Ideology is “a system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world.” (Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). According to Sturken (2001), the system of meaning is based on the use of language and images or representation. Therefore, media texts come along and select what is “normal” and what is “deviant” to the extent that this hegemony of constructed meanings in the viewer’s head becomes “common-sense” (Gramsci in Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). From this standpoint, what America claims to be pop culture which is omnipresent in media internationally, is a representation, through “politics of signification” of what is right or wrong (Kooijman, 2008). An example of America’s cultural ‘manifestation’ is Mean Girls, …show more content…
For instance, in a ritual-like scene, Regina starts whining about how her hips are huge and the other girls naturally follow her with complains about themselves.
The negative consequences of mean girls’ harsh bullying (depression, suicidal thoughts, and eating disorders) are absent in the movie. Therefore, the viewer will associate bullying with ‘coolness’ as they showcase it when students were asked about Regina Georges, and one of them said “One time she punched me in the face and I loved it”.
In contrast to the general representation of women, the math teacher at the end of the movie makes a powerful statement by teaching the youngsters a lesson: the fact that girls mistreat each other makes it acceptable for men to do so. However, her declaration still gives men a higher position since she’s implying that girls should be solidary to fight men’s
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First, Cady is assumed to be black by her teacher when she mistaken her for an African-American girl on the first day of class and by Karen who is intrigued by her nationality “So if you are from Africa why are you white?”. Second, the name of her native country is ignored because Africa is often portrayed as one big rural country with jungle animals. As stated before, these statements are intently not directly offensive because they are addressed to white girl but this doesn’t make them less racist. On another hand, one of the high school’s clique is the “unfriendly black hotties”, this categorization entails that they are all as popular as the Plastics but are unfriendly because of their ‘un-whiteness’- even though Regina, Gretchen, Karen and Cady are as mean if not meaner. Asians are also targeted in this movie, as cool or nerds. It’s obvious that they are Vietnamese but are still labeled Asians following the “us vs. them” strategy. The representation of race in this film implies the primary rule to be popular which is to be white or else the person is considered less valuable.
Sexual stereotypes are recurrent in Mean Girls whether it is the perception of sex or the presence of homosexuals (Cones, 2012). “If you are gonna have sex, you’re gonna get pregnant and die.”, this line sums up the sex-education students receive. Nevertheless, this doesn’t seem to affect their
Novelist, Christina Hoff Sommers, in her narrative essay, “The War Against Boys”, the essay explains of how boys are a year and a half behind girls in education. Sommers purpose is to convey the idea that girls are not treated as boys are when it comes to the classroom. She creates a dramatic tone in order to convey to her readers that boys and girls have a different mindset. She also arguers about how some of the blame is towards Carol Gilligan as well as organizations such as the National Organization for Women for creating a situation in which Obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls and boys are resented, both as the unfairly privileged sex.
Who holds the key of power in your life? Is there a person or group of people that you are allowing to dictate your life choices? The movie Mean Girls brings to life the everyday peer pressures teenagers deal with. Main character Cady Heron experiences peer pressure for the first time, from multiple classmates. Although it is said that a person can not be persuaded to do or say anything without their consent, is this really true? Cady deals with situations in which she is being pressured from two sides of the spectrum. In the end she realized what was happening to her, but the peer pressure she endured impacted the entire school.
This movie is full of social psychology topics, such as, self presentation, agression, group behaviors, stereotypes, and conformity. To begin, when Cady tells the girls that she is from Africa, Karen blurts out something very stereotypical by saying, “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?” Here, she is representing
Mean Girls is a comedy film aired in 2004 this film captures the influences on lifespan development during adolescence. The main character Cady Heron was home schooled in Africa and now she must transition into high school where she is tested in different areas of her development. Throughout the film she becomes known as the new girl who is trying to figure out her self-identity. Cady integrates herself into a clique of girls known as the Plastics, soon enough Cady understands why they are known for their name. The Plastics run the school by the norms they have created and must always be followed otherwise it will lead into exclusion from the group. In order to be socially accepted social norms determining attitude, behavior, and status must
Omi claims that media and popular culture are two of the main culprits for the dissemination of a segregation ideology through music, movies and TV shows (Omi 114). According to Omi, media has the “ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology” and to “shape that ideology in first place” (Omi 115). These two sentences imply that Omi is not just blaming on media, but also on white people, who dominate communications and provide a better image of themselves in order to maintain the status of dominant culture. Moreover, Omi uses the concept of “representation” to claim that even the popular culture, which was supposed to be created by the people, brings segregating ideology on itself and do not contribute to the celebration of cultural diversity (Omi 120). Omi explains this belief of “representation” as a tool of segregation when stating that jokes and songs “reinforce stereotypes and rationalize the existing relations of social inequality” (Omi 121). Media and popular culture are outsiders, meaning that are not racist themselves, but according to Omi they are the main incentive to
The Hollywood Blacklisting that followed the Red Scare of the 1950’s forced the media to change in order to survive the scrutinizing committees of the HUAC and various congressional committees that pushed for the social “purging” of America in hopes of searching out the “Reds” which they believed were hiding among them. This change in media came at a time when the public had become extremely receptive to such influences due to the spread of the television and the growth of the middle class who had extra money to spend on luxuries such as going to the movie theatres. The constant barrage of conformity and conservatism as well as xenophobia seen in everyday shows and movies shaped the perception of the average American to believe that liberal or radical ideas were not what normal people supported and believed in.
Regina George is a junior in high school who is described as teen royalty. As the leader of her clique referred to as “The Plastics”, she rules the school with her best friends Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith loyally at her side. The three girls feed off of tearing the other girls in the school down and diminishing them by writing awful rumors and secrets in the “Burn Book”. With her tall and skinny physique, bright blonde hair and good-looks, she uses her sex appeal and superiority to manipulate and victimize the people around her including her family. Regina easily controls her family members. Her mother worships the ground Regina walks on and desperately looks to her for acceptance. Her ability to make other girls at school feel inferior fuels her power, as queen bee Regina is seen as the “it” girl. Everyone wants to look like her, dress like her, and be just like her. She uses her sex appeal to get any guy she wants and dangles them around everyone else to make them jealous.
The movie main character is Cady Heron who is a homeschooled girl. Her and her family lived in Africa for 15 years. They return back to the states and place Cady into a public school for the first time. Cady meets her classmates and finds a few good friends the introduce her to a group of girls called the Plastics. She ends up joining the plastics with the motive of bring them down because her new friend don’t like them very much and thought it would be funny. However, she eventually gets assimilated into the group of three unkind girls and starts to be just like them.
The Mean Girl trope, which also goes by the name “Alpha Bitch” trope, is that the most popular girl in a high school setting, will be in charge of most everything. TV Tropes once stated that they are “very likely to be a Narcissist, a Drama Queen, a Fashionista, a Girly Girl, a Valley Girl, a Bratty Teenage Daughter, a Daddy's Girl, an Attention Whore, and/or a Proud Beauty." Mike Males and Meda-Chesney Lind’s “The Myth Of Mean Girls” suggests that this trope is heavily unfounded in reality. While it is true that the media has blown the issue of female bullying heavily out of proportion, there is still a problem.
The issue of the relationship between the mass media and the popular culture has always been a controversial issue in social sciences. The political economists insist on the role of the media industry in the creation of this phenomenon of the twentieth century. Though, advocates such as John Fiske, argue that popular culture is actually the creation of the populous itself, and is independent of the capitalist production process of the communication sector. Basing his argument on the immense interpretive power of the people, Fiske believes that the audience is able to break all the indented meanings within a media message. He also believes- by giving new meanings to that specific message they can oppose the power block that is trying to impose its ideology to the public. Consequently, this anarchistic activity of the audience creates the popular culture as a defence mechanism. Even when we accept Fiske’s ideas, we can not disregard the manipulative power of the media and its effects on cultural and social life.
Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...
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
Imagine living in a time when your only role is to get married, bear children, and take care of your house and husband. Adrienne Rich proposes an ulterior idea in her essay “Taking Women Students Seriously” Women should not only question the gender standards but discuss the gender norms that society has created; by discussion and attention to the matter we can eliminate it all together. Women are not represented in school curriculums enough and have a large misrepresentation in society. Rich draws attention to: What women have working against them in education, how women are perceived in the world by the media and advertising, and the gender roles that society pressures young children to contort to. By striking up a discussion
Modern America, in accordance to course materials and personal experiences, overtly sexualizes people, specifically among the youth, engendering new versions of gender expectations, roles, relationships, and how society views people based on appearance, sexual promiscuity or supposed promiscuity, and so on. Easy A (2011) represents an example clarifying how gender socialization impacts today’s youth via several concepts such as slut shaming, slut glorification, challenging masculinity, dating/hooking up, gender expectations and social acceptance. This film primarily focuses on a female’s promiscuity. Olive, the main character, is automatically labeled slut, after a rumor she unintentionally sparked by a bathroom conversation. Soon, the rumor spread and Olive became “school slut” in minutes.
To most people the movie Mean Girls is simply a silly teen chick flick and is not good for anything but pure entrainment. Even though Mean Girls is slightly dramatized, high school in reality is perfectly portrayed through this movie. Every high school varies but there is always a domain group of students. The socially powerful are the rich and beautiful girls and everyone else are the loyal subjects to their castle. However, there is a twist in Mean Girls, the message is actually positive. Mean Girls is sending a message that women should not criticize one another to feel empowerment, it is unattractive to men to be mindless, and that White Americans have domains over other races. This movie also implies that nothing wrong with being different from what society accepts.