Social Hierarchy In Mean Girls

The genre of teen films was born in the 1950’s but became a fixture in pop culture following on the heels of movies from John Hughes in the 80’s. The genre of teen films encompasses movies that are directed towards a teen audience and are generally also about teens. They encompass essential components that reflect the teen experience: a defined social hierarchy that is usually disrupted during the course of the movie, conflict stemming from rebellion, and a romantic interest. All of these are often used to display a coming of age process. Mean Girls is one of the defining movies within the teen film genre because of the way it takes the clichés of the genre and uses it to create a story that is perfectly representative of the genre because it plays off of all other teen films. The cast of characters of Mean Girls fills out all of the archetypes traditionally found in a teen movie. Newcomer Cady Heron is the social outcast, alongside Damien and Janis, who are able to accept Cady into their social circles because they have nothing to lose by doing so. Aaron Samuels is the ‘hot jock’, and the Mathletes serve to fill the ‘nerds’ spot. Regina George and her plastics fill in the necessary icon in movies set in high school: the popular girl and her clique. This social hierarchy is very distinct: there is an entire …show more content…
Clichés seen in the movie include the hot blonde dating the football jock, the dumb blond, and the nerdy Indian kid. The use of these stereotypes, however, allows the movie to explore issues without attaching them to a character that would only be relatable to a subset of teens. Because of this, the film explores things that hit close to home for the target audience of the teen film genre- things like body image issues, crushes, friendships, bullying, and