Mean Girls Group Communication Essay

High school can be a tough place for teenagers especially with the many pressures that surround communication. Each and every day, teens communicate on an individual basis to form new relationships, identities, and personalities. These processes are the basis for what sets up the communication process seen in groups. Throughout these ongoing processes of daily communicating, one forms different groups in which they identify and converse with. Essentially these groups can be formed anywhere from sports teams, class projects, social cliques, etc. Moreover, group communication is highly identifiable in high school settings, and is especially prevalent in the popular media film Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a well known “chick flick” that was released

after living in Africa for a majority of her life. However, unlike most teenagers Cady will be starting her first public school expierence entering North Shore High School as a junior! Cady quickly realizes within moments of stepping onto the campus that North Shore High is a lot different from her old life back in Africa.

Groups are a huge trend in the film and this can been seen from the first ten minutes of the film, as Cady is debriefed on all the groups, aka cliques, of the school varying from outcasts, jocks, Asian nerds, plastics, wantabees, band geeks, etc. In all this shows the diverse community of North Shore

“The Plastics” are an elite and inclusive group of three girls, Regina George, Karen Smith, and Gretchen Wieners. These three girls are essentially known as the “untouchables” on the social totem pole, as this elite group is very distinguished and hard to gain an invitation of membership. However, on Cady’s first day the plastics showed an interest in the “new girl” and invited her to sit at their table for lunch, which is the golden baton of the elite. Furthermore, as Cady gets more wrapped up in the world that comes with the “plastic life”, Cady sways from her first friends Janis and Damien (the outcasts) and losses sight of the original plan of sabotaging Regina George. As originally, Janis and Damien planned on Cady getting close to The Plastics so she could get the juicy details on their behaviors and gossip and turn everyone at North Shore against Regina, however this didn’t happen!

Mean Girls is a unique example as there are so many different groups one can divulge into and categorize. In all, the movie surrounds one giant group in which can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, also known as subgroups. The main group focuses on Cady, Damien, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen. From there this group can then be divided even further, more specifically into two different subdivisions of groups. The main collection