Looking closely at three archetypes: the “Queen Bee,” the “Rebellious Goth,” and the “New Girl,” the results found that all three women used particular voices and personas to increase their social standing or to exact revenge — thus disempower- ing other women.
They're often portrayed as a teenage girl who are popular in school but is often mean and prissy to less popular girls, mostly towards the main female protagonist. She is usually very attractive and often has sidekicks following her everywhere.
Cady Heron, the new girl from Africa, continuously dumbs herself down to try to fit in with the Plastics and the popular girl stereotype. She pretends to be confused with math in order to get attention from and talk to Aaron, eventually becoming obsessed with the idea of being in a relationship with him.
Social Conformity. Another principle of social psychology that was common in Mean Girls is social conformity. Social conformity is when you change your behavior because of pressure from others or to fit in socially (Mcleod, 2023). One example of social conformity is when Cady starts to be a part of the Plastics.
Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried played the original Plastics of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith. Lindsay Lohan played outcast-turned-Plastic Cady Heron.
The original Mean Girls is surgically sharp in its insightfulness. It gets right to the heart of toxic friendships, power struggles, alienation, the push and pull of female friendships, the heartbreaks and joys and absurdities of all of it.
Janis Ian, also referred to as Janis Sarkisian or Janis ʻImiʻike in the musical versions, is a character from the Mean Girls franchise. She is portrayed by Lizzy Caplan in the original 2004 film, Barrett Wilbert Weed in its Broadway musical version and by Auliʻi Cravalho in the musical film.
Personality… dim-witted, easy-going, and flirty. Karen might not be the “most smartest,” but she could be psychic. (She even thinks she can predict the weather with her breasts.)
As the leader of The Plastics, Regina George is a true alpha female. She is portrayed as beautiful, confident, and ruthless. Regina is the kind of character who always gets what she wants, and is not afraid to trample over others in the process.
The sports guys, APG and plastics are all mostly popular but feel that they are above everyone else; they have self assigned status. The unpopular kids, unsurprisingly, are always the most genuine, showing real emotions and speaking what's true on their minds.
Mean girls have a strong desire to be popular and in charge at school. Their goal is to be at the top of the social ladder; and they will sometimes do anything to get there, including using other people.
A new study published in Elsevier's Evolution and Human Behavior revealed that making friends with unkind people actually could be a means of protection. Researchers at Oklahoma State University found that both men and women sometimes prefer friends who are likely to be "vicious" toward their enemies.
Parents need to know that Mean Girls is a 2004 comedy centered on Cady (Lindsay Lohan), a new girl in a high school dominated by a clique of popular girls. Mature humor includes crude jokes, sexual references, mentions of venereal disease, underage drinking, and comic violence.
“What sets it apart from other films geared towards a female is its focus on consumer culture.”. Iconic films of the genre such as Clueless (1995), The Princess Diaries (2001), and Mean Girls (2004) act as evidence of such.
Karen seems to be the kindest of the Plastics; she's rarely seen insulting people or belittling others as Gretchen and Regina often do, and she seems to play the part of the "quiet little mouse" who doesn't outwardly contribute much to Regina's dominating meanness in public.
kind but naïve. Though Cady has a good heart, she has a tendency to succumb to peer pressure. After years of homeschooling, she just wants to be liked by her peers. Her innocence is her downfall, and she lets the “mean girls” take advantage of her naïveté and desperate desire to fit in.
The Queen Bee is a stereotypical Mean Girl; she is the most popular girl in the school's most exclusive clique and sets all the trends. There can only be one Queen Bee, and she wields her social power to remain at the top. The Queen Bee's opposite is the Vengeful Goth, a social outcast with few friends.
Later at the party, Gretchen tells Regina about Cady's crush on Aaron to get her approval. Spitefully, Regina decides to flirt with and manipulate Aaron until he agrees to get back together with her ("Someone Gets Hurt"). Cady sees Aaron kissing Regina and is devastated.
Judging Others Won't Make You Better Than Them. This is perhaps the clearest lesson in all of Mean Girls: 'Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. ' We all have our insecurities and the way to approach them is with self-love and positivity.
