Plastic

Friday, April 29, 2011

Amber Cooper
ENGL 1213
Dr. Lawrence
25 April 2011
Plastic

When I think of the term “mean girls”, the first thought that comes to mind is Mean Girls the movie. The hit movie came out in 2004 and was directed by Mark Waters. The story line is actually based on bestselling book entitled “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman. This movie was very popular and I believe it is excellent in showing the effects of bullying on youth culture (“Mean Girls-2004”).

“Mean Girls” depicts a group of high school girls called “the plastics”. The plastics basically rule the school. A plastic is a girl who is fake and does anything that she can to hurt others to get what they want. They are extremely stuck up and rude girls. A plastic is basically a big bully. Regina George (Rachel McAdams) is the leader of the clique. She is the typical popular girl. She has blonde hair, she is pretty and her family is rich. Whatever she says goes. Then there is Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert). Her family is even richer than Regina’s because Gretchen’s father invented the toaster strudel. She does whatever Regina tells her to do. She is Regina’s little sidekick. She is pretty also, but not like Regina. Lastly, there is Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried). She is extremely dumb. She is so dumb that she does not even know that she is basically a slave to Regina. She is definitely an example of the stereotypical “dumb blonde”. They even have rules about what they wear and when they wear it. If they do not wear the right thing on the right day, then they cannot sit at the lunch table. As shown in the picture below, they are all required to wear pink certain days of the week. The girls all have to match each other. Overall, they are all superficial girls who do whatever they need to achieve what they want.

(“Mean Girls Are Nasty”)

Everything begins to change, however, when Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), a home-schooled girl from Africa arrives. She then meets two people in the “out-crowd” named Janice Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese). Janice is the typical gothic girl. She wears all black, she wears a ton of eye make-up and she is into art. Damian is a big cuddly teddy bear who is gay.
Ultimately, the “plastics” seek a relationship with Cady because she is pretty. She looks different than most girls at the school. She has red hair, and she looks very innocent. It is just like the old saying; keep your friends closer but your enemies closer. Ultimately, this is what the plastics seek. However, Janice and Damian take this to their advantage. They strongly encourage Cady to keep her relationship with the plastics so that they can expose the plastics’ deepest darkest secrets. They have been “burned” by Regina and her followers.

Then, Cady begins to fall for Regina’s ex boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett). Everyone knows that you cannot fall for a friend’s ex-boyfriend. Regina finds out and does all that she can to win Aaron back although she is not interested in him at all. This sparks something in Cady that makes her want to destroy Regina. Basically, Cady does many petty things to ruin Regina’s reputation and social status. In the end, Cady realizes that she actually turned into a “plastic” when in all reality that was not her initial goal. All of the girls realize that what they had been doing was very wrong after Regina got hit by a bus. This changed everything for the girls. Everyone went their separate ways and somewhat changed for the better. This basically describes high school in a nutshell. This movie depicts a lot of sub-groups and stereotypes that are present in high school today. However, unlike this movie, most people do not get hit by a bus and realize that the way they are treating people is very wrong. Although this movie is not completely the reality, it is very good at depicting the cruelty of youth girls.

(“Cady Becoming Plastic”)

A mean girl comes in all shapes, sizes, races, etc. Not just the kind shown in “Mean Girls”. I do not think that girls understand the effects of their cruelness on some individuals. Girls are very emotional, so this cruelty can really affect someone in a very negative way. This issue is being brought to the attention of the media more often in today’s society because more information has been discovered about the effects of females bullying each other. According to writer John McDonald, “the kind of social exclusion, teasing and taunting that is engaged in by girl bullies can have long-term disastrous effects on both the bullies and other girls who are drawn into the bullying behaviors” (McDonald, John). As we can see, girls suffer tremendously from being bullied.

("Thats What Little Girls Do")

For example, in the end of “Mean Girls”, Regina exposes the “burn book”. The burn book is a book that the plastics have created that has extremely cruel things written about the other girls in the school. Regina makes copies of the book and puts them all over the school. She reports this to the principal and claims that she found the book. She makes it look as if she was also a victim by putting herself in this book. When the girls of the school saw the pages from the book, all hell broke loose. The girls were fighting and crying. They were basically going crazy. All of that resulted from extreme bullying. Regina was not thinking of the consequences of her actions. She released the book because of her own personal vendetta against Cady for trying to ruin her life. Girls never think about the consequences of their bullying. It worst case scenarios, it could end extremely badly. In today’s society there is a significant link between bullying and suicide.

According to bullyingstatistics.org, “suicide is already the third leading cause of death for teens. Bullying increases the risk of suicide. Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims” (“Bullying and Suicide”). That is very alarming to me. Youth take their lives because they are bullied. Bullying is a huge issue in the world today. It is a very sad and terrible issue.

People always say “boys will be boys” but they fail to mention that “girls will be girls”. Girls are cruel and I have learned this from experience. I have even been a “mean girl” at one time before. You just never really realize that you have been mean before until you have been a victim of a “mean girl” yourself.


Works Cited
"Bullying and Suicide - Bullying Statistics." Bullying Statistics - Teen Violence, Anger, Bullying Treatment Options. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
“Cady Becoming Plastic”. Photograph. Fanpop. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
McDonald, John. "When Girls Bully." Bully Solutions. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
"Mean Girls (2004) - Full Cast and Crew." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
“Mean Girls Are Nasty”. Photograph. Maddy Goes To The Movies. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
“That's What Little Girls Do”. Photograph. Peterhbrown.Wordpress. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.