The Victorian era saw the start of feminism that would proliferate in the 1970s. Feminists were fed-up with the continued gender discriminations that depicted them as inferior to their male colleagues (Han, 2017). The media played a crucial role in distributing the message by using female actors as the star actors or using them to act as the bosses in different films. These changes and actions were based on the essential roles the media plays in shaping the norms or cultures of the society. The growth in cinema that boosted females as equal to men has not been smooth with stereotyping and assumptions used to magnify and support the gaze theory that feminists fought hard to eradicate. Mean Girls is one of the most popular TV shows that have adopted the feminist empowerment of women by depicting liberated females who use their wits and skills to overcome their challenges. However, for all the emancipation of the female high-school students, the assumptions made by the producers of the film are biased and tend to enhance the gaze theory. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is to prove that Mean girl fails in its attempts to empower women due to its stereotyping and generalized assumptions.
Summary
Mean Girls is a film produced in 2004 focuses on teens relationship. The movie revolves around Cady, a female student who had been homeschooled and was attending school for the first time. She is from Africa although she is white and naïve on how to behave or socialize with other students. Her lack of exposure demonstrates that she has to learn first. Due to her characters, she makes two friends; Janis and Damian but these two are some of the many girls that are filled with the vengeance over the dominant group of girls led by Regina with her other two friends Gretchen and Karen forming the Plastics. Regina is depicted as a slim blonde with no flaws in her appearance (Waters et al., 2004). She is termed as one of the most beautiful girls in the school who also uses wits and manipulation she has learned from her mother’s boob job. Her feud with Janis resulted when she did not invite Janis to her party because she believed that she was a lesbian. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to invite her to a party that would have girls in their bikinis.
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Janis and Damian are quick to warn Cady from the uncanny and manipulations used by Regina to hurt and frustrate others, but once Cady is invited by Regina to share a table during lunch, Janis encourages Cady to accept the invitation. Janis and Damian planned to use Cady’s association with Regina would enable Cady to spy on Regina and determine the best way to anger and shame her to the entire school as she had done to Janis (Waters et al., 2004). The males in the film are portrayed as non-existent as they seem not to understand the problems of the girls and are used as dummies in most situations. The film is a comedy that makes it easier to view the social aggression in lighter terms than it would be if it was not a comedy but it has failed to perpetuate women empowerment that would be supported by the feminists.
Analysis
This section analyzes the significant issues evident in the film determining their influence on the message propagated by the movie. Feminists over the years have tried to diminish the social illustration of women as objects. According to the gaze theory, women are concerned about their image or appearance since they are objects to please men (Han, 2017). That is, women are spectacles to be enjoyed by the male spectators. Therefore, they must be beautiful and conform to the social expectations of presenting their beauty for men’s pleasures. The film has succeeded in some aspects in supporting feminist’s beliefs and ideas that women or females do not endure the stress and challenges improving their appearance for the male audience but rather for their personal need to look beautiful. Regina is associated with beauty due to her slim, attractive body resulting in Janis and Damian claiming that she has no flaws thus they do not know which weakness they would exploit to hurt and shame her to the peers.
Regina does not focus on her appearance to please the boys in the school but rather to be respected and envied by other girls or her peers due to her perfect body and appearance. The depiction may illustrate a change in dynamics thus not complying with the gaze theory, however, the obsession with presentation to the point that the girls are willing to do everything in their power to become beautiful means that appearance still dominates the mentalities of these empowered women (Han, 2017). The changes in dominance from the male to the female is a depiction of women empowerment. However, unlike gaining authority over the men, the ladies are focused on their images. The continued association with beauty to these ladies means that the movie fails to defy the gaze theory.
The changes and influence of popular culture have broadened the field of sociology with sociologists trying to determine the impacts of pop culture on teens. Since the turn of the 21st century, most pop media have demonstrated a change of personalities that were previously reserved for men to characterize women (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2008). In earlier studies, boys’ relationships were depicted to be unstable due to conflicts and fights. Girls, on the other hand, were portrayed as loyal and their calm abilities to solve their conflicting interests. However, most of these conflicts among the girls were due to a friend breaking the ‘girl’s code’ by engaging in a romantic relationship with another girl’s boyfriend (Snethen & Van Puymbroeck, 2008). However, sociologists have transformed the image of the girls’ relationships to be aggressive due to the increment of mean girls.
According to Behm-Morawitz, Lewallen & Miller (2016), once girls attain power, they are likely to change their characters resulting in the preference of increased social aggression and use of manipulation to ensure that they remain in power or authority. Behm-Morawitz, Lewallen & Miller, (2016) claims are supported by different scholars who believe that beautiful slim blonde girls are mean and social aggressors hence the increment of films that shape girls were suiting these characteristics such Regina to be manipulative and use her authority on her peers to shame girls such as Janis. The anger and need for revenge dominate Janis thus depicting that, unlike the calm approach that girls used to solve their conflicts, mean and socially aggressive nature of current generation of girls is determined to avenge rather than forgive.
The ‘mean girls’ depiction is becoming a norm among in teen films with girls using their wits, manipulation and their influence on their peers to belittle their peers but the overrepresentation of beautiful girls as bullies is based on non-evidence studies (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2008). Therefore, the lack of evidence to prove that such girls behave as represented in these pop media platforms is a flaw that scholars rely on assumptions, over-generalization and stereotyping these girls. These assumptions make it seem as if all girls are mean and socially aggressive and with the Mean Girls film taking a similar path, it is evident that it did base the plot of the movie on merely prejudiced ideologies rather than depict the real-life situation. Feminists would be offended by the film among many other in portraying the flaws of female relationship whereas their goals were ensuring that women would support each other rather than destroy their female counterparts.
As depicted in the above paragraph, the mean depiction and social aggression among the girls is founded on stereotyped ideologies. However, these assumptions are not the only generalized misleading concepts employed in the film. For instance, when Janis was planning to destroy Regina, she claims that once Cady recommends the ‘diet bar’ which will make Regina gain weight rather than lose weight, “Regina with her flawless complexion can find out how it feels to be chubby and spotty” (Waters et al., 2004). The statement depicts that being slim and having no spots on the body is what the girls’ term as beauty.
This assumption began in the mid-20th century with Hollywood actresses and TV presenters being depicted as females who are light skinned and have slim bodies. The media made these descriptions of beauty lead to dieting and loss of self-esteem among the chubby women as they consider themselves to be ugly. Although the preference for slim women has changed over the years with large hips, slim waists and big boobs are used to define beauty. The film is still focused on trying to force beliefs of the past in shaping the plot of the story. Lastly, it is evident that the film fails by sticking to past stereotyping and assumptions that are not based on facts such as its description of the beautiful females.
Conclusion
Pop Culture has shaped the way teens depict themselves with the continued depiction of girls’ as violent and bullies becoming the order of the day. However, the failure of the Mean Girls movie to realize that most of these depictions are based on stereotyped assumptions rather than facts makes the producers fail to empower women as intended based on the move to depict females as the dominant gender in the film. Therefore, it is clear that the producers failed in its attempts to empower women due to its stereotyping and generalized assumptions as discussed in this paper.
References
Behm-Morawitz, E., & Mastro, D. (2008). Mean Girls? The Influence of Gender Portrayals in Teen Movies on Emerging Adults' Gender-Based Attitudes and Beliefs. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly , 85 (1), 131-146.
Behm-Morawitz, E., Lewallen, J., & Miller, B. (2016). Real mean girls? Reality television viewing, social aggression, and gender-related beliefs among female emerging adults. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture , 5 (4), 340-355.
Han, C. (2017). Princesses and Mean Girls: A Study on Relational Aggression in Girls’ Literature. The New Korean Journal Of English Lnaguage & Literature , 59 (1), 25-44.
Snethen, G., & Van Puymbroeck, M. (2008). Girls and physical aggression: Causes, trends, and intervention guided by Social Learning Theory. Aggression And Violent Behavior , 13 (5), 346-354.
Waters, M., Wiseman, R., Fey, T., Lohan, L., Bennett, J., & McAdams, R. (2004). Mean Girls. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092
