“Mean Girls“
Mean Girls is probably one of the most popular movies of our generation. It is funny, a bit dramatic and it provides identification with at least one of the characters portrayed in the movie. However, behind this entertaining and cheerful production we can find a lot of social psychology concepts that help us to understand problems that young people cope with today. The movie enables us, to some extent, to understand the complex situation that young people are in, when surrounded by their peers.
At the beginning, we see young Cady who came from Africa without any knowledge about how she is supposed to behave in school and what is expected from her. She does not know that she must ask for permission to go to the lady’s room. Over time she learns social roles or expectations in a group about how students in class are supposed to behave. Cady brings herself in an unenviable position by trying to fit in the new environment. She becomes friends with Janis and Damian, artistic and unpopular peers, and accepts their proposal to infiltrate in group of popular girls, so called “Plastics”, find out and reveal their secrets. According to theory of social identity a person will associate with individuals who she shares similar believes and attitudes with. However, after Cady spends some time trying to be accepted by the “Plastics” we get the impression that she herself doesn’t know what group she belongs to. She adopted some values from the “Plastics”, but it is still obvious that her authentic nature is very different from the nature of popular girls. Since Cady accepts the influences of both groups of peers she belongs to in order to be accepted we can say that she conforms to demands of groups. On one hand she accepts an immoral idea to reveal secrets of her new popular friends, while on the other, she starts to look like plastics, accepts their dress style and their code of conduct. The move portrays popular girls in stereotypical manner. They are one-dimensional characters. All of them are beautiful, Regina is smart but evil and the other two are trying to get her attention. In psychology, this oversimplified generalization about characteristics of a given group of people is known as stereotype.
The movie has certain similarity to my high-school experience. However, I tend to believe that diversity among peers is something that is cherished and not laughed at in my surroundings.
References:
Abrams, D., Wetherell, M., Cochrane, S., Hogg, M. A., & Turner, J. C. (2011). Knowing what to think by knowing who you are: Self‐categorization and the nature of norm formation, conformity and group polarization*. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29(2), 97-119.
Aronson, E. (2006). Fundamentals of social psychology. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Michaels, L., Fey, T., Waters, M. S., Lohan, L., McAdams, R., Meadows, T., Poehler, A., Paramount Pictures Corporation. (2004). Mean girls. Hollywood, Calif: Paramount.
Social psychology concepts in the movie “Mean Girls“
The movie is about a girl, Cady, who is trying to learn how to behave in a completely new environment in order to be accepted by others. Cady, who previously lived in Africa and was homeschooled, is now facing unfamiliar problems in high school. When she meets her new two friends, Damian and Janis, she confirms to their pressure to become friends with another group of girls so that she could talk with Janis and Damian about their experiences. This conformity actually reveals Cady’s desire to gain social acceptance.
If we look closely we will notice more than two pear groups or cliques are mentioned in the movie. The story in the movie goes mostly around two cliques, one is the popular one “Plastics” and the members of other clique are shown as nonaligned and different. Cady finds herself torn between these two groups and confused about her social identity. She wants to make friends but she keeps making wrong decisions due to conformity. The leader of “Plastics”, Regina, is verbally aggressive and sets rules that must be obeyed if someone wants to be in her company. Regina represents the authority for most of the girls in school. Those girls that want to be popular imitate her style. Although Regina is mean and verbally assaults a lot of people, others do not confront her. We even hear Damian saying that she is fabulous but evil. She represents some kind of alpha female, a prototype of a woman who wakes up ambivalent feelings. Everyone wants to be like her, strong and gorgeous, but everyone hates her because she is manipulative. Regina is an example of stereotype in society. She is the one sharing all those nasty rumors to trigger social problems of other people. For example, spreading the story that Janis is homosexual caused social isolation for Janis. Discrimination and prejudices toward people with different sexual orientation is quite obvious here.
Unfortunately, the situation in high schools is very similar to the one seen in the movie. Everything is measured by looks and money and if you do not have both, you don’t fit in. I think that schools should have trained experts to deal with these problems and maximize cohesiveness and tolerance in schools.
References:
Abrams, D., Wetherell, M., Cochrane, S., Hogg, M. A., & Turner, J. C. (2011). Knowing what to think by knowing who you are: Self‐categorization and the nature of norm formation, conformity and group polarization*. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29(2), 97-119.
Aronson, E. (2006). Fundamentals of social psychology. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Michaels, L., Fey, T., Waters, M. S., Lohan, L., McAdams, R., Meadows, T., Poehler, A., Paramount Pictures Corporation. (2004). Mean girls. Hollywood, Calif: Paramount.
