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Mean Girls Sociology

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Jocks, nerds, stoners, band kids, and the “it” girls are all groups that we automatically and exclusively associate with a high school environment; how many times have we stopped to consider where these segregated cliques originated or the purpose of their existence in our society? In the 2007 film, Mean Girls, the directors portrayed a comedic overrepresentation of these specialized groups in a way that actually raises a myriad of sociological questions regarding the inner workings of high school social behavior. Taking a closer look at this satirical, lighthearted movie can provide a sufficient amount of insight about how social fact and the social construction of reality dictate our behavior and our perspectives on society and the roles we play in it. I should start by explaining …show more content…
They take on the role of society in this instance, teaching Katy all the ways in which she “should be” acting as she had never been exposed to such pressures in the past. As a mean girl, you wear pink on Wednesdays, you cannot be good at math, you cannot like another mean girl’s ex-boyfriend, and never, under any circumstances, can you wear sweatpants to school. The social groups are strongly emphasized in this movie, playing into typical stereotypes like flamboyant gay men and Asian mathletes. For the greater part of the movie, everyone performs within their assigned behavior expectations but there are some instances that we see those expectations blatantly ignored and we recognize that for a reason. The mother of one of the girls clearly acts outside of the bounds of how we expect parental figures to behave. She offers alcoholic beverages to her daughter’s friends, encourages sexual promiscuity, and has had many plastic surgeries among a plethora of other social faux

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