Mean Girls

Mean Girls is a film released in 2004 directed by Mark Waters. It is about a girl named Cady Heron who moves to America after being home schooled in Africa for the majority of her life. She starts at high school where she is introduced to some very interesting people.  This is a very good film to show the representation and stereotyping of teenage girls within society and in general.

 

Dialogue is a very clear feature used to show the representation of teenage girls in the media, and how they are represented in this film. The way dialogue is used can show just how a particular character or person is feeling and bring out their personality very clearly, which in this case helps to understand the exact image of teenage girls in this media. One of the most well-known quotes from Mean Girls is “She’s fabulous, but she’s evil”, spoken by Damian about another main character called Regina George. The costumes used in this film are very significant too. The majority of clothes worn by the focusing group ‘The Plastics’ is pink which brings out a major stereotype in teenage girls. When the group dresses up for Halloween, one very particular quote represents exactly what is thought of the situation. Cady, in a voiceover, says: “In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” This shows us how costumes are shown to represent the different girls in the film and representation we are receiving about them.  Language is the final key feature from the film.  This includes the style used by the characters, and the type of vocabulary which they tended to often speak.

 

The representation addressed in this film is that girls are quite bitchy and backstabbing. It is meant to show it through the eyes of Cady Heron, and it definitely comes across as we watch her character develop. The effect this can have on teenage girls is that they start to feel that they have to act in this way, or they feel they can relate too much to this. The society will start to view teenage girls as often being bitchy and backstabbing. There is a large focus on different boys and secret keeping as well, the impact on this being that girls start to behave in that way themselves, and that it perhaps is okay to act like that. This particularly is shown as the end is happy, and everyone has it all sorted out, which doesn’t prove the point that being nasty helps and that being nasty actually will get you places. This is one very strong stereotype of teenage girls – that they are all bitchy and backstabbing, instead of being opposite.

 

The reality in this case is that there are always dramas; however the sorts of drama created in this film are not nearly as bad compared to what they would be like in true life. The reason for the difference to be shown in this film is perhaps make the message a lot more clear about being nasty to fellow peers and friends, in particular with teenage girls.  These messages are created in order to almost prove a point in a way, about teenage girls and the way they behave. The use of the clothing and the behaviour of the girls in this film reinforce these bitchy connotations about teenage girls, and the way they all act in a way to gain popularity, instead of just being known as themselves and not thriving to be known. This is shown especially through when the different girls from differentgroups represented in the film talk about who the most popular girl is.

 

The consequences of these representations of teenage girls in the film Mean Girls is that society will be able to view teenage girls in this way, it is quite a strong and important message that comes across. This representation on teenage girls is quite strong and Mean Girls has a very impacting image making-way of stereotyping teenage girls. This will always have further impacts on society and also on the way teenage girls view themselves.