Young, Immature Girls
When I think of coming-of-age stories I think of a young person in between childhood and adulthood. It’s a confusing time usually filled with mistakes, changes in relationships, new experiences, and self discovery. I view coming of age as finding who we are as individuals. Coming of age can be a really intense, serious time in our lives, so I thought I would focus on a less earnest story that still incorporates many of the coming-of-age themes. In the film “Mean Girls”, a teenager named Cady moves from Africa to the United States and starts going to high school there. She has never been to school before and immediately experiences culture shock. She meets two friends, Janis and Damian, who welcome her and when Cady is also welcomed by a group of exclusive girls (the plastics), encourage her to infiltrate and wreak havoc. Cady’s changing behavior, lying, separation from parents and friends, and her realizations by the end make this film a coming of age tale.
Cady changes her diet because of her relationship with the plastics. At the beginning of the movie, Cady eats a sandwich, chips, and apple for lunch, but later on in the film after sitting with the plastics for a while, only has a small salad and apple, just like the other plastics. Earlier on in the film the plastics hang out together and talk about their body parts they feel self conscious about. Clearly the plastics have impacted her views on weight and eating. Cady starts to drift from her old self.
Cady starts to separate from her parents through the course of the movie. In the beginning, they were very close. Cady has always been homeschooled until now, and her parents drop her off at school on the first day. After her first few days of school, Cady’s parents ask her about her day and she gives them one-word responses or just upset grunts. Cady doesn’t include her parents in her life or tell them how she’s feeling. She emotionally separates herself from them, even though they want to know what’s going on.
Cady lies to her friends, parents, and crush in an effort to gain popularity. Cady finds herself in a sticky situation when her parents are going out of town and planning to take her with them, however she tells them she’s going to Janis’ art show over the weekend and can’t go. Really, Cady is hosting a party in the empty house, and lies to Janis saying she can’t go to the art show because she’s going out of town with her parents. She also lies to the boy she has a crush on by failing her math tests so he’ll tutor her, even though she’s really good at math. Cady doesn’t feel like she can get her crush to like her from just being herself. She also hopes that more people will like her if she lies to everyone around her and hosts the party.
In the end of the movie, Cady realizes that she’s been treating the people around her terribly and that her priorities have all been wrong. She apologizes to Janis and Damian and her crush, joins the mathletes, and wins Spring Fling queen but gives the title away because she realizes it doesn’t matter. Through her lying and mistakes, she learns what matters to her and starts to care less about others’ opinions of her. Cady begins to come of age.
I love that you wrote your essay on this film, and agree that Cady changed a lot throughout it. I think it's also interesting how Cady goes through different stages of what we view as maturity. At the beginning of Mean Girls, she's immature in the sense that she's clueless and naive, like when Damian and Janis trick her into skipping class by convincing her that part of the school burned down. And with the plastics, she's immature for prioritizing popularity over integrity. At the end, I think she finally showed maturity by owning up to her mistakes and not dragging the others who were to blame down with her. However, I wonder if she would have ever realized she was at fault if she had never been called out.
ReplyDeleteI like how the end of the blog was the beginning of Cady's coming of age! I already watched the movie so throughout the post I was mentally following along with how she mended the relationships she broke just to gain popularity. Like she really changed her life-long relationship with her parents in a matter of weeks just to fit in. At the end it really shows Cady came of age because it takes a lot of self awareness to be able to admit you're wrong and the fact that Cady did that and more (by giving away the Spring Fling queen) shows she matured and realigned her priorities.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree agree with your analysis of the film, especially the title. When Cady is called a "mean girl" by Janis at the end of the movie, Cady looks so confused and hurt. She never meant to be mean, she just lost her way for a time. And I think that's the whole point of the film. Cady was thrown into a new situation and tried to make the most of it, but along the way she lost herself. She thinks she must compromise and change in order to get what she wants, must this is an inherently flawed observation. Once Cady realizes this, she's able to understand what things she really desires, and what things she's just being peer pressured into doing. In the end, none of the women in the film are "mean girls."
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I agree with what you're saying here, it really seems like Cadi goes between two opposite ends of a spectrum over the course of the movie before finding a place somewhere in the middle. When Cadi becomes a "mean girl" the solution is not to go back to being the person that she was before but to become a sort of new person who has both grown since coming to school there and is nicer and more emotionally mature. I also like that you point out that she is not fully come of age by the end, it's still an ongoing process of growth and change.
ReplyDeleteI really like that you wrote about Mean Girls because I feel like it's seen as such a classic movie for teenagers but we don't really always stop to think about what message it sends. I don't know if it was just me, but by the middle of the movie, I ended up pretty much disliking almost every single character presented (at least a little bit). I think one reason why this presentation of coming-of-age is so popular is because it's like a "normal" teenager's experience. I'm sure there's plenty of people who feel the need to change themselves and even get their hands dirty in order to fit in and be accepted because the pressure is just that intense. However, the movie definitely presents a better message through Cady's eventual acceptance of who she is and wanting to live her life how she wants as opposed to following social standards.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you wrote about! I think that Cady's story is really interesting. Mean Girls can often be seen as a silly comedy but I think that it goes a lot deeper than that. Not only is it funny, but it also shows a lot of the complexities of being a teenager. Cady does a lot of bad things in the movie but she owns up to them and the movie's message is really good. It shows a lot of positive growth.
ReplyDeleteI like how you wrote about Mean Girls as a coming-of-age film. I thought Cady's gradual dissociation from her parents was especially interesting to analyze as a coming-of-age marker. It seems like being mean to your parents as teenagers is almost "cool," as shown here by Cady's refusal to open up to her family. I like how by the end Cady realizes being mean in general isn't cool, and it redefines what popularity means to her and how involved she wants to be with it.
ReplyDeleteMean Girls definitely highlights just how toxic society can be; it really forces teens to grapple with intense feelings of worthlessness and self doubt. it's great that Cady realizes that what matters in the end is what she thinks. Although American society preaches independence, ironically enough we're often hiveminds.
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