Internalization of Themes Within Mean Girls

It is no secret that social hierarchies dominate high school-aged student’s social lives.

The mission to become well-liked by the right people and to be popular are constantly at the

forefront of teen girl’s minds. The movie​ Mean Girls d​ irected by Mark Waters strives to shed

light on these social pressures and unhealthy social norms in school systems. While this film

does an incredible job of unearthing these often unrecognized social norms, there are several

norms seen within the film that are not addressed. Due to the film’s popularity and reach, young

girls are learning to internalize these more implicit norms portrayed within the movie. What was

once made as a movie to bring awareness to and break down unhealthy social pressures, has now

become a catalyst for internalization of the subtle themes of gender stereotyping, classism, and

ostracising students due to their sexual identity. Girls are growing up watching this film and

perceive norms within this school environment like Mean Girls to be natural and leave it

unquestioned.

Mean girls centers around a girl named Cady Heron who moved to suburbs of Chicago

after living in Africa her whole life. She makes friends with two social-outcasts, Janis Ian and

Damian Leigh, who explain the social dynamics of the school to her. They explain that Regina

George is the queen bee of the school and her and her two friends Gretchen Wieners and Karen

Smith make up the most popular group called “The Plastics.” After a classmate makes a sexual

comment to Cady, The Plastics take a strong liking for Cady and invite her to sit with them at

their lunch table. Janis and Damien see this as an opportunity to take down The Plastics and

devise a plan for Cady to accomplish this. Cady is reluctant at first but takes a strong liking for

Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels, and then decides that she has reason to work against
Regina. This plan includes breaking Regina and Aaron up after they get back together, feeding

Regina “Swedish nutrition bars” that are designed to cause weight gain and, finally, to break up

The Plastics.

This plan results in Cady taking over Regina's queen bee position and abandoning Janis

and Damian. Eventually, Regina finds out about this plan and plots revenge against Cady. She

prints pages from The Plastic’s “Burn Book” which is filled with insults and rumors about their

classmates, and fills the school halls with them. Regina makes a page for herself to frame Cady

and the other Plastics. Then Cady’s math teacher, Mrs. Norbury, initiated a school-wide meeting

in the gymnasium for all of the women students. She has them all apologize to each other and,

once Janis comes on, she confesses to the entire revenge plan against Regina. Regina then runs

out of the gym and into the street only to be hit by a school bus and break her spine.

Cady then stops and reflects on her time at the school and realizes she is not proud of

who she has become. She takes responsibility for the Burn Book and then joins the mathletes to

get her math grades back up after purposefully failing to get Aarons attention. Then Cady attends

her Spring Fling where Cady is pronounced Queen. In her speech, Cady complements her peers

and breaks her plastic crown and distributes it into the ground. She then makes peace with Janis,

Damien, and The Plastics. The final scene then shows a new group of “Junior Plastics” entering

into the school. While Cady was able to break down the social hierarchies within her grade and

social circle, it is clear that the overarching hierarchical system in place made it unachievable for

her to make a permanent change within her school system. The new Junior Plastics, who did not

experience the ways in which Cady and Mrs. Norbury worked to change the system, will now
step right back into the Plastics place. This will reinstate the underlying social hierarchy present

within the school.

Mean Girls is very successful in shedding light on these social pressures within schools>

It addresses cliques and reputations, the objectification of women, and toxic beauty standards.

Firstly Cady defies cliques and reputations when she, Cady befriends the social outcasts, Janis

and Damian. In doing this, Cady does not look to follow the structured cliques within her school

as Janis and Damian are stigmatized for being the ‘outcasts.’ Janis and Damian ended up being

her closest friends and school and supporting her through thick and thin. Additionally, Cady feels

judged for joining the Mathletes as this group is also labeled as being for social outcasts. Even

though joining the mathletes was not something she wanted to do, she still decided to join and

even wore her mathletes jacket to her Spring Fling. Secondly, the objectification of women in

school systems is brought to attention when Cady gets called out in a sexist comment from one

of her classmates in the school cafeteria. The plastics call out the male student for making that

comment and shut down the objectification. This shows teen girls that they have the ability to

question and stand up against the objectification. Finally, the movie portrays toxic beauty

standards. In one scene, when Cady was at Regina's house, she watched The Plastics look

themselves up and down in the mirror pointing out all of their insecurities. This scene portrays

the toxic beauty standards of teenage students. The girls comment on very insignificant aspects

of the way they look which portrays how high beauty standards are within schools. When Cady

is asked what she was insecure about, she revised a negative reaction from the other plastics for

saying that her “breath smells bad in the morning.” This scene in the film calls out the

expectation to be perfect which causes the Plastics to feel insecure.

 Within each of these scenes, while these more specific, explicit issues are touched on, it

is easy to miss the greater, more implicit issues are ingrained within the movie. These topics are

not nearly as obvious and may be missed by the average teen girl viewer. Firstly, the issue of

gender stereotypes is embedded within the script. In one scene, Cady Heron arrives at a

Halloween party dressed as a dead bride. She sees that all of the other girls are dressed in

scandalous tight-fitting clothes in order to appeal to the male students. This theme is then

touched upon within the scenes where Cady is sexually called out by her male classmate in the

cafeteria and when she decides to fail math to get Aarons’s attention. While gender stereotypes

are seen within the film, the ongoing themes of women working to serve male students is not

nearly as apparent. Teen girls watching this film may understand that they should not fail a class

for a guy, however, they may not understand that they are not there to please and serve men as a

whole.

Secondly, The issue of class is very apparent. Regina, the queen bee, is very wealthy and

regularly shops to stay up to date on wearing the trendiest clothes. She lives in a mansion and

spends her time terrorizing other students instead of studying or, as Janis does, working a

part-time job. This aids her in upholding her social status in school. She drives a nice car, and

because of her wealth, has a very strong influence on other students. This idea of classism is very

strongly apparent in these aspects of her identity. The school’s social system is designed to value

those of a higher social class. Regina has the ability and financial means to wear the nicest

clothes and not have to work hard in school or get a part-time job. Because Regina does not

have to prioritize school or work, she has the time to constantly work herself up her own social
ladder. She does this by regularly attending social events, shopping at the mall to buy new,

trendy, clothes and gossiping with the other plastics.

Lastly, the implicit themes of sexual identity are very prevalent within the film. Damian

is gay and Janis is framed as being the school’s lesbian. In once scene, Janis confesses to Cady

that the reason she and Regina stopped getting along is because Regina accused Janis of having a

“lesbian crush” on her in middle school. Ever since then, Janis has been outcasted by the school

for her rumored sexuality. During the meeting in the gymnasium with the women students, Janis

jokingly explains that maybe her attempts to sabotage Regina as a result of her “big, fat, lesbian,

crush” on her. Additionally, Damian is openly and unapologetically gay with Cady and Janis

and, at one point in the script, Janis states that Damian is “too gay to function.” Cady then

repeats this phrase around The Plastics and then writes it in their Burn Book. This page is then

realized into the halls of the school and Damian reads in. Appalled, Janis states, “That’s only ok

when I say it!” This underlying theme of LGBTQ+ students being labeled as social outcasts

within the film is much less apartment and is not resolved at the end of the movie like some of

the other themes.

While Mean Girls hits home on some of the social pressures seen within school systems,

it hides many other implicit themes that easily go unnoticed. Because they are not explicitly

called out, this then results in the internalization of these ideas. I as well as many other teenage

girls have seen this movie numerous times. Until I decided to focus on this film for this

assignment, I was completely blinded by these more hidden themes. The implications of this are

extremely widespread. After the film was released in 2004, the film grossed $129 million

worldwide (Olsen.) The film’s popularity pushed for its sequel, Mean Girls two as well as its
transformation into a Broadway show. The movie's most famous quotes are seen written on

tee-shirts and swarming social media. One of the rules of being in The Plastic’s group was, “on

Wednesdays we wear pink.” Still to this day, over fifteen years late, this saying is still repeated

on Instagram through the hashtag #meangirls and #wednesdayswewearpink. Ultimately, it is

clear that this film has had a very wide reach on teenage viewers.

Because of this film’s popularity, teenage girls are internalizing both the implicit and

explicit themes within the movie. When teen girls watch this film, they view these unaddressed

norms within the school as normal and natural. While girls may go back to school and

understand it is not ok for a guy to sexually call them out in the school cafeteria, they may not

understand that it is wrong to feel like they need to dress provocatively to receive attention from

guys. Ultimately this has a very harmful effect on teenage girls as they view this film to portray a

very ‘typical’ high school. This results in girls viewing the implicit norms within this film as

normal and natural. For instance, they may not strive to question the fact that some LGBTQ+

students are less included than their heterosexual counterparts. The internalization of these norms

results in teenage girls not feeling the need to question the legitimacy of them. This

normalization is what perpetuates the creation of unhealthy school environments. Until the

unhealthy and toxic norms portrayed within school systems are questioned, significant change

will not be made within school systems. Just as the Junior Plastics brought the social hierarchy

back with them after The Plastics left, teenage girls will continue to do the same within their own

school systems.

While films like Mean Girls can be very effective in their attempt to address and prevent

social hierarchies, these dangers are very apparent as well. Filmmakers should strive to make
films where social hierarchies in schools are not seen at all. When thinking about almost any film

that takes place in a school setting, these hierarchies are present. Regularly portraying these high

school social dynamics creates the same effect that Mean Girls does in normalizing the systems

in place. What we see in the media and within the entertainment industry is very impactful on the

ways in which we view society. Working to make films that portray a school system without the

hierarchies and social pressures can work to relieve viewers of this very structured, and toxic

school environment.

Works Cited:

“Mean Girls.” Paramount Home Entertainment, 2005.

Olsen, Christopher. “100 Greatest Cult Films.” ​Google Books,​ Google, 2011