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The film Mean Girls directed by Mark Waters and written by SNL star, Tina Fey, debut in 2004 and captured a large audience for its comedic storyline. However, the film used comedy and satire to display an important message to the men and mostly women who viewed the film. With a feminist message undertone, the film sought to prove to its audience that it is important to stay true to one’s self and not to be “mean” to those around you because words do have an effect on people.
These messages are rooted at a feminist core in hopes to influence the audience to think more about feminist issues.
Mean Girls is a film that uses satirical works to show viewers how girls treat each other in high school. The movie is an over exaggerates this idea in an attempt to open the eyes of society to how some girls use popularity to excuse horrible behavior to one another. One way the film exposes the idea of what it means to be popular in high school today using satire is by the idolization of “the plastics.” To be more specific, the idolization of Regina George, who is portrayed as the queen bee of the school.
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With the use of verbal irony, the movie shows the satirical motive with the introduction of Regina George and how the girls around the school idolize her. A girl talks about how once Regina George punched her in the face and she believed it was “awesome.” Obviously, no one likes getting punched in the face, but this use of verbal irony shows that it was awesome to this girl because of who was punching her.
In relation to third wave feminism, this idea of an all loved mean queen bee has a greater role than let on. Before the third wave feminist movement, women were ranked based on their class, race, or economic status. In some ways, that is still the case today. Mean Girls exposes this hypocritical idea by having the main antagonist shown as the top of the popular status. The film hopes to convey the message that a society working to create a new path for women should not limit certain women based on their status’, no matter where they stand, just like how they conveyed this through “the plastics” and Regina George.
Another example of satirical works in Mean Girls is shown through the infamous “Burn Book.” This book was made by 'the plastics' in which they write mean stuff about the female classmates. They believe that no one will see the book except for them, which backfires when the book ends up in the halls of the school where everyone can see what has been written about them. This satire is situational irony because, in real life, people know that it is cruel to have a book dedicated to the bashing of other people you go to school with. However, this over exaggerates the idea that girls gossip and talk bad about each other behind their friends or classmates’ backs. Once again, third wave feminism is a wave that emphasizes the bonding of women with each other against the bashing of the sexist world. The burn book relates to this because at the end of the day gossip is still a concept that affects the world of women, but the third wave movement seeks to break that down and rebuild a stronger connection among women. The burn book challenges that idea in a satirical way with its over exaggeration of gossiping and backstabbing.
The third and final example of satirical work in the film Mean Girls is Janis’ plot in the storyline. Janis convinces new girl, Cady, to infiltrate “the plastics” and try to help her take down the queen bee, Regina. She justifies her actions by saying that Regina is evil, but her actions in themselves are evil as well. This is satirical because of the use of irony to expose Janis’ stupidity in terms of revenge against Regina. She uses a pawn, Cady, and slowly takes over Regina’s life starting with her appearance using Kalteen bars. She believes that by taking away her appearance, she strips her from her popularity. To go to the extent of destroying someone’s body is an over exaggeration of real life. No normal high school girl would go out of their way to have someone gain weight just because they hate them. This relates to the third wave movement because it criticizes the idea of women tearing other women down which is one of the main aspects that this wave tries to prevent. There is also the sub-movement of body positivity within the third wave which preaches the fact that the size of a woman should no longer affect the way society judges a woman. So, by Mean Girls emphasizing this aspect in the film, it ridicules the idea that you can take down someone by making them “fatter,” which is false in reality.
Traditional feminism has many different ideas that were rooted since feminism first came into occurrence in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. With the ideas that provided women with independence from men and making them equal to men, the idea of feminism continues to evolve and brought into the light today. In the film Mean Girls, the ideas of traditional feminism are challenged. For example, one idea that traditional feminism tries to fight for is the independence of women from men. Yes, feminism is the social, political, and economic equality among males and females (and other genders as well), but for this to become possible, women need to first find their independence from men. The film challenges this by the relationship between Cady Heron and Aaron Samuels. There is a stereotype that women need a man in their life to be complete and without them, they are viewed as weak and would not be able to stand on their own without the support of men. Cady starts to develop a crush on Aaron who is Regina’s ex-boyfriend and by the rules of “girl code” a friend cannot date their friend’s ex. However, Cady did not know this and starts to try to develop relations with him. When Regina backstabs Cady and takes Aaron back, this sets Cady off the edge and she agrees to Janis’ plan to take down Regina. She goes through all the trouble to change her personality and betray her friends just so she can have the boy at the end. She begins to deliberately lower her grade in math, which she is good at, just so she can get close to Aaron and have him tutor her. Cady was acting dumb to get attention from Aaron and was willing to do anything for his attention that she craved. This challenges the idea of women independence as Cady worked to find dependence within Aaron.
Another example of Mean Girls challenging the traditional ideas of feminism is in the idea that women should stick together to build feminism in society. The only way women could get the rights to wage, full rights of citizenship, an equal right to education, and the right to vote in 1848 were if they united together and started a revolution in the male-ruled society. Since the beginning of the feminism movement, uniting women was the way to take down the patriarchy and create equality among men and women. This film challenges this idea by having 'the plastics' talk about their classmates behind their backs and saying mean things about them. However, it was not only 'the plastics' that challenge this idea, but it is also all the junior year girls in this film. Janis wants to take down Regina and eventually, so does Cady. At the end of the film, the other junior girls are exposed to gossiping behind their friends back when they all raise their hands at the immediate assembly in the gym after the brawl in the halls. This proved the point that at some point or another, every girl in the film was guilty of backstabbing their friends or other girls. This representation in the film challenges the traditional feminist idea of standing by other females in the world run by males. The film’s plot shows how girls can be cruel to one another instead of standing with each other.
Mean Girls tackles issues pertaining to body image in several different ways. It uses a comedic but accurate portrayal of self-image issues that teenage high school girls face today. Even “the plastics” who are the most popular girls in school find it necessary to degrade their bodies and encourage others in their group to do the same. Their fascination with self-image is a reoccurring motif throughout the film’s plot. For example, the queen bee, Regina, has the biggest issue with body image in the entire film, and she is the most popular girl in school. Regina can be heard frequently saying that she must lose three pounds. With this obsession of body image, comes the idea of power to these girls. The skinnier 'the plastics” are, the more power they hold in a sense. They also have more power over judging others who are not as skinny as they are. Regina is tricked by Janis and Cady to eat Kalteen bars which makes her gain more weight when she thinks it makes her lose weight before the annual Spring Fling. As she slowly gains more weight, she begins to lose control of having the power to judge her classmates in North Shore. It gets to the point where she is eventually no longer idolized by everyone in the school. This idea in the plot is important to highlight on as it shows the viewers that this is the far-fetched ideology that teenagers use today among themselves. Something as stupid as one’s body weight can define where one stands in the social high school class and that is ridiculous. The film’s message tries to prove this wrong and tries to break down the ridiculous ideology.
Another example of a body image issue being brought up in this film is when Cady goes to Regina’s house with “the plastics” after school. She finds out that the prettiest girls in school, the ones that every girl wants to be like, find things in their body that they hate and wish to change. They are clearly beautiful girls with little to no physical flaws, but while in front of a mirror, they do not miss the opportunity to bash their bodies. Regina thinks her pores are huge, Gretchen thinks she has a weird hairline, and Karen thinks her nail beds suck. Cady, who was sheltered from all the self-image hate in Africa, only thought there was skinny or fat only to come to realize that there is a lot more that could be wrong with someone physically. This scene is very important to highlight as it focuses on the common representation of the process girls focus on every day. This is especially magnified in high school as girls are more self-conscious about themselves and how they present themselves to people in school. Teenagers focus on the tiniest things within them and try to change it to make themselves perfect in their eyes and the eyes of their peers. The message that this sends to the viewers, particularly those who identify as female, is that they should not beat themselves over features that they cannot change because it is those features that make them unique. By having the girls in the film exaggerate their so-called “flaws,” the film shows that being yourself means accepting yourself and loving the way one looks.
Overall, Mean Girls should be considered a feminist film because through its characters, the stereotypes, and the social constructs that it presents, the elements of feminism can be perceived. Feminism, as an ideology, embraces the belief that everyone is entitled to freedom and liberty. It teaches the fact that discrimination should not be based on gender, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, religion, culture, or lifestyle. The film itself tries to expose to the viewers the upsetting nature of girl world and the way teenage girls treat each other through an exaggerated satirical lens. The students of North Shore High School are all affected by different kinds of stereotypes and had to deal with these stereotypes every single day. They were separated and categorized by who they ate lunch with, what they look like, and what they do as an extracurricular activity. In the scene where Janis and Damien show Cady where to sit in the lunchroom, they begin to list the different kinds of cliques that North Shore has. For example, the audience is introduced to Asian nerds, cool Asians, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings (and those who do not eat anything), burnouts, etc. The cliques even get as specific as sexually active band geeks. The film does not hide the fact that these stereotypes are labels that are branded on the characters and in which they cannot escape from. However, they seem to not care about the stereotype as it creates some odd peace among the students, to begin with.
They eventually learn that the stereotypes they place on each other restrict their actions in high school and place mental and physical exhaustion among themselves. All the students, especially the main protagonist, Cady, have their eyes opened to the idea that they must be themselves in high school and that that is truly the most important thing. By the end of the film, after a very eventful junior year, each character that played a role in the film’s plot can be seen breaking down the status quo of stereotype groupings in their senior year. Regina George takes up sports for her aggression, Kevin Gnapoor and Janis are seen in a relationship, Gretchen Wieners is hanging out with a different crowd, yet all the characters seem more relaxed in their school's environment as opposed to their experience at the beginning of the film. The message of the film has a feminist feel to it as it tries to convey the idea of being nice to people is better than being mean. It ends with the main concluding message of always being true to oneself is better as opposed to being someone that is different just to fit in.
Work Cited
Summary: Mean Girls As a Feminist Film. (2024, Feb 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/summary-mean-girls-as-a-feminist-film-essay
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