Mean Girls vs Lord of the Flies

Stereotypically, men and women have very different roles in the eyes of society. Gender roles and stereotypes have a history in religious, political, legal and economic systems. In reality, men and women are more alike than most people assume. Throughout the world there are struggles with identity, power, and violence occurring everyday between both men and women. The film Mean Girls, directed by Mark Walters, follows a young girl, Cady’s, transition from being home schooled to public high school. Cady enters the school’s group of mean girls, otherwise known as “the plastics”, which consists of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. Throughout the film each character struggles with their true identity. There are also many power struggles, and violent actions toward each other. The novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, follows a group of young boys who have been stranded on a deserted island. The three main characters: Ralph, Jack and Piggy all struggle for complete power over the group of boys. Each one also experiences a loss of identity, and violence is a clear theme exhibited throughout the novel. The characters in Mean Girls and Lord of the Flies all struggle with the loss of identity, power and violence. They have very similar experiences with loss of identity and the struggle for power, but the violence among boys in Lord of the Flies is physical, versus the mental violence in Mean Girls. Due to the fact that we live in a patriarchal society, society has very different expectations of male and female behavior. Modern day stereotypes of men and women have led to the idea that boys and girls are very different, when in reality they are very much alike. Physical appearance is tied to identity in both groups. At the beginning of Lord of the Flies, a group of boys has just crash landed on a deserted island. Piggy and Ralph are the first characters to have an encounter, and they introduce themselves to one