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Brandie Serles
November 22, 2015
Professor Coleman
Sociology
Video and DVD Analysis
Mean girls is about a teenage girl whose parents are zoologists, Cady Heron has never
known what "high school" truly meant. She lived her first 15 years in the African jungle, homeschooled, living life with only her parents and the animals of the wilderness, knowing all of the
rules of survival. However, when she moves out of Africa, she has to learn the rules of high
school, a jungle in itself. She instantly makes friends with two sweet teenagers, Damian and
Janis, who were in the "out crowd." Soon she meets the Plastics, the three crude, beautiful,
popular girls, consisting of Regina, the unofficial leader, Gretchen, Regina's full-time follower,
and Karen, "one of the dumbest people you will ever meet." They immediately let Cady into
their group. The two convince Cady to keep her relationship with the Plastics, only so that they
can know their dark secrets. However, events turn for the worse when Cady falls for Regina's exboyfriend, Aaron Samuels. When Regina finds out, she seeks revenge of Cady by taking Aaron
back. When Cady finds out, what began as a game to discover secrets turns into a plan to destroy
Regina. Now, Cady, Janis, and Damian plot together to bring Regina's status down. However, as
Cady spends more time with the Plastics, she to, then becomes one of them.

Auguste Comte opinions of this movie would be that the fundamental laws of society work
with one another by trying get through high school life by not only graduating but by being
popular within their own little clicks to work their way up to the main click, The Plastics. The
clicks all share the common interest which would be to have popularity amongst each other. For
example, in the males swim team, all the guys look up to their captain, Aaron Samuels who is
supposed to be one of the hottest and most popular guys in the school, the girls look up to Regina
George and try to follow her every move like cutting circles in their shirts to show off the color

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of their bras. This example supports Auguste Comte theory by showing in the North Shore High
School society, they all share the fact that they all want to achieve the idea of being popular.
Marxs theory in this movie with class stages instead of working class stages, since we are only
talking about a high school society consists of Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, Freshman, yet the
classes of this society are so much deeper than that. These girls in high school are trying to over
achieve each other by doing whatever it takes as well as whatever it may cost. It can be by
making rules to follow like wearing a pink shirts only on Wednesdays and not being able to wear
sweatpants on Mondays. These girls at North Shore High School will do anything to become
popular even if it takes them literally to push one another in front of a bus. Literally.

However in Durkheims theory when it comes to this movie would first start off with the
labor divisions meaning the different types of clicks that consists at North Shore High School.
This will include the art freaks, Asian nerds, anti-plastics, asexual band geeks, burnouts,
cheerleaders, cool Asians, desperate wannabes, girls who dont eat anything, girls who eat their
feelings, sexual active band geeks, varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, and last but not least,
the plastics. Durkheims theory was to believe that deviance will bring people together in a
society. Throughout these clicks this happens with gossiping during lunch time, having the latest
fashion such as army pants and flip flops, and being pretty as Regina George would say. These
factors would be the social norms of these clicks which makes up the society and concludes
Durkheims theory by the end of the movie when mainly the girls of the school have to come
together and say sorry to one another for all the rumors that each individual spread about
another.
The paradigm that was most represented in the video that I chose, was Marxism (conflict). I
believe this was the most represented because the society has small elites that consists of a
powerful elite meaning North Shore High School has a bunch of click which would be the small
elites that consists of one powerful elite, for example in the Swim team, Aaron Samuels and in
the Plastics, Regina George. Another would be an arena conflict. In this case the arena of conflict

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would be in the halls of the high school when all the students start fighting because of what was
said in the burn book or at the end of the movie when all the girls are confronting one another
about what was said and if it was true or not. Regardless of the other paradigms, this movie has
nothing but conflict in it, so thats why Marxism fits the best.