This is probably the best article I could have found for this subject. The article I read is analyzing the movie Mean Girls, which just about every teenager has seen. The article begins summarizing the movie, discussing how cliques are the base of this movie. The main character in the movie is Cady Heron who just began her junior year in high school after being home schooled by her zoologist parents in Africa. Her first day she ends up eating her lunch in a bathroom stall, because none of the cliques would accept the new girl. The next day Janis (a very punk ‘art freak’) and her friend Damian (who is gay) let Cady sit at their table as they describe all the different cliques at the school to her. The cliques consisted of: “JV Jocks, Asian Nerds, Cool Asians, Unfriendly Black Haughties, Sexually Active, [fat] Girls who Eat their Feelings and— the centre of the film’s plot—the Plastics, teen royalty.” The head of the Plastics, Regina George, rules the school. Cady and her new friends devise a plan to turn Cady into one of the Plastics to find out all their dirty secrets to ruin them. When this happens Cady ends up actually turning into one of the Plastics.
The point of the movie was to show, in a comical way, the process that new students have to go through when arriving at new schools. The main scene in the movie that really conveys how teen girls work is when Cady fantasizes attacking Regina like the animals would in the jungles in Africa. This is pretty much explaining that high school is survival of the fittest. It is not about being yourself and finding friends like you, it is just about fitting in with a group so you are not a social outcast. In the episode of Buffy that I am using for my paper Marcie is the girl being ignored. This article is concluding that since Marcie has no friends it is because she does not fit into any of the cliques in the school. I somewhat agree with this, but it is almost impossible not to find someone you can be friends with.
Resnick, David. "Life in an unjust community: a Hollywood view of high school moral life." Journal of Moral Education 37.1 (2008): 99-113. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.
I love Mean Girls!!! I also remember that part when Janet is explaining all of the different cliques in the cafeteria. Mean Girls definitely captures the segregation of people into different types of groups, though I don't think many high schools in real life are like that. Though maybe thats just my school.
ReplyDeleteI saw in your recent posts you said you had read an article about mean girls.. so I had to read it. I LOVE mean girls, one of my favorite movies. And I agree with what Grace said, it definitely has the most stereotypical segregation a school can have. What a great way to describe high school.
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