Mean Girl' Movie Analysis: Exploring The Dark Side of American Culture

Introduction

The movie I chose to watch is Mean Girls. I felt this movie accurately reflected American culture, and also was hugely associated with teenage and high school culture. In this essay, we will research 'Mean Girl' movie, analysis of it will examine the film from two different sociological perspectives, namely the functionalist perspective and the conflict theory. The essay also discusses the movie's portrayal of American culture and teenage culture. The Burn Book, a crucial element of the story that contains nasty rumors about students at the school, exemplifies betrayal and lies, which unfortunately is a theme that reflects some of the darker aspects of American culture.

“Mean Girl” movie analysis (essay)

The movie centered around Regina George, the high school queen, and how she and her two friends, Gretchen and Karen dominated their high school. They were called the ‘Plastics’. When Cady moved to the United States from Africa, she was enrolled in the same school as these girls and became intertwined with the friend group. She was initially going to try to join their group as a way to get information about them and then go back to her other friends Janice and Damian to expose them. Eventually, Cady realized she had really became a part of the ‘Plastics’ and was a mean girl herself. The ‘Plastics’ eventually faded away and they all made new friends in new groups, but the movie mainly focused on the groups inevitable implosion and everything they did in between. 

The mean girls movie can be analyzed using functionalist and conflict theory. Today, functionalism is defined as the social integration where there is a collective conscience as whole on what society beliefs, the ideas on how a person should act and also the values that has been carried generation after generation. In the movie Mean Girls, we can see how a group of different people make up a society with a shared belief. For example, the setting of the mean girls is a high school where different type of students come together with the same value which is getting their education. Functionalist perspective can also be seen when there are different form of groups. For example, the famous group which is the “Plastics” where Regina is the leader. The unpopular students in the high school conform to this popular group on how they walk or dress just to fit into and be popular just like them. This can be seen when the girls in the school cut their shirt just to follow Regina’s fashion sense. No one thought that her shirt was weird or laughed. The other groups like the Matheletes or the jocks makes the school function normally showing there is always two sides that is norm to the society (N.a, 2016).

In the movie Mean Girls, Conflict theory can also be seen. According to the conflict theory by Karl Marx, the bourgeoise who are the upper class or owners has power and take advantage of the lower class who are the proletariat. In the Mean girl movie, the conflict theory comes into play with The Plastics, who are the bourgeoise and the unpopular kids who are the proletariat. The Burn Book they had where they wrote mean things about people that did not conform to their status quo is one where we can see the conflict theory. This Burn book brought fight between all the kids in the school when Regina exposed about the burn book. Janice and Damian wanted a social change including Cady when they made plans to embarrass and bring Regina, Gretchen and Karen down (N.a.,2016).

There is much American culture represented in this film and that is all portrayed from a high school point of view. This movie is very influential to teenagers and get their attention. Mean Girls is such a popular movie and has continued to stay relevant since 2004 when it was released, which is a major sign as to how relevant it still is.

To start, the movie focuses on the most popular girls at school, and many people in the movie refer to them as the ‘queen bees’. It’s set around how these girls dominate the school and how everybody falls to their feet to be loved by the girls who are so mean to everyone, especially Regina. In American high schools, teenagers thrive off being popular and well liked because that’s the most important thing for them at that time, and Mean Girls was an exaggerated portrayal of how far people will actually go and how much people are willing to change to be considered popular. Watching Cady’s transformation throughout the movie was astounding. She started off the movie being very humbled and well-grounded, not caring about what she looked like or how many friends she had, to then pushing away everyone in her life besides the ‘Plastics’ and starting to worry so much about appearance, boys, how many people liked her, etc. Cady also expresses her shock coming into a culture that she never went before because she has homeschooled all her life. This movie also portrays some popular cultures where drinking, partying and fashion was one of the main idea of what the higher class does.

Another theme of American culture represented was lies and betrayal. It is very sad to say, but the American culture thrives from betraying others, lying about things, getting others in trouble so you can get ahead, and the list goes on. The Burn Book was a very influential part of the story and ultimately was the downfall of the ‘Plastics’. Regina, Gretchen, Karen, and Cady all decided to make a book in which they made nasty rumors about the students at their school and it was intended for no one to see, but inevitably got out. During the crash of their group, Regina took it upon herself to release the book and make it seem like she had no part; Even going as far to put something nasty about herself in the book to seem innocent. She told the school principal she found it in the girl’s bathroom at school, but then took it upon herself to print hundreds or pages out of the book and scatter them around school, which caused an uproar. Cady ultimately decided to be the bigger person and take all the blame for the book. Overall, these girls would do anything to get ahead and come out on top, just like the rest of our society.

I think that the meaning behind the movie is very accurate to American society, but it is obviously just exaggerated to make a more interesting film. All of the themes and message in the movie were very accurate to American high school culture, but it was made into something bigger for the movie. But the movie did display the main points of the high school popularity pyramid, lying/scheming, betrayal of friends, and more.

I think this movie had and continues to have a great impact on the American high school system. The movie did a good job in portraying how to act and how not to. It showed the popular girls starting out with all this high school fame and success, but it showed the downfall of being mean to others. Their meanness caused chaos throughout the entire school system and flipped the school upside down.

But then again, this movie also does a good job of helping high schoolers find more ways to bully one another. Being bullied inside school is enough to make someone feel awful, but now, bullying can be brought home too with the help of social media sites. The movie was filmed back in 2004 so there wasn’t much social media back then, but now with social media growing to what its grown to, high schoolers find other ways to implement the burn book online. One of my good friends is American and has lived here all her life. When I told her about this assignment and that I was going to watch Mean Girls, she told me about her experience in high school and how this movie was brought into her school. She told me that people started a page on the app Twitter called “Burn Book” with the name of her school. People began sending in mean things about people from her school and it became as out of control as the movie. Also, considering other sites that are based off the Burn Book, there’s a website called Ask.Fm that was popular around 2013-2014. This site allowed people to send it anonymous messages and those messages would display on the person’s social media sites, and some of the messages are very hurtful.

I understand the basis of the movie and the dramatization of the movie, but this movie brought to life some new ideas for students and new ways to make high school students life harder than it already is. Like I said earlier, this movie has continued to stay relevant for years and I can’t see it dying down anytime soon. The more generations that this movie passes through, the more ideas that students will get from the movie to make other kids lives harder.

The movie portrays everyone is a different way, but not always necessarily bad. To start, the men in this movie weren’t really a big part of shaping the movie, but when they were seen, they were more of the arm candy for the ‘Plastics’. For example, Aaron, who was Regina’s boyfriend for part of the movie, was also very popular, but he was just seen as Regina’s accessory, and eventually, Cady also tried to be with him. They also portrayed Shane, the boy Regina was cheating with, as just someone who was hot with no brains, kind of just being used for Regina’s gain. The women were seen in many different lights. The ‘Plastics’ were obviously held at a much higher standard than all of the rest of the females in the book, but they portrayed other female students as something that maybe isn’t correct. They showed the female students bowing at the popular girls feet, as fighters, maybe some were seen as “airheads”. There was an array of treatments of the girls.

There wasn’t much said about race, ethnicity, or culture, but there was things to be said about sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. Damian, one of Cady’s good friends when he came to the school, identified as gay and took some heat in the movie because of that. Janice was his number one best friend, but she brought up multiple times throughout the movie that he was gay and would call him different names relating to his sexual orientation. For example, his page in the Burn Book was a picture of him with the caption, “too gay to function”. Dealing with socioeconomic, Regina’s family was rich and they portrayed her as a very spoiled girl. She lived in a huge mansion, drove a brand new convertible, an amazing room, all the best and nicest clothes and accessories, and more. She was portrayed with the all pink everything kind of feel and her family proved the point of her being entitled and spoiled. Whereas Cady’s family lived in an average size house and had very normal things. To start the movie, Cady was very humble and very appreciative of her parents hard work, but Regina and the group corrupted the way she thought about things.

Finally the movie did portray a lot of stereotypes where the Indian guy was part of the Mathlete who was portrayed as a nerd. Being an Indian, we were always stereotyped to be the smartest when it comes to Math just like the movie portrayed him. Another stereotype that could be seen is how whites are always the superior and higher class people just like how Regina, Gretchen and Sara was portrayed and everyone has to bow to them or be like them. This is definitely problematic because kids of color are going to grow up thinking that they will always be below the superiority. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mean Girls is a movie that accurately reflects American and teenage culture. The Burn Book, a crucial element of the story that contained nasty rumors about students at the school, exemplifies betrayal and lies, which unfortunately is a theme that reflects some of the darker aspects of American culture. The movie can be analyzed from both the functionalist and conflict theory perspectives, showcasing the different social groups that make up a society and the power dynamics at play. The portrayal of American high school culture and the importance of popularity, as well as the influence of fashion, partying, and drinking on popular culture, are also themes that are prominent throughout the movie. Mean Girls has remained a relevant and popular movie since its release in 2004, continuing to resonate with teenagers and portraying American and teenage culture in a thought-provoking and exaggerated way.