Free Essay Comprising a Sociological Analysis of the Film Mean Girls

The film the mean girls is a smart and funny movie about teenagers. In the film is a high school junior, Cady Heron, home-schooled in Africa while her parents worked there as anthropologists. It's only logical that Cady being the smartest girl in school socially interacts with the others. What she is not intelligent about are the ways cliques work in high school, and how you are categorized and stereotyped by who you hang with and how you dress. Social interactions in school are portrayed by how fast Cady heron interacts with the other students.

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Cady makes two friends immediately: Janis and Damian the two ever friends even before Cady come in. Damian described as "too gay to function" and Janis having anthropology including an analysis of who sits where in the cafeteria and why. Cady is clued in the three most popular girls in school being the plastics led by Regina, an excellent manipulator. Gretchen and Karen are her side chicks to complete the trio. Here we see the master status of Regina as she dominates the others and achieved the status of the other two as they are behind a so-called superior. These social relations are organized and predictable in school. Conflict arises when the two groups all have an eye for Cady. Janis and Damian being cady`s favs warn her against the girls of hell "The Plastics."

When Regina invites Cady to join their table Janis, and Damian urge her too as she can spy for them and get information for their campaign to destroy Regina. Social roles in school are portrayed as "the plastics" and Janis and co battle for supremacy. Role exit which is the process of disengagement from a role that is central to one's identity and the establishment of a new role comes into place here where Janis finds means to overthrow Regina. The advantage comes in for Regina as they now have a spy. This does not go as planned as Cady falls in love with Regina`s ex-boyfriend. Regina finding out seeks revenge of Cady by taking her boyfriend, Aaron back. Cady too finds out, and the rivalry begins all wanting to destroy each other. The two groups rivalry increases all out for each other. However as Cady spends more time with the Plastics, she too begins to become one. Wanting to annihilate Regina, Cady loses her personality making herself more of Regina becoming spiteful leading to abandoning of her friends and primarily focusing on herself.

Regina then pays back by exchanging the contexts of the burn-book all over the school causing trouble then inserting a fake label of her in the book to blame Cady. The quarrel is taken care of by their mathematics teacher who was severely slandered in the book as selling drugs. She lets them know that their only hurting each other with no benefits to any of them .Ms.Nobury asks the girls to open up and apologize to each other. As Janis apologizes, Regina insults her sexuality. As a result, Janis gets back at her by bringing to light her plan to destroy Regina which she plotted with Cady. Regina then leaves angry and disappointed with Cady after her apologizing. She is accidentally run off by a school bus. Later rumors went on that Cady was responsible for intentionally pushing Regina to the bus.

Here we see the global perspective of human structure. The mean girls become a community with similar life experience the so-called Gemeinschaft perspective in a social structure. At first, there was a little indifference as the students were all from different backgrounds the opposite of the first perspective known as Gesellschaft perspective. Sociocultural evolution is also portrayed as there is change. Regina's dominance in school falls out at last courtesy of Cady and co. The so-called plastics no longer were feared at the school. In this movie, social class plays a crucial role in different people's life and characteristics.

In this film, Regina the head of plastics represents the upper class, which is rich, famous and very pretty compared to the rest. Her wealth does not only decide her social status but also decided by how beautiful and good-looking she is. Because of her social status, she leads "the Plastic" and becomes the Queen Bee among all other students in her high school. It is also seen that Regina lives in a big house, uses fancy things, drives fancy cars to mention but a few, which brings out an obvious comparison with the rest of the students in her high school. Other people take Regina as a role model and like her so much that they even wear whatever she wears, and believe almost everything she said. Even though in the famous group of the Plastics, Regina is still the leader of the other two schools fames Gretchen and Karen. When the two, that is Gretchen and Karen broke the rule either intentionally or not, such as wear vest, they are asked by their leader Regina to sit in other places; However, when Regina wears sweatpants on Monday, and Gretchen and Karen asked her to sit somewhere else. Regina refuses to say that rules can be broken and changed at times.

On the other hand, Regina is beautiful, so she can quickly get almost all of the attention of others, even boys in the school. Regina has a slim body, pretty hair, and has a good condition of her skin, so she is conventional gorgeous. Therefore, because of this plus her wealthy and beauty, she is just like the leader of the world as school is their world, she also has the confidence to do anything she wants. She's poorly treated when she becomes fat. In the World of the Plastics, Gretchen is very different from the Queen of the group, Regina. Although Gretchen is also wealthy and beautiful, her social status is a bit lower than Regina, so she can only follow Regina's lead. When Regina didn't like her and didn't want to stay with her anymore, she still did not want to leave the Plastics. She knows it's better to be in the Plastics because being the Plastics means being famous and respected even though she hates Regina.

Another vital role is Cady Heron. She represents the middle class in the film. She is kind, gentle and very friendly which is the complete opposite of Regina. We also see that the Plastics are used as a reference group meaning that it is used by other students in the high school to evaluate their behavior. It's the point of reference in the school. We also see that there are in-groups and out-groups in the school. In-groups are groups or categories in which people feel they belong. This demonstrated by Gretchen as she only thinks that she is good being in the Plastics and not anywhere else. Out-groups, on the other hand, are any groups or categories to which people feel they do not belong. The rest of the students thought they were not the same with the Plastics. They believed so and accepted it. The Plastics here acts as the primary group. A primary group is one that is characterized by face to face interaction, association, and cooperation. The Plastics and the rest of the students is then the second group as there are little intimacy and no mutual understanding. In this movie, we learn that we should not give others too much power over us. You are your person and image. You can't let other people tell you what to do or how to act and live your life. People only have as much power over you as you want to give them. Nobody at all has the right to boss you around. We also learn that we should not be ashamed of where you come from. Cady lived a non-traditional childhood. She didn't go to public school and was homeschooled in Africa. She knew that made her a little different from everyone else in high school that she joined but embraced it despite the odds being against her. Cady was proud of who she was before even entering the mighty plastics, even though she did at all disrespect the fertility vase of the Ndebele tribe. Another valuable lesson is that you have to do you no matter what. Throughout the entire movie, we see Janis and Damien not caring about what other people think of them; they did their own thing. Cady, on the other hand, has a different approach. In the end, everyone quit conforming to societal norms and because of that, they baked a cake full of rainbows and smiles so they could eat it and be happy together.

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a view of social transformation. In the film "Mean Girls," Marxist theory is demonstrated by the different social class in the school where we have the Plastics of high social class, Cady and co of the middle class and the other students. According to Marxist theory, class conflict arises in capitalist societies due to contradictions between the material interests among people. It is seen from Regina completely isolating themselves from the rest of the students at school and making themselves the school superiors. Blindly the rest of the students accept it and do nothing about it till Cady comes along as the rescue to them. We should fight against social injustice and discrimination.