Mean Girls Cafeteria Cliques

Mean Girls Cafeteria Cliques

The typical teen movie stereotypes are shown in this clip. But are these stereotypes taken to the extreme? Do we really have 'plastics', 'asian nerds', 'art freaks', 'jocks', 'unfriendly black hotties', 'girls that eat their feelings', 'girls who don't eat anything', 'desperate wannabes', 'burnouts' and 'sexually active band geeks' at high school? Well, I'm a high school student and I can tell you now, we definitely do not have these types of stereotypes. All teen movies have stereotypes taken to the upmost extreme because thats what makes the audience get hooked with the drama between the cliques in that movie.

The main characters in the movie 'Mean Girls' are mostly female. It is a very female dominant film, which wasn't very common when it was released in 2004. The four characters we see most are Cady (Lohan), Regina (Adams), Gretchen (Chabert) and Karen (Seyfried). These four girls are the 'plastics' in the movie. They are the rich, popular, hot, blonde girls that everyone wishes they could be. But they are also bitchy, mean and cruel.
So why is every still obsessed with their lifestyle? Because it looks like they have it all? Everything they have is what we wish for? It's just the perfect barbie image that they portray that everyone falls in love with. We put them on a pedestal. They aren't better than ANYONE else. Everyones equal.
In 'Mean Girls', if you have seen the whole movie, you see the way the school looks at the 'plastics' in envy of their lives. The 'plastics' have the entire school wrapped around their fingers because they make people scared of them which gives them more power. And therefore.. Popular bullies.
To be honest why would anyone want to be like that? It's not the perfect world if you have to make yourself feel better by hurting others. Thats just not fair. NO ONE should ever have to put up with it.
But in the movie the director (Waters) shows the different stereotypes and they way they all treat each other. They tend to stick to themselves through out the movie but they ALL have an obsession with the 'plastics'. Everyone wants to date them and be friends with them. I think Waters did a great job at making the 'plastics' look desirable. This then makes the story line and plot for the movie and 'Mean Girls' is created.

I recently watched 'Easy A' (2010) again and I looked at how they different stereotypes compared to the stereotypes I saw in 'Mean Girls' and I noticed that 'Easy A' was different to 'Mean Girls' but had similar stereotypes such as the good girl, the mean girl, the cute guy etc. But it wasn't as far fetched as I noticed 'Mean Girls' was. For those that haven't seen 'Easy A' It's a movie about a good girl high school student, Olive (Stone), who is at first invisible but when a false rumor spreads the school about her she decides to live up to her new stereotype, the school 'slut'. Olive alters her attitude and the way she dresses to embrace her new title. We see her in corsets with a big red 'A' sewn on, tights and heels as her entire wardrobe begins to change, copying a character from the novel she studies at school, The Scarlet Letter. At first she doesn't mind what people say about her. But eventually it gets to her.  Girls can't stand being on the outside. They need their friends around them. It's just who they are. So Olive seeks help and finds the answer is to video blog to the entire school the truth about the rumor and therefore lives happily ever after.
In real life our problems don't disappear with us riding off with a cute guy on a lawn mower like Olive does. We have to deal with them. Stereotypes make high school high school. It's never easy, always a challenge but when you get the right people around you everything becomes a little easier and you can stop worrying about what you look like, what your wearing, how you act etc but enjoy who you are and be your own stereotype. YOU.