Mean girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film directed by
Mark Waters. The movie is based in a High School drama setting, re-creating how
schools in America is like for young teenage girls. The plot begins with a girl
named Cady Heron who was home-schooled in Africa and have returned to the
United States after a 12-year research trip in Africa. While settling in her
new school in Evanston, Illinois she encounters new characters (Janis and
Damian) and the schools most exclusive cliques, the plastics, who was led by
‘’The queen bee’’ Regina George. The plastics take interest in Cady and invited
her to have lunch with them everyday. Making Cady one of the plastics, Janis
see’s this opportunity to plan a revenge against Regina, using Cady as a spy to
gather information about the plastics and report back to Janis.
The demographic audiences for this film are girls aged from
16-19-years old. Within the movie, all
four girls are seen wearing stereotypically girly clothing, focusing on pastel
and bright colors such as blue, pink, purple etc. The clothing is seen
featuring jeweled studs when infused with stereotypical girly clothing,
indicating that these characters are representing an extremely girly and
feminine group of girls in society. The location of each character’s home
indicates their personality and their social class; for example, Regina George
is seen to be upper class because of the unnecessary belongings and the
environment that she lives in. This reflects her popularity and how she is seen
from the world as an ‘’innocent’’ and ‘’girly’’ character due to her clothing,
immediately contrasted by the manipulative nature of her personality. Telling
the audience that looks can be deceiving.
Gender itself within the film is a major theme of
representation. The leading characters within the film are all female
immediately giving the female sex a dominant and powerful presence within the
film. In addition to this, Cady, Regina and Gretchen are all portrayed at some
point strong. However, when these characters are seen as strong, it is when
they are plotting against each other, presenting another teenage girl all
‘’stab’’ each others back. The character of Cady Heron is seemingly the only
female who is seen with the most power by the end of the film due to her ‘’honest’’
actions.
The narrative of ‘Mean girls’ itself clearly reflects the
films institution, the simple and clear plot/characters make it easy for
audiences to watch and it ultimately requires little to no thinking on the
audiences part. The use of Cady’s voice over at certain parts of the film also
promote an actor/audience connections as it brings audiences to a more closer
and personal approach to the character making her seem even more relatable.
Furthermore, it reinforces the idea that being honest and good will get you
wherever and whatever you want making this an ultimately ‘wholesome’ and ’mild’
representation of the teenage experience.
As the four lead characters within the
film are teenagers, one can immediately expect that audiences would be those
close to their age and those who can relate/identify with the characters and
the experiences they are encountering, this is then furthered by the primary
location of the film being a high school, immediately attracting those who are
or have been in high school. In addition to this, due to the 'tongue n cheek'
nature of the film along with its sexual content, younger children are
uliminated from the audience as the content would be deemed as inappropriate.
As the films focus is on four female character, the audience for the film would
most likely be mainly female as they could relate and identify with the
characters the most. The cast of the film itself also acts at indicating the
intended audience, fans of lindsay lohan will most likely have seen the film,
in addition to this through having Tina Fey apart of the cast older audiences
are somewhat drawn into the film allowing the film itself to appeal to
teenagers and adults.
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