Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters

Today is a day unlike any you have experienced. You get yourself ready and arrive in a territory you could never be fully prepared for. In this new arena, you gaze out upon a vast variety of specimen. Each species holds closely to their kind to such an extent that it is as if the food chain is sprawled out in front of you in perfect balance. As your gaze ascends, it is abrasively obvious who hold the top of this bionetwork. The dominant, carnivorous female stands proudly and walks through the others with her team of hunters following closely behind. All other members of the ecology you have been submerged in part as they walk through, half watch in awe and all hope this leader is not hungry. Today is not your first day in the African jungle. Today is your first day of public high school in America. Mean Girls portrays high school to be a social jungle created by the girls in the American education system through a basic rise and fall plot, demonstration that the social ecology is more important than academics, and direction of typical high school stereotypes toward a teenage female audience.

The basic plot of Mean Girls is that of an innocent new girl being thrown into the social jungle of American high school education and rising to royalty only to find she has fallen from her true greatness. This plot is presented in such a way, as to show that the social stereotypes and anarchies invented by female high school students in America is flawed only leads to girls who try and hurt each other instead of forming true friendships. On “Cady’s” first day of school, “Janis” and “Damean” immediately take her in. Being “fresh meat,” the Plastics decide to take her under their wing on the second day of school. Steaming from ...

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...erican high school student’s mind. When you find yourself in the African jungle, might as well make yourself the lead lioness in order to protect your chances of survival. But would it not be more ideal to be in a high school jungle that is a bit more free from predators? Mean Girls portrays high school to be a social jungle created by the girls in the American education system through a basic rise and fall plot, demonstration that the social ecology is more important than academics, and direction of typical high school stereotypes toward a teenage female audience. While the high school experience illustrated in Mean Girls is initially a scene of survival of the fittest, the more harmonious view of the American educational system shown at the end is truly one female students can strive to achieve through acceptance instead of aggression.