Preview

mean girls sociology paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
836 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
mean girls sociology paper
Kelsey Youell
Research paper
Mean Girls and its sociological structure

Sociology is everywhere we look, it is everything we are, and can be describe with everything we do. Mean girls is a very popular movie in today’s society. It seems as though people of all gender, sex, age, race, ethnicity, and class has seen this movie and can relate to some aspect of it. Mean girls portrays the rough life of high school and the many cliques it has in place. It shows the many challenges students and teachers go through to get to the end of the year. In this movie I have seen many sociological themes. Many people in today’s society go through challenging things in our lives and high school is a teenager’s worse one. From discrimination to power, property, and prestige this movies depicts it all. As portrayed in (fundamentalsofsoc) the popular girls also known as the “plastics” control the school in which they accompany. They control it by have good looks, money, Popularity, and power. They receive all the material items wanted because their parents can afford it; with the exception of Cady. Originally there are three “plastics”: Regina George which is the leader of the group. Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. Cady, a transfer student from Africa get the special and rare request to join their clique. There is a sub- click that Cady is a part of and that includes Janis Ian and Damian. Everyone in the school wants to be Regina George, so they copy everything she does. After Cady and Regina go for the same guy Cady wants to ruin the plastics because she and Janis which was out casted by Regina feel like the school would be better off without the hierarchy and social control that Regina creates.
The movie starts off with a stereotype. Stereotype defined as “a widely held but fixed and over simplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” Cady sits down at the “Plastics” table after being peer- pressured into joining them during lunch and she gets questioned

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The story consists of a series of flashbacks from one girl’s life of seemingly violent acts. It begins in present day, after witnessing a fight on campus, the thoughts arise as to what could have caused such violence to overtake the two men who were fighting, which, in turn, results in the thoughts of all the violent acts she has witnessed throughout her life.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mean Girls

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Cady, a sixteen-year-old homeschooled daughter of zoologist parents, returns to the US with her parents after residing in Africa for 12 years. Cady is unprepared for her first day of public high school. With the help of her new friends, Janis and Damien, Cady learns about the various cliques. They warn her to avoid the school's most exclusive clique, the Plastics, the reigning trio of girls led by the “queen bee” Regina George. The Plastics take an interest in Cady, inviting her to sit with them at lunch and go shopping with them after school. Upon realizing that Cady got accepted into the Plastics, Janis hatches a plan to get revenge on Regina, using Cady to infiltrate the high-strung clique.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mean Girls Research Paper

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    and Damian. Her new friends warn her to stay away from the “Plastics”, a group of girls who are…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mean Girls portrays the relationships between a new student from South Africa, Cady Heron, and the Plastics, a typical all girls mean clique formed on the campus of North Shore High School. This group of Regina George, the head honcho, who is accompanied by her two best friends, Karen Smith and Gretchen Wieners. In the film two “misfits” who have watched the Plastics take over during their high school experience, Janis and Damien, befriend Cady. They to convince her to befriend Regina’s so that she can get close with her but then ultimately sabotage her. They defeat the Plastics forever.…

    • 100 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The writers, Mike Males and Meda-Chesney Lind both have enough information and facts to discuss the issue of the “Mean Girls” epidemic.Males and Lind use an…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    AOS Journey

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Raised in an African bush country with only her parents, Cady Heron, a 16 year old home schooled teenager takes on a challenge when she enters her first public high school. She instantly makes friends with two sweet teenagers, Damian and Janis. However, she soon learns that high school is a jungle in itself, when she meets the ‘Plastics’- A group of four girls consisting of Gretchen, Karen and Regina George, the unofficial leader. The Plastics immediately let Cady into their group, however when Cady falls for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels, things turn ugly. When Regina finds out about this, she schemes for revenge to destroy Cady’s future social status, and to take Aaron away from her. Cady, jealous and angry turn to her old friends Damian and Janis to plot revenge to bring down Regina’s status. However as Cady spends more and more time with the Plastics, she too begins to become one.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cady Heron is the perfect example of role strain, role exit, and role conflict because she experienced all these types of roles in the process of becoming a mean girl. For example, she experienced role strain when she had trouble keeping up her expectations to ruin Regina’s life as her friends influenced her to do it. On the other hand, an example of role exit is when she experienced the process of disengagement from who she really was in order to establish a new role to be and act like The Plastics or when she acted stupid like she did not know anything about math just to approach Aaron Samuels and it made her get bad grades or her quizzes, even though she was very good at math. Finally, an example of role conflict is…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mean Girls Research Paper

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Mean Girls is a 2004 film about the life of a popular high school girl. The teen comedy is considered by many high schoolers to be a legendary movie that depicts a dream high school that is ideal for many of today’s youth. The film centers around 4 junior girls called the plastics. They are pretty and preppy, popular and legendary in the school. They are worshipped like goddess by the students of the school because of their fame, riches, and popularity. However, the group of mean girls live up to their name. They are nasty, trashy and downright evil at times. Revenge is their middle name, and they will not hesitate to throw some of their best friends under the bus at a seconds notice, literally throw them under a bus. They gossip, spread terrible rumors and exclude their friends from cliques on purpose. However, this movie has had a big effect on the public, especially the youth and the younger generation. The ideal life of the plastics in high school has created a lust for popularity among teenagers and also has showed teenage girls that being ‘mean’ will get you friends, popularity and fame in the complicated world that is high school.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For this assignment, I chose the movie, Thirteen. From the very first time that I watched this movie I was completely intrigued by the compelling and complex issues that this young, thirteen year old girl faces. My theory regarding this movie, in a whole, is that people who frequently associate with individuals, whom favor deviance, have a tendency to replicate that behavior. For this movie, I felt that the Symbolic Interactionist perspective would best be applied to dissect and discuss the problems and resolutions, and also help to support my theory throughout.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mean Girls

    • 2577 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey and directed by Mark Waters, takes its viewers through high school from the perspective of Cady Heron, a young girl who never known what “high school” genuinely meant. Upon arrival, she makes friends with Janis and Damian, who were in the stereotypical “unpopular” crowd. They warn her to stay away from “The Plastics”, an exclusive clique that includes three drama-filled girls who are superficial, spiteful, and have vicious attitudes that obtain their power and fame from beauty and glamour. However, “The Plastics” ask Cady to join them. Cady, Janis, and Damian together plot against the leader of The Plastics, Regina George, the most monstrous of them all. In reality, the more time Cady spends with The Plastics, the more she starts to actually become one. The Plastics themselves show how monstrous qualities are formed in celebrity culture, while the use of Cady is the perfect example of how culture builds up celebrities to break them back down. The Plastics took Cady, someone who was naïve and candid, and turned her into something she is not through the manipulation of their own standards and rules. Celebrity culture heavily relies on qualities of manipulation. This was done through thru burn book, etc…

    • 2577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cliques In Mean Girls

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages

    No matter what school you go to, there will always be cliques—the social hierarchy of the entire student body. The movie Mean Girls, or really any teen high school-based movie, depicts the lives of teenagers and how everyone fits into a certain group. However, these movies tend to be hyperbolic, and not everyone necessarily meets the standards to be in a group. For example, the cheerleaders and jocks are always at the top. Those who excel at sports are considered the "popular" kids, but I've never truly been able to figure out why that is. All movies that depict teenagers are stereotypical and make everything more dramatic than it ever truly is. When it comes to drama, people believe what they see and hear before they actually know anything about the person or subject.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Sociology 350 Course Paper

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages

    As stated on the Course Project page, “An important part of our course is researching information on diversity and multiculturalism and its social, cultural, and ethical impact upon individual citizens, groups of people, and society at large.” For my research paper I chose to write about the promotional policy of a company in which a Latina who had been with the company for a longer period of time was not selected for a promotion. She accuses the company of engaging in discriminatory policies in which a man of Anglo descent was chosen for the position instead of her. In my paper I will talk about my research into the Hispanic culture, the role of a women in the Hispanic culture as well as women in the workplace. After I have talked about the above mentioned, I will enclose the scenario that I chose and will evaluate it. In conclusion I will try to create a plan to avoid a similar incident from occurring again.…

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie “Mean Girls”, featuring Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey, is a comedic film about a girl in high school who has to deal with all the problems, pressures, and choices of growing up in American society in comparison to that of being homeschooled in Africa. This motion picture was the perfect platform for showcasing various types of behavioral psychology. When Cady first moves from Africa to attend a public school she is a nice, innocent, respectful teenage girl. Her behavior quickly changes and these alterations can be explained through both the Freudian and Behaviorist perspectives.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Breakfast Club

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “Jock”, “prep”, “loser”, “geek”, “criminal”, “ popular”, are just a few labels of teenagers that are used everyday by outsiders who judge them without looking skin deep. In the matter of stereotyping, some may perceive it as being the base of an identity in the view of society. Stereotyping is categorized and used as a positive view. As opposed to the film The Breakfast Club, that creates a more negative input on stereotyping. Peer groups have really changed over the years in a High school atmosphere.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gattaca is a movie that contains a very interesting society. As in all societies, discrimination exists and it is primarily between two groups. The valids, as they are called here, are the dominant group who oppress the group known as the invalids, which is the group consisting of the less privileged individuals. However, in this society, privileged and less privileged does not refer to the individuals in terms of wealth or power, but instead, in terms of genetics. Here, discrimination has been reduced down to genes, and this determines your place in society.…

    • 1645 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays