The movie "Mean Girls" was released in 2004. The target audience being teenagers, young adolescence, and even up to some adults based upon some humor. "Mean Girls" as a film has been extremely successful as it was released almost ten years ago, yet it still captures and portrays many stereotypes within high school. Some of these stereo types are completely relatable while others are over the top. The humor, and lines in this movie have proven to great, since many people still quote the movie in today's popular culture. Values portrayed in the movie are looks and popularity. Power and control are another huge topic to look into with this movie. The two main characters find their identity in the power they have to control the people around them. This is how they make it to the top of the totem pole. They have no mercy on others, as they seek what is best for them. The control they have over others is relentless. Attitudes are sassy, and mean.
Some myths that I think could be seen are that you have to be mean, back-stabbing, and selfish to become what popular culture defines as "popular". The word "Popularity" wasn't associated with anyone who was gracious and kind at all in the beginning of the movie, only toward the end. Even then there wasn't anyone completely at the top of the pyramid.
Even though this movie was released so long ago, a lot of the beliefs and values that were of Popular Culture then are still evident in today's popular culture. People still obsess over how others view and perceive them rather not not worrying about it and just simply being them selves. Girls, and not only girls, can still be cruel and mean. I believe these values are negative and positive. They feed us lies about what makes us worthy and how we can get attention: by being cruel and unintentional. Some positive values it shows us is that the bad doesn't win. Lies and secrets start to pour out, and sooner or later, a real human being with feelings will emerge from this constricting cocoon that "popularity" places on a person. In the end, this idea to be "on top" and in power is broken, and the high school girls feel they can be at peace with being themselves. Once again it is a great way to see what we as a culture value. This movie shows that we value material things, and are wiling to do anything to get what we want, even if that means tearing down others in the process.
Overall, this seems like a good analysis. Aside from some spelling errors and things like that here and there, you bring up a lot of good points, and your choice of movie to analyze is a good one. You could easily talk about how popularity and good looks (and whatever else you might be able to come up with) have an influence on power and control, and how that affects the way people in society think, maybe how it makes people think that they need to be popular and good looking in order to have any power in the world. Plus, since power is so appealing to so many people, maybe that could be a good point to discuss.
ReplyDeleteI think the choice of movie was really good it really does address some of the things that are going on in our culture. I agree with you on the myth that this movie portrays and how misleading it is for the young audience watching. There are some stereotypes that this movie tried to portray. The fact that to be popular in school you need to be pretty, skinny, be mean to other, and get anything you want by being popular was some of the stereotypical things that a young person would think going to high school is going to happen or that’s what they need to do to be popular. When in reality is not even to close to how high school really is. Which is really misleading on how high is really going to be like.
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ReplyDeleteI would suggest briefly describing “Mean Girls” as some readers might have not watched it before. You can also describe some on the stereotypes depicted in the movie, ones that are related to high school and as you said, “over the top.” Another being: in today’s society, what is considered to be “popular” in high schools? How does one have to act to become popular? I believe maybe you should find a quote from the movie and put that in your response essay as well to help demonstrate one of your myths or beliefs.
ReplyDeleteYou have a really good start on this but there are a few mistakes as far as grammar and in a few sentences you can change around the sentence structure.
I do agree with Christina that there should be more time explaining what the movie is to people who have not seen it. I think this movie is excellent but however I think there are many good lines that you can pull from this movie espically when the main character is comparing the culture of the school and the classmates as animals from the jungle/wild. Good job on capturing the main points from the movie and how it relates to American culture mainly in teenagers. I think you can do more about explaining the values and using examples from the movie that show the values that you picked.
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