Mean Girls Analyses
Matt Woodrum Box 602
The movie Mean Girls is a movie in which Cady, the main character, moves from Africa to the United States because her mom is offered a job at Northwestern University. Cady soon finds out that going from Homeschool in Africa to public school will be far more difficult then what she expected. This film has several main characters which are all important and communicate with Cady in different ways. Mean Girls starts off with Cady leaving Africa and being disappointed with their move. And from the very start of this movie, we can see that things are going to be interesting. Cady has some strange encounters with some teacher, fellow students and before long meets groups that is commonly known as the plastics.
When we first meet Cady and her parents, everyone is all smiles, showing that they are excited for Cady’s first day of school. Cady seems nervous but understands her self-concept and has a good self-esteem about herself. Over all she seems satisfied with her life. Cady’s self-worth and self-concept have to do mainly with her culture in Africa, in which her parents seem to be loving, caring and seem to be parents that love their daughter. The culture of Africa and America are very different as can be seen within the first minute and a half of the movie. In Africa, Cady did not have to worry about connecting with people her own age because of homeschool and Cady worked with her parents a lot. Cady goes from communicating to animals to being introduced to this whole new world of people her own age. The first-person Cady finds, she introduces herself, and receives a rude welcome. This is a girl that Cady probably thought was the teacher until the girl starts making out with another student in her class. Cady’s second interaction happens to be with two fellow class mates, telling her not to sit in certain places and then when she meets the teacher, she bumps into her spilling her coffee and donuts in which everyone laughs at Cady. Within minutes of walking into her new school, many of her classmates already have made perception and made their own opinion about her. In seeing their perception about Cady, saw as she moved from seat to seat, listening to people she did not know. They also saw her spill coffee and the donuts onto her teacher. I believe that her clumsiness caused them to come up with their first impression and interpretation of Cady which did not make it difficult for people to that she was different from the rest of them.
Within three minutes of the film, we see a perfect example of stereotyping. The principle of the school walks into the class room, trying to get a smooth date, and tells the class that they have a “new student that just moved here from Africa”. The only seen African-American girl (in the class) is welcomed when she states she is from Michigan. This stereotyping was based only from the color of her skin, as we do not receive any other information about her. We are not told when she moved to that school and learn that the teacher’s perception of that student is wrong. Cady’s first day is filled with miscommunication as she cannot use the bathroom without permission, do not read ahead, no green pen, no food in class. Cady states another cultural difference here when she states that she has never been somewhere that she wasn’t trusted. This shows that Cady has not been around many people or situations in which she had rules. She shows here that she is used to more freedom.
When Cady comes home, her parents are excited to hear about her day and Cady tells her parents how her day went with a heavy sign and she rolled her eyes. This was her way of non-verbally telling her parents what type of day she had had. Without a doubt, her parents would have could figure out that she had not had a good day. One of the ways someone watching this movie would be able to tell that the communication was received is by the look on both of her parents faces.
When Cady finally gets to out back of the school, she realizes that she is not anywhere near a class room which why she wonders if she would get into trouble for missing class. Janice soon reassures her that they will not get into trouble because we’re friends and she smiles telling Cady that Janice knows what she is talking about. Something interesting to note here is that Cady knows that she can get into trouble by skipping class. I wonder if this something that she would have gone over with her parents or maybe someone in the office. Either way, Cady figured that she had finally made some friends, which made skipping class a smaller deal. After all, she “was in no position to pass up friends”. When Cady first met Janice and Damon in the class room, we see the relationship start with Initiating, or small talk. When Cady decides to skip, Cady is experimenting with this friendship, she had decided that this friendship (her only friendship) was worth having after all she was not about to pass up friends. While Janice and Cady are talking during this scene, we can see the friendship intensifying as Cady slowly starts to disclose information about who she is and how she was brought up.