‘..I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me... but I can't help it that I'm so popular..’

'How are teenage girls represented in ‘Mean Girls (2004)'?


The ‘chick flick’ Mean Girls is a female dominated film directed by Mark S Waters and written by Tina Fey and Rosalind Wiseman in the USA (2004) . Chick flicks are a specific film genre, which targets young females. The main purposes of chick flicks are to entertain the young audience and inject them with ideologies. They usually focus upon teenage girl’s lifestyles and experiences, and they follow typical stereotypes such as chick flick movies like ‘Legally Blonde’, directed by Robert Luketic (2001) .‘Sweet Home Alabama’ directed by Andy Tennant in the USA (2002) has been around for many years but has only recently become more mainstream as females are becoming more dominant and independent, as today’s society has changed. It is a film based upon teenage girl’s lifestyles, comparing the film historically how teenage girls are being represented from the past to today’s society. The film is based around “Queen Bees and Wanna Bees” showing what extents they would go to just to be most popular. More over how teenage girls are more concerned about looks, beauty, boys and fashion then what’s more important.

Stereotypes are represented throughout the film stereotypes are this is the social classification of a group of people identified as a common characterizes, such as the 'dumb' blonde. This category is used in mean girls as the girls are stated as 'Mean' girls and are 'dumb' blondes such as Karen, were she shows her brainless by stating that she could check the weather with her breasts,‘There's a 30% chance that it's already raining! ’ There are many different cliques as you see “the Plastics” the most popular girls, “the Jocks” this is the most popular boy that every girl desires to be with, the “nerds” this is stereotyping all the clever pupils and calling them nerds but to be clever they do not have to be a nerd as this film shows this moral when Cady is a really clever student at
mathematics but degrades and dumb’s herself down all for a boy. Gauntlet states “even though they have gotten stronger, teenage movies some how start to undermine the work of feminists have out in to try and better the representation of women” this is showing women becoming more independent over the years and breaking away from male dominance. This is represented when cady shows her motivation towards the maths competition and achieving it. “Not all stereotypes are false one-dimensional distortion of reality some contain element of truth”. This is representing sometimes stereotypes include features of the truth, for example Karen is dumb, and blonde but it doesn’t mean she is a bimbo, jus contains a few elements of the reality.

‘Using words like bitch, tramp, slut or whore, however, tells others that it is okay to view girls in this way’ this showing how in Mean Girls they would call each other bitches, slut, whore to establish relationship to one another, ‘Boo, you whore’ but it only makes it worse for girls themselves as it gives more reason for anyone else to call you a whore or slut. As well as this is representing how the ideologies and values represented in today’s society has changed, and are being shown more in movies as before in the 1960’s was banned, ‘banned explicit nudity, swearing and excessive kissing you can see how far what is considered acceptable’ , as it’s changed to more modern audiences now and are more interested in violence and sex restrictions.’ Dyer states “how we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them and such seeing comes from representation” . This represents how the characters are shown in a specific way for the audience to identify with them. For example the plastics are shown as sluts due tot here little skirts and behavior.

There is also representation of family morals; how the mothers are represented in two different ways, as Cady’s mother is more of a traditional mother showing family values and ideologies. This symbolizing them shown as stereotyped housewife as she fulfils all the housework and family duties in the film you see her making food for the whole family and sitting around the table and eating, whereas Regina’s mother is represented as a modern mother. Where she is adapting to become more of a cool mom and be like her daughter we see this as she’s wearing ‘pink’ this illustrates ‘teenage girly’ colours as
well as tight tops with a lot of makeup on and bothered with her hair targeting as a sex object for male gaze on the other hand though Cady’s mother is more simple not concerned with looks and how she looks and dresses appropriate. Also showing as Regina’s mother is single mother bringing up her children without their father. This demonstrates how women on a whole have become stronger and powerful enough to not need to rely on the male. Women are represented in different ways and stereotyped, but over all have over the years developed and become more equal and more vital in the television from “20 % -35% of women playing leading roles in the 1950’s” and on wards soon after this in the mid 1980’s it increased twice as much and women were then the leading roles of television. It is equally based upon both male sand females being shown as much as each other on TV now as they both maintain equal duties and the audience, are still increasing the amount of women shown in films as the leading role more over further more yet will continue for many years to come.

‘Women stereotypically as good mothers or bad’ , this is shown in contrast to both a mother’s Cady’s mother being the good role model for her daughter as she’s the always does what’s right although her coming to the new school changes her but she realizes her mistakes and mends them however, Regina’s mother is the bad role model for her daughter as she has no rules and let’s her daughter do what she pleases which has lead her to being spoiled child and always gets what she wants. Regina's "cool mom," desperately trying to fit in by doing things like offering minors alcohol at her home, because she'd rather have them drinking there than somewhere else.


Teenage girls have a dual personality, they are no longer perceived as 'daddies little angels', in fact they are ever changing becoming more independent and making their own decisions. This is shown as Cady is a new girl adapting to a school life from in the past of home schooling with her mum, however as she studies her life gets influenced by behaviors represented by the Queen bees and wanna bees. As instead she lies to her parents to throws a house party behind their backs as well as failing in school in result of
getting a jock boy to like her. As the film is based upon one main protagonist how she adapts to the new school from her home schooling, as its surroundings is different.she adjusts as the school has categorized in different stereotypes. We see the film thought Cady’s point of view and how she sees school life; this gives the audience her prospective therefore are chosen to side with Cady. Through out the film we see the camera work shown to how they portray the main characters, therefore for example when the Plastics are shown through Cady’s view, you see the camera tilt up and down showing Cady analysis them, and this showing the audience they are a main focus to the film. Also when Aaron Samuels is shown they show the camera in slow motion to show that in Cady’s eyes he is an important feature and someone that may be relevant to the film.
Editing is an important element to filmmaking, as Lev Kuleshov (1921) mentions, “Film art begins from the moment when the director begins to combine and join together the various pieces of film.” In mean girl the use of different editing methods help develop the each scene better, for example matching technique is used when showing the phone call conversation between the four “plastics”, to show an action taken place at one particular time together. The sound used though the film is non-diegetic music this is where “sounds does not belong to the world of the films” . Most scenes use parallel music to go with the scenes, such as when the plastics are introduced they have parallel non-diegetic music played. This would be used to empathies with the characters they are showing. The costumes worn by the main protagonist soon are changed, as Cady becomes a member of the ‘plastics’ they transform her into one of them with a make over. She starts to wear sexy, tight, short skirts, coordinating to the “Plastics” to school, with a lot of makeup, and hair always maintained, which then attracts the male gaze attention.

Historically mean girls relates to a film called "The Breakfast Club" written & directed by filmmaker John Hughes . This film contains similar conventions and techniques many teen movies use, it’s a film based upon ‘high school teenagers and how they are
stereotyped individually. The five students come from different backgrounds, each with their own unique personality. The talented young cast are successful in making their amazing characters come to life, John Bender the criminal (Judd Nelson), Alison the weirdo (Ally Sheedy), Brian the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), Andrew the athlete (Emilio Estevez), & Claire the popular prom queen (Molly Ringwald). The similarities and differences between the two films are shown, as they are both set in high school, a teen movie genre. Same conventions adapted as they all come from the same attitude teenagers have, whereas in mean girls the girls are all image infatuated. ‘All the actors in the film turn their characters into something more than thinly guised charicatures, they become 3 dimensional & their feelings & emotions are explained’.

Laura Mulvey theory on how see females from a male gaze point of view, the plastics shown as there skirts get shorter and tops get tighter to attract a male gaze. ‘Identification while female figures in film were fetishism as objects of male gaze.’ As the film is mainly targeted at female teenagers this being represented considers that the secondary audience is target to males. ‘Women, in any fully human form, have almost completely been left out of film... The role of women in a film almost always revolves around her physical attraction and the mating games she plays with the male character, on the other hand a man is not shown purely in a relation to the female charters, but in a wide variety of roles . This is still maintained as the males in the film still concluded many other roles such as sports, relationships, education, games, whereas the main aim for the girls in the film is to maintain looks for boys. The ‘plastics’ decide to do a talent show for the school, for a Christmas song called ‘Jingle bells’ wearing short, red , leather dress which connotes seductive and directly targeting to pleasing the male gaze of high school boys. Also how women have become more active, as Regina shown driving a car. Regina’s mother giving her more responsibility and her making her own chooses.

The film uses techniques such as an ‘archetype’ as teen movies main convention when the audience identifies with the character played, for example the audience identified with Regina and her friends were villains of the film, using Propp Viadimir (1895 -1970) theorist who discovered characters roles such as villain and hero. In this case it would be Regina as the villain and Cady as the heroine. As the audience always sigh with the heroine person.
Another theory used through out the film would be Todrovian’s step of equilibrium and disequilibrium resolution, it occurs when disequilibrium is when the equilibrium is challenged by an event causing it to unbalance the film, when Cady gets revenge on Regina, it is then resolved, this is the conclusion of a problem occurred during the film which then gets resolved in the end, as Regina gets hit by a bus and everybody says sorry for all the mistakes made to each other, ending everyone happy. This shows how values and ideologies of friendship are important, and how vital it is to realize that a small little issue like boys can hurt many people therefore is not worth loosing good friendship over.

The genre it’s established as a comedy romantic teen movie. ‘Genre is a category of media products classed as being similar in form and type’, this includes such things like magazines, television, newspapers, and films are all types of media genres. Genres have many characteristics such as the main plot of the film, visual imagery, characters, setting, narrative, music and stars. Genre is a main category as it is depending on what the audience prefers to watch, as a teen movie humor is pursued, as teenagers are more in having a bit of a laugh as it develops how teenagers are similar to, Mean Girls is so good is because it's actually funny for people over the age of 21. It's not just for teens but also for adults. As well as it is representing a love story between the two main protagonists following the conventions of a teen chick flick, as this is what would occur in teenager’s everyday life. For example teenagers read magazines like OK, where it passives the audience to believe in what they tell. Regina tries to loss weight to fit into a prom dress to look like really slim as she believes she looks fat. “Sorry, we only carry sizes 1, 3, and 5. You could try Sears”. This shows Regina not fitting into the dress size she wanted to and gets very annoyed as looks means everything to her and being Queen Bee she needs to make sure she meets the standards.

Hypodermic needle theory is represented; as it is to purpose is to passive the audience’s morals and beliefs, what they represent in the film as they audience is to belief in with the good character overruled by the evil, and see the situation arisen from the main protagonist’s point of view and sympathies with her more. Feminism is portrayed, as this is a political movement to advance the status of women by challenging values, social constructions and socioeconomic practices, which disadvantage women and favour
men . Illustrating that Cady has become strong and powerful as she overcomes her challenging social ideologies and values which are created through out the film.

“As the main protagonist Lindsay Lohan is a famous actress as well as a celebrity she maintained the main role of the film, I was looking forward to Lindsay Lohan's (who really impressed me in 'Freaky Friday' (directed by Mark Waters and produced in the USA 2003) and the much underrated ‘Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen’ (directed by Sara Sugarman produced in the USA 2004) latest.” This is representing as she is a famous actresses most people would watch her films as she has participated in them seeing that she’s well known and good at acting that specific people would go to watch her films.
“Femme Fatale is female character that uses her sexuality, often in devious, disreputable, secretive ways, to achieve the end she desires” . In Mean Girls Regina uses her sexuality to take away Cady's lover as she became selfish and didn’t want her to having the most popular boy in school. This leads back to patriarchy, as the male dominance always has control but Regina using her sexuality to control the male gaze. This is showing how Femme Fatale gives women more power.

In conclusion the film shows different morals beliefs and ideologies to social events occurring in teenager’s lives and how women are stereotyped and shown. Mean girls show how women have become more independent and will continue to progress within society.



Word count: 2850



Bibliography

Books

• Amanda Ford pg23: Be true to yourself
• David Gauntlet (2002) :Media, Gender and identity. An introduction
• Essential word dictionary
• Genres changed over time
• Genders, cultures and representation
• Graham Roberts and Heather Wallis :Introducing film
• Maggie Humm (David Gauntlet): Feminism and Film
• Sharon Smith 1972: Women and Film
• Representation of gender in the past
• Pam Cook & Mieke Bernink: The Cinema Book



Websites


• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/quotes - main quotes from mean girls
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/ - film details for Mean Girls
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legally_Blonde - film details for Legally Blonde
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_Alabama_(film) - film details for Sweet Home Alabama
• http://imdb.com/title/tt0377092/ - film research
• http://imdb.com/title/tt0088847/- film research
• http://imdb.com/title/tt0377092/usercomments - comments on film
• http://imdb.com/title/tt0377092/usercomments - comments on film


No moving image texts