Examples Of Stereotypes In Mean Girls

Did you hear about the inspiring teenager, Mary Henry, who raised enough money to send 66 girls to school in an underdeveloped country? No? I thought that might be the case. Did you hear about the teenager, Corey Worthington, who hosted an alcohol fueled party that attracted 100s of teens? Of course you did! This is just one example of many where the media purposely chooses to portray teenagers negatively and conveniently forgets to mention the teenagers who do good work in the community. The media stereotypes modern day teenagers as being rebellious, anti-social and trouble makers. Hey Media, believe it or not, not all of us are like that! These stereotypes of teenagers generated by the media are a biased, over exaggeration in order to scare

However, this movie gives a poor representation of teenagers as it is unrealistic and heavily stereotyped. It is unrealistic as the themes/scenes in the movie are either false or extremely exaggerated. Mean Girls is about a 16 year old girl, Cady Heron, who starts public school for the first time. She joins a group of unkind girls, the plastics, and starts to become like them, behaving out of order. Drama quickly escalates within the group and Cady seeks revenge getting herself into a lot of trouble. This movies conveys that teenagers are rebellious, evil, trashy, revengeful and nasty. This representation of us is unfair and complete rubbish as it only refers to the minority. Humour was commonly used technique throughout the film. Yes, humour made the movie quite entertaining to watch but it also was the main contributor to the negative stereotype of teenagers to be created. A prime example of humour within the movie is the scene of the talent quest when the 'plastics' are dancing to jingle bell rock, the facial expressions on Cady’s parents looked horrified. This was funny however it helped in creating the negative impression of teenagers. The scene suggested that teenagers are purely disappointments to their parents which is extremely biased. The film also uses Metaphor it is seen when Janice yells at Cady “You're plastic. Cold, shiny, hard plastic”. The use of this metaphor demonstrates Cady’s transformation. Cady transformed from being the ‘perfect child’ to a rebellious, self-obsessed teenager. These techniques make viewers convey teenagers in an unrealistic manner. The majority of teenagers aren’t rebellious, self-obsessed, nasty and trashy. This is an unfair representation of teenagers as the movie is unrealistic and the attitudes and actions of the characters within the film only refer to the minority of