Learning Theories in Mean Girls

Mean Girls
Goffman’s theory says that Impression Management is the effort to control or influence the perceptions of other people. Based on what I watched in the film, I can conclude that this theory is reflected in most of the characters of the film because people can see how each of them try to control or influence other people. A clear example of this was when The Plastics had a three way conversation on the phone with Cady and they all started talking behind their backs being influenced by each another.

‘The Plastics” are an example of a dominant culture because it is a perfect image of an extreme exaggeration of the popular clique of girls in high school with a comic relief. The film shows you how ridiculous high school girls can be to make themselves feel better about others. The Plastics were the hottest, coolest, most popular, but also meanest girls; everyone in high school admired them and wanted to dress, talk, and dance like them but no one could be part of their clique because they had rules, limits, and beliefs. The Plastics only allowed Cady Heron to be part of their clique because she was a new student and Regina thought she could invent her just to be like her.

Cady Heron is the perfect example of role strain, role exit, and role conflict because she experienced all these types of roles in the process of becoming a mean girl. For example, she experienced role strain when she had trouble keeping up her expectations to ruin Regina’s life as her friends influenced her to do it. On the other hand, an example of role exit is when she experienced the process of disengagement from who she really was in order to establish a new role to be and act like The Plastics or when she acted stupid like she did not know anything about math just to approach Aaron Samuels and it made her get bad grades or her quizzes, even though she was very good at math. Finally, an example of role conflict is when Cady started finding herself torn between being the real her when she was with Janis and Damian compare to when she was with The Plastics, but each role had different and conflicting requirements.