Cultural Norms In Mean Girls

An Examination of Cultural Norms and the Science of Fitting as seen in “Mean Girls” The movie “Mean Girls” follows the story of a high school age girl who comes from a homeschooled background and is suddenly thrown into a typical American high school social environment. Her adjustment to this transition is shown through a story arc that chronicles her attempts to gain her peers’ approval. The way in which she attempts to do so is by consciously changing her identity to fit into whatever social scene she is present in at the moment, thereby making use of social indicators to change the way others perceive her. The introduction of the Mean Girls/Plastics (Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith) shows how physical attractiveness and money are the two most valuable traits that a high school student can have, and how possession of those traits means power for the individual. Gretchen comes from a rich family, Karen is considered to be beautiful, and Regina has both of these characteristics, making her the so-called ‘Queen Bee’. Her powerful role in the social structure of North Shore High School is shown not-so-subtly by depicting a crowd of admirers actually
The concept of “fat talk” as proposed by Robbins (2013) is played out during the scene where the Plastics begin to criticize themselves and their bodies. When Cady does not chime in on her own, the Plastics actually turn to look at her, indicating that it is expected that she also find something wrong with herself. Compelled to fit in, Cady also participates, even though she is hard-pressed to find something to complain about with herself. If she had not done so, she would have been indicating that she did not fit in with the group (because she thought she was better than the rest of the group