It can be contended that varying contemporary texts which have been created for both children and young adults endorse post-feministic values and the importance of adhering to a consumer culture. The text Pink by Lili Wilkinson (2009) can be viewed as promoting post-feminist ideals through the inferences of dialog between characters; specifically, through the protagonist Ava. Additionally, the film Mean Girls (2004) mirrors similar ideologies as Pink which portrays a post-feminist society, revealing issues which individuals face once gender equality has largely been achieved. Both of these texts have been created for a young audience and utilise various narrative strategies to convey their ideological position. Accordingly, this essay will …show more content…
Mean Girls, set in Illinois, depicts the socio-political climate of an American high school, with it’s protagonist, Cady Heron moving from Africa and homeschooling to be socialised in her new society. The antagonist throughout the film, Regina George, is portrayed as an authoritarian woman who has total control of the school (Mean Girls 2004). Regina is shown to engage with numerous sexual partners at the same time and promotes her liberation through wearing a tee-shirt with her bra protruding out the front when she finds two holes cut at her breasts; motivating a new fashion trend throughout the cohort (Mean Girls 2004, Robinson-Cseke 2009, p. 45). This depiction of a strong, independent woman aligns with ‘Post-feminist texts-films, books, magazines and television programs characterised by a model of young womanhood that is empowered, successful, entitled, independent, socially mobile and free to choose her destiny’ (Toffoletti 2008, p. 72). Post feminism is further reflected in the film through the power change which occurs, transferring from Regina to Cady, mirroring the transfer of power from second wave feminism to post feminism. The tension between these two women can be attributed to more than personality differences, but rather ‘opposing territorial forces including middle …show more content…
Mean Girls utilizes first person perspective with the protagonist, Cady narrating the majority of the film. This technique allows viewers to personally empathise with the protagonist and take on their world perspective. Further, Mean Girls frequently goes to close up camera shots of different staff and students in the school to show the overall opinion of the protagonist at varying points of her transformation; revealing the height of Cady’s popularity occurred when adhering to the ‘plastics’ materialistic standards (Mean Girls 2004). Similarly, Pink is also narrated from a first person perspective with the protagonist Ava. Accordingly, the audience is positioned to align with Ava’s perspective such as when she says ‘When I’d wanted to change boxes and become pink and perfect, all I needed to do was change schools and buy some new outfits. Kobe couldn’t do that. People would always put him in the Asian box, along with everything that went with it’ (Wilkinson 2009, p. 150). In this way, this quote reveals how the protagonist conveys the message of Asian people never being able to break from the stereotypes associated with their nationality; highlighting how the author’s ideologies are conveyed through first person narration. Additionally, Wilkinson utilises intertextual references to characterise ‘the nerds of the story’, with
Lianne George was a writer for New York magazine and Metro TV, and a reporter on the arts for the National Post. Currently, she is a senior editor for Maclean’s, in which the article, “Why Are We Dressing Our Daughters Like This” was published. Maclean’s is a popular magazine which covers national and worldwide political and social issues concerning families in the United States and Canada. The targeted audience is educated, in the higher middle class, and around forty years old with an equal men and women reader ratio. In the article, George clearly shows how in society younger girls are shifting towards dressing more provocatively from marketers introducing them to sexual trends.
All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I was watching the movie “Mean Girls,” because it reminded me of the cliques and peer groups that were in my old high school. The movie is about a teenage girl who ends up becoming a part of this clique full of mean girls and after an incident she sets out to try and ruin the leader of the clique’s life. It was the cliques and peer groups that made me start thinking sociologically, because it made me look back and see how much I have changed since I came to the University of Kentucky, and left my old clique or peer group behind. In my sociology class I learned that a peer group is a “group of individuals who are often around the same age and are linked by common interests and orientations.”
Mean Girls: implicit and explicit social norms, conformity, obedience Cady Heron’s life changed dramatically when she moved to a suburban area in Illinois, after living in Africa and being homeschooled her whole life. She started at North Shore High and quickly got sucked into the stereotypical girl drama. Prior to the drama, Cady met two of her best friends Damian and Janis, who were apart of the out-caste clique.
The film Mean Girls, produced by Lorne Michaels and directed by Mark Waters in 2004 focuses on a teenage girl, Cady Heron, who experiences the drastic change of living and being home schooled in Africa to moving to America and attending a regular high school. While attempting to sabotage the plastics, the girls who hold the most popularity in the school, Cady unknowingly turns into one of them, leaving aspects of her old personality behind. By analyzing the film through sociological perspectives, the deeper meaning of the film can be revealed. Socialization Socialization is the process of connecting individuals to their community allowing individuals to experience new attitudes and perspectives.
Youth culture can pertain to interests in styles, music, clothes and sports. It also pertains to behaviours, beliefs, and vocabulary; this refers to the ways that teenagers conduct their lives. The concept behind youth culture is that adolescents are a subculture with norms, morals, behaviours and values that differ from the main culture of older generations within society. For instance, young men and women, teenagers in this case, are mostly represented as unpredictable and not easy to understand. In the film, Mean Girls directed by Mark Waters (2004), adolescents are represented as bullies, who use manipulation to achieve what they want and are two-faced with the people around them; they are constantly stereotyped as a high social group like the plastics and a low social group like the mathletes; also they are presented as young people that fall under peer pressure, and are overly concerned about their appearance and about being socially accepted.
Introduction The film, Mean Girls, a 2004 American teen comedy, focuses on female high school social “cliques” and their effects. In doing so, the movie brings up various topics of sociological relevance, with connections to two of the main topics discussed in the first semester of this course. This film’s characters and world tie into modern socialization and gender issues, giving sociologists a satirical in-depth view of the social hierarchy present in today’s youth—particularly concentrated in young female teenagers. The movie addresses gender stereotypes, socialization and assimilation into a complex high school environment, self-fulfilling prophecy, and various other concepts important to the development of a social self for teens in the
Conformity is present in every group situation with adolescents. Adolescents are always looking to be a part of a group, usually conforming to the standards of the group. Adolescents often conform because they want to have the approval of the peers that are well liked or “popular”. A great example of adolescents and conformity is in the chick flick ‘Mean Girls’ through the different cliques in high school and how it affects the peers themselves. Caty, the main character, is faced with several difficult situations where she decides to conform with her high school peers getting her in trouble that becomes hard for her to escape.
However, she claims that because class was invisible in the girls ‘social life, the school blame their sexualized style, their rejection of prep’s values and their lack of school success for their class differences. Most important, Bettie claims that the lack of cultural capital also affected the working class girls because it intersected with their race and gender to influence their class futures. For example, Bettie argues how upwardly mobile girls had to performed whiteness and the school sanctioned femininity just to possessed the prep’s dominant cultural capital. At the same time, girls who didn’t possessed cultural capital were victims of generalizations and stereotypes that affected their class outcomes. As a result, many of the working class girls were destined to follow rough paths or the same low paying jobs as their
It centers on females and how they act at that certain age. The four mean girls, Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, Karen Smith and Cady Heron represent the stereotypes of the popular girls of high school. The role of gender plays an important role in the movie. The movie discusses the aspects of how a “typical” teenage girl should be, in order for her to fit in.
The film Mean Girls is an American comedy movie for teens that illustrates the mainstream high school experience in the west. The main character, Cady Heron is a sixteen-year-old girl who is a new student at bob school in Illinois. Cady moved from being home-schooled in Africa, and therefore is unaware of the environment and lifestyle at a public high school. Cady then meets Daemon and Janis, who are part of an outcast group. Janis and Damien expose Cady to the norms of their school, talking her through cliques, and most importantly introducing her to “the plastics”, a group that Janis and Damian hated.
This was seen towards the end of the movie as Cady began to realize her conformity resulted in her being known as the North Shore’s bully and “mean girl.” At the end of the movie you see Cady realizing what her conformity has done to her social identity and begins to change her conformed attributes and apologize for her
The topic of self confidence is a subject that is heavily discussed when it comes to girls of all ages. Journalist, Stephanie Hanes, examines the current trend of sexualization amongst young girls. In the article “Little Girls or Little Women: The Disney Princess Effect”, Hanes examines the current trend of sexualization amongst girls. She addresses the issue of desiring to become a women too soon. Hanes develops her article by using the literary techniques of pathos and logos to describe the emotions young girls feel when they see images of women with unattainable features.
In the movie Mean Girls, the writers use Regina George as the tyrant character archetype to show that we as humans become attached to the thought of being superior to others because we are afraid of what others will think about us. Regina was the most “popular” girl in school, and her friends were controlled by her and did everything she said. Their clique has the entire school looking up to them because everyone wants to be them. In the beginning of the movie of Mean Girls, Regina is known as the leader of the school and all the girls want to be her.
Comparison Between Mean Girls And Real Life Hollywood has made many movies that involve teenagers and their lives in high school. In most of those movies, they portray high school differently than actual high school. One of those movies is Mean Girls. The movie is about a girl named Cady Heron who moves to a new city from Africa and attends a public school for the first time.
The novel Pride and Prejudice can easily be picked apart through a feminist lens. The farther into the book one goes, the more there is to critique and analyze through a feminist lens. The book is about Elizabeth Bennet and her relationship with her eventual fiance Mr. Darcy, the ups and the downs of their relationship. Elizabeth was never a woman who only craved the attention and approval of men, she was her own person with her own complex emotions.