly mocks Regina with the support of the crowd. Regina rushed out, pursed by an apologetic Cady, and was get hit by a school bus in her haste. Rumors depict that Cady intentionally pushed Regina in front of the bus. Everyone in the school distrusted her, including Aaron and her own parents. Cady decides to make amends by taking full blame for the Burn Book. After all this, she returns to her old personality. She joins the math competition as the only girl of their team, which is part of her punishment and transformation. Cady has elected as Spring Fling Queen, but in her acceptance speech, she openly declares her victory is meaningless and everyone is fantastic in their own way,thus, she breaks her tiara into pieces and distributes the fragments to her classmates. Cady makes up with Janis and Damien, reconciles with Aaron, become true instead of Plastics. The film ends with the plastics disbanding by the start of new school year. The girl’s world she lives in is at peace. Analysis The idea of Mean Girls comes from a book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, Author Rosalind Wiseman also appears in the movie trivia. This book is not a story novel, but the description and analysis of girls’ small social circle in USA high schools so that to provide the family education suggestions. The American mass media culture to the feminine image focused on appearance and advocates superficial aesthetic, it would cause huge influence on young girls. High school girls are in the transition period before being mature adult, to some extent, the majority of them are anxiety as well as sensitive to their position .They want to become the perfect queen bee, Bobbi doll, hope to get attention from the appearance -- few people think rationally about their inner beauty. However, there is always a few girls at the top of the pyramid. America high school generally there are several "perfect" girls, also known as Queen Bees, in a sense, other girls envy of Queen Bees, jealous and hate, At the same time, queen bees are not flawless, while they have inferior side. Rosalind Wiseman and Tina think, mean girls is to speak ill of others, in order to divert attention, to cover up their own shortcomings, make themselves better than others. The film through the story to explain that belittle others does not betteryourself at any aspects, ruin peoples lives would not make yours more comfortable. This film wrote girls’ many defects, but it also witnessed a girl from a simple and eye-catching, then to be deserted by her followers, eventually return to the growth process of the common. Since it is the youth’s world, contradictions are relatively simple, movie atmosphere is not need to be sad with deep hatred and resentment, so the director put the film into comedy, always revealed jokes when touched you. Youth is full of imagination. They will fantasy scenes in their mind, director interspersed such imaginary scenes in the story. At some point there is huge difference between imagination and reality, in the movie, Regina deliberately flirted the boy who Cady crushed on in front of Cady, at same time, Cady imagined if they were in the Africa, what animal would do in the face of such situation, but in fact she echoed with Regina opinion and said “yes”. Similar to genrecomedy, ‘mean girls’ has a perfect and happy ending. The protagonist is a great in her way, who had shortcomings, who made mistakes. However, she took the step furtherthatothers cannot,not everyone has such brave, so when Cady took firm steps apologize to Regina before fountain. Films have taught us the true meaning of life is to solve problems in front of you. The movie also exhibits a significant component of tribal drumming that is seen frequently in the course of the movie. The Mean Girls, therefore, carries the viewer into the world between civilization and the jungle. There is dominance of cross-cultural encounters and conflicting moments in relation to the same, largely due to the background from which Cady originates, Africa (Vena & Kash, 2009). The aspect of the cultural influence cannot be overlooked as seen in Cady’s perception of school, whose basis is the African culture and belief of the same. In addition, there are many aspects of stereotypes that are jokingly integrated in the play, particularly at the time when Cady enters the class the first time, together with the teacher upon being notified that there was a new student in the class, whose origin was Africa. Instead, the teacher mistakenly welcomes another American black student and not her. On the other hand, encounters that include the girl confronting her to ask why she looked white yet she claimed to come from Africa. Another notable incident is when Cady greets a group of black girls in a typical tribal fashion and instead earns confused stares from them (Vena & Kash, 2009). The fact that people are too quick to believe her when she says almost everybody in Africa was capable of reading Swedish is an indication of the high level of ignorance on the apart of her peers, as well as demonstrating just how less interested they were in matters that occurred in the continent they least valued. This on its own demonstrates the prejudice and discrimination against the black people in the American society, in which nothing from the blacks’ land was regarded valuable (Vena & Kash, 2009). During several occasions, Cady gives a comparison of the new surrounding in school to the wild African jungle every time she comes across unknown situation. On her first day in school, for instance, she finds a strange resemblance to the world of animals (Vena & Kash, 2009). The people on the campus demonstrate behaviors she perceives as being disturbing and rather odd which could be associated to the apes’. Her knowledge on the rule of animals of the jungle is apparently valid to the situations she witnesses. For example, it appears odd how the new culture exhibited many confrontations, struggles and lack of patience for each other, and she predicts head to head fights as the only way to find solutions to the expected tussles (Vena & Kash, 2009). The culture shock suffered by Candy is another prominent feature of the movie, with contemporary expressions appearing foreign to her. She is not able to match to the simple, common knowledge aspects of the youth culture. For example, she fails to distinguish between band and music culture from actors. Cultural alimentation by many people in America, particularly evident in Cady’s parents, is another factor that has had great influence on the moral corruption in youths. Cady’s parents, by virtue of having spent much time away from their native land, are not in touch with their cultural practices anymore (Vena & Kash, 2009). In this case, therefore, it is not easy for them to ground their daughter, and this inevitably leads to problems with them. The father, in his interpretation, understood grounding as the practice of not letting her daughter leave their house, and this could not be instituted with ease. The conflicting cultural experiences Cady goes through prior to her eventual discovery of the middle path between the two marks an important period of development in her, and this inevitably affects her personality development. The American comedy is undoubtedly an outcome of a certain form of tension from both the social and sexual view points. Vena and Kash (2009) say the perspective is much common in much comedy as it brings out a relation of the different social classes and how the purported superior classes are bound to influence behavior development in the inferior groups within their groups. There is a deliberate attempt by the film maker to bring out the popular and unpopular cliques within high schools. For instance, it is by use of this that the filmmaker questions the notion that the Americans gives more value to social meritocracy and could make indirect comments on the American dream. According to this comedy in particular, there is a significant level of mockery of the popular crowd. From the context of the information presented and the emphasis and views provided in variable view points, it is easy to see a clear picture that the purported superior group does not portray the same to the outside society from which the students come (Vena & Kash, 2009). As a social being, humankind is expected, through the unwritten laws and regulations of co-existence, to abide by a certain level of moral expectations, to whose contrary acting renders the person unacceptable to the society. In this respect, therefore, the apparent odd behaviors by the mean girl garcon do not reflect the norms for which the society stands. The extent of moral and psychological corruption of the group’s mentality to the student’s individual personality cannot be ignored. It is interesting how the small twist in environment and settings manages to change Candy’s personality into a rather intolerable and perfectly odd, from the previous naïve but moral personality (Vena & Kash, 2009). She confesses of her changed behavior and personality, but still believes it is preferable being in the plastic group, where someone hated life, as opposed to not being in it. Such a sentiment shows the level of desperation among the peers for recognition and fame, even at the expense of losing one’s own life in the course of it. Teenage is associated with self-realization and apparent shaping of one’s personality. It could have been assumed, however, that the very virtue that it is within the same period that the individual acquires high-level of scientific, social and cultural education simultaneously, the integration of this into their own mental growth would yield a complete all-round individual (Vena & Kash, 2009). However, the case presented herein fails to respect any role played by the education and other developmental related teachings acquired by the peers. As Candy puts it, the glory that the group received from the rest of the students could not be sacrificed for ‘mere’ morality and uprightness. The drive for social success demonstrated by the peers in school, as observed in Cady’s aspirations is also viewed to be influenced by other external factors. For instance, it is evident that Cady realizes that the social prominence aspiration is not the solution to her problems, considering the desperate moments she undergoes at this time (Vena & Kash, 2009). However, the drastic contrast of cultural practices between her previous African setup and the new American culture plays significantly towards the confusing experience she realizes. Originally, she has maintained a rather conservative and simple life, where moral good surpassed public portrayals and self glorification. In this respect, cultural imbalances and variability emerge as important aspects for individual growth. Cady’s new developments are a perfect reflection of cultural incompatibilities and how this is bound to impact on different persons. There have always been experienced culture-related issues across the social, economic, and political aspects of human life (Vena & Kash, 2009). The evidence of this is business has been the cultural shock suffered by many workers moving into foreign nations, which has become a common phenomenon in the globalization process of today. There is no doubt that Mark Walter uses Mean Girls to bring out the existence of tension between the socially unbalanced realities and the meritocratic ideal of the American population. It is on this basis that the comedy is launched as demonstrated through the main characters’ misadventures nature. The American population is a representative of a widely diverse society, with all factions of cultural, social, religious and social personalities within it (Vena & Kash, 2009). Even as this could be thought of as being an ideal setting where integration and embrace of the diverse beliefs and practices could enhance the society’s existence, it has not been easy for the American population. The racial, ethnic and cultural intolerance in this population has become a norm, with certain groups either considering or being considered to be superior to others. The otherwise underrated groups would thus find it miserably difficult practicing their respective beliefs within the settings (Brooks, 2012). The cultural integrity of other ethnic groups has drastically waned with the dominant foreign practices corrupting the initially moral livelihood of the minorities. The supremacy battle does not seem to end, as demonstrated through the comedy, where Cady, despite her initially wide acceptable lifestyle in the context of her cultural practices, stops at nothing in ensuring she does not become as victim of desperation and frustrations that come with being considered a lesser being that one would wish to be. Compare with mean girls 2 Teenagers are relatively unstable, in the process of becoming mature. At this stage of their life, they might be moody, unruly. It is a time in a one’s life when they break the bonds of childhood and enter into a world against where they learn to rebel against their parents and obsess about popularity. For some teenage girls, in order to acquire this popularity they try to be thin, busty, and wear revealing clothing while gossiping about their peers and spending their time worrying about boys and parties rather than their academics. However, where did this image of how to be a popular teenage come from? For decades, teen film has portrayed popular teenage girls this way and the film mean girls is no exceptions. This film not only displays how the world expects teenage girls to act but also how difficult it is for teenage girls to resist acting this way, in the following paragraph, I will contrast both Mean Girls 1 and means girls 2 by their similarities and differences. Two movies take place at high school campus simultaneously. The story are revolves around the same cliques, there are the plastics. The plastics leader and the two followers exist in the two films. By chance, there are a new girl appear, who just joined the new high school. New girls make friends with the outcast. The new girls have lost their trust from their friends in the process of fighting with the plastic, as a result, they become mean instead, underlying lose conscious of it. They struggle to change back to their old personality. There are magical clothing changes of the new girl in both films. The plot of both films are determined by female actors, and the male actor’s influence are inevitable, however, not the leading one. Theory Impression formation refers to the process by which individual pieces of information about others are integrated to form a global impression of the individual. The impression formation processes that have been chosen to relate with mean girls is the primary-recency effect. The reason for the choice is because there are several instances and scenes in the movie that show this effect at work, which we will discuss in the next part of this paper. A simple explanation of the primary-recency effect is offered by Devito; if what comes last exerts the most influence, you have a recency effet. Studies have shown that college students perceived a person who was described with positive characteristics in a better light than one who described the other way around.This is because we have the tendency to use initial information to form a general idea about a person and identify later information to support the schema we have found. It is hard to reform a schema because once it is formed in our minds as solid perceptions, it is hard to contradict. At the same time, schema that others form of you can function as a filter to admit or block additional information about you. this might be why first impression are so important; it is when we first form a schema and tend to add or reject following information based on this initial schema. Our tendency to give greater weight to early information and interpret later information can lead us to formulate a total picture of an individual on the basis of initial impression on the basis of initial impression that may not be precise. The movie portrays the important roles played by parents towards influencing different lifestyles. As the movie starts, there is a close relationship between Cady and her parents but her continuous involvement with the Plastic leads in development of deception and lies in her, and this does not result in a good relationship with her parents (Vena & Kash, 2009). On the other hand, Regina’s background does not show any presence of regulations or rules to govern her movements, behavior and lifestyle developments. From this, it is easy for the viewers to admire the close relationship that once existed between Cady and her parents, based on the behavioral morality that this brought to her, or they could equally desire to become the pushover parents, who have no guidelines or regulations to influence the development of the it children behavior and personalities (Vena & Kash, 2009). It is evident that the mode of relationship to exist between a parent and a teenager, in the American context, is largely on the basis of how the teenager treats his or her parents. There is much absurdness in the manner Regina treats her mum. On the contrary, there is existence of mutual respect between Candy and her parents. The place of parents in child development can thus not be ignored. The movie is validly reflective of the modern society where the dynamic economic demands have inevitably revolutionized the roles and positions parents in child up-bringing (Vena & Kash, 2009). There has been a great move of women into employed jobs, a factor that has undermined the initial roles played by mothers in taking care of the children. As a result, there has been a significant level of negligence on the part of the parents with the role of children mentorship left in the hands of other institutions like schools. However, with the evidence of the stray behaviors occurring in the school settings, where the authorities therein have little control over them, it is apparent that such institutions cannot instill the desired moral uprightness to the children hence the ever-growing moral divergence from the societal norms (Vena & Kash, 2009). Sexual promiscuity is another important aspect evident in the movie, as read from the main characters. There is the transformation undergone by Cady, particularly seen in comparison of the two phases of her life, both before and after her adoption of the plastics lifestyle. For instance, as she grew taller, the level of her clothing grew shorter, the more she became more sensitive with her cosmetic portrayals, and the general outlook and public appeal (Brooks, 2012). She puts on more makeup than she had ever done and is at this point that she moves to acquire Aaron, the former boyfriend of her close friend. It could be argue that Cady inevitably succumbs to the peer pressure Cady is subjected to from both Regina and the plastics and she has to move quick as she aims at integrating herself into their system of life. Like any other young person, especially within the group of peers that prioritized publicity over their intrinsic personalities, finding sex partners becomes her priority, and this prompts the promiscuous life she eventually enters into (Brooks, 2012). It can be seen from this that many teens think the more sexually exposed they look, the more popularity they are bound to receive, or that their male counterparts would admire them more. However, this is not the case, if Aaron’s perspective is to go by. It is apparent that Aaron’s admiration for Cady had been largely based on her moral conservativeness and her independence from the plastics (Brooks, 2012). However, following her integration into the group, a move she believed would enhance her attractiveness towards Aaron, the contrary happens as the latter finds her less attractive. This is another notable feature the conflict between culture and social perceptions in the US. Whereas majority of the modern population would perceive western lifestyles as the most valid mode of life, it is not the case in the eyes of the rest. As understood, morality is not enforceable or punishable by law, and this makes it a voluntary aspect of humanity (Brooks, 2012). Cady could have sacrificed her moral uprightness for fame among peers, but this only makes her promiscuous, which is an intolerable vise in the society. Recommendation The comedy Mean Girls is an entertaining presentation that typically expresses the lifestyle of many peers in the school, all of which have truth. The play is as informative as it is entertaining particularly the sense of humor demonstrated through the actors’ minds and actions. It is largely recommendable, therefore, for the American community to enhance intercultural interactions and tolerance for the purpose of cohesion and mutual co-existence. Humankind is a social being and with the rampant globalization movement, the world has generally been made smaller with interactions among them made more easy and convenient. As much as the movie has significant aspects of humor, there are equally serious stereotyping backgrounds with fairly prominent consequences of the same. The drastic transformation of the initially innocent girl into a morally unstable girl, as a result of cultural corruption marks the climax of the play, serving as a good lesson for the community, and giving a green light on how best to ensure diversity is effectively adopted and practiced. References Brooks, R, L. (2012). Cultural diversity: its all about the mainstream.Monist, 95(1), p17- 32.  Vena, J., & Kash, T. (2009). "Nick Cannon: Mariah Careys Not Dissing Eminem In Obsessed". MTV News (MTV). Archived from the original on June 25, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2010. Read More