Situated Identity In Mean Girls

The movie 'Mean Girls' is about a girl Cady who was homeschooled until the age of 16. Then she entered high school and met plastics (a group of mean teenage girls). She started becoming like them to fit in and gain acceptance by others. Then she realized her mistake and that people don’t like her so she apologized to people she has hurt. In this paper, I will demonstrate how tactical impression management, situated identity, and peers as the agent of socialization apply to various scenes in the movie. Tactical impression management; The control of information by using conscious, goal-directed activities to influence impressions is called tactical impression management. (DeLamater, Myers, & Collet, 2015). People want others to like them, fear

Situated identity; Situated identity is our conception of who we are in relation to the other people around us. Sometimes people support situated identities in public to facilitate smooth interaction even though they may not accept them privately. (DeLamater et al., 2015). This concept is pretty much seen in the whole movie. Since Janice convinced Cady to be friends with plastics and tell her everything that they talk about Cady was in a situated identity. When Cady met Janice and Damien in the mall after going to Regina’s house she told them about the burn book. In Regina’s house when they were discussing Damien she said, “He is almost too gay to function” but in the mall when Janice asked her whether she was in that burn book Cady refused and did not tell them that they both were in that burn book. After Regina kissed Aron and they got back together, Cady used to act like everything is normal in front of the plastics but when she used to be with Janice and Damien she used to backbite about the plastics. Basically, she was acting according to the surrounding people. When she was with Damien and Janice she was their loyal friend and when with the plastics their loyal

On the second day when Jason tried to make fun of her, she did not know how to respond until Regina saved her. She did not know how to react in a situation like this. In the lecture, we discussed that peers allow us to make relations on our own. Peer interactions are spontaneous and non-structured. Peers can have an effect on our socialization and develop our sense of identity. When she entered high school, she was a nerd with good grades and did not know how to socialize. When Janice and Damien forced her to interact with the plastics and tell them what they talk about she agreed. At that time, she was not able to figure out that this is not good for her. Slowly her personality started changing and she became just like plastics. She started misbehaving with her parents, ditching Janice and Damien. She was getting used by people. She did not interact with peers before so she did not have the experience of it. But slowly she began to figure out that it is affecting who she is. In the beginning, Cady could not differentiate between her friends and enemies. Like the first 3 way call. Cady could not figure out about her real friends and she told Gretchen and Karen right away when she started liking Aron