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Examples Of Functionalism In Mean Girls

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Mean Girls is a movie filled with unique words and weird gestures that we as watchers can understand. Symbolic interaction theory emphasizes face-to-face interaction and thus is a form of microsociology. In our textbook, symbolic interaction is described as a theory that human interaction and communication is facilitated by words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired conventionalized meanings.
An example that captures the essence of symbolic interaction theory involves Cady, Janis, and Damian at the beginning of the movie. Cady is a new student and meets her first “friends” in her first class of the day. Completely clueless about where classes are located, Cady asked Janis and Damian to show her to her next class. Instead of taking …show more content…

All individuals have certain social roles that when working together, form society, this allows for there to be inequality amongst individuals. Functionalism also says that social order is maintained through public consensus. So, the adjustments that the public makes in response to deviant behavior, allow for change within this theory. About Mean Girls, functionalist would view all the different groups in this movie as necessary to the functionality of high school. There are many different groups in the movie, for example the lunchroom scene shows us these separate groups. In the movie, the most popular group would be the plastics, with Regina George as their leader. Most people in the school seem to follow along and want to be popular like the plastics. Functionalist would not want any radical activity to change these rules, but the change must come from the entire high school adjusting the rules. A functionalist might also think that the role of the unpopular groups in school is to give credibility to the popularity of the most popular groups. These other groups in high school, such as the jocks and Asian nerds for example, serve functions in school that allow it to function normally. Throughout the movie we see the different groups in high school that relate to one another in a way that allows high school to function the way it

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Subcultures form due to our deep rooted preference for likeminded individuals and ideas. We hold anxieties about how people are different and we worry about our own status within society (Andrew Campa 2015 YouTube). Schouten and Alexander (1995) describe that “a subculture of consumption is a distinctive subgroup of society that self-selects on the basis of a shared commitment to a particular products class, brand or consumption activity” (43). It is through this continued communal consumption that an individual finds social validation for their beliefs, value and way of life. Popular culture has magnified high school subcultural identities.

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Conformity is present in every group situation with adolescents. Adolescents are always looking to be a part of a group, usually conforming to the standards of the group. Adolescents often conform because they want to have the approval of the peers that are well liked or “popular”. A great example of adolescents and conformity is in the chick flick ‘Mean Girls’ through the different cliques in high school and how it affects the peers themselves. Caty, the main character, is faced with several difficult situations where she decides to conform with her high school peers getting her in trouble that becomes hard for her to escape.

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Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey. In the story, there are many protagonists and antagonists characters. Each character has their own conflict either it is interpersonal conflict or intrapersonal conflict. Cady- new student come from Africa, has to deal with both of her intrapersonal conflict and interpersonal conflict through Regina George's friend circle with two other girls are Gretchen and Karen. Because she tries to solve problems with it, at the end of the movie, she has actually know who's her real friend and her internal solves from there.

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The movie Mean Girls is a perfect example of many social-psychological principles. Three of the major principles that are seen in the film include: conformity, in-groups and out-groups and prejudice. Cady Herron, a naïve sixteen-year-old who has been homeschooled her entire life, is forced to start as a junior at North Shore High School because of her family’s job relocation. Throughout the movie, you see Cady struggling to maintain acceptance in the school’s in-group known as The Plastics. The Plastics, who represent popularity, high economic status and the acclaimed standard of beauty, are one of the meanest cliques at North Shore.

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Mean Girls is a comedy full of memorable quotes, amusing characters, and lots of laughs for the audience, but what many people may not realize is that this movie includes psychological concepts such as role schemas, diffusion of responsibility and front and backstage effect. Mean Girls is about a girl entering a public high school for the first time after being homeschooled all of her life. While discovering herself throughout this life-changing event, she gets involved with a clique called "the plastics" and many games begin to unravel. This movie shows very amusingly yet real-life examples of psychological concepts that can help people recognize them in their everyday lives.

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The film Mean Girls, produced by Lorne Michaels and directed by Mark Waters in 2004 focuses on a teenage girl, Cady Heron, who experiences the drastic change of living and being home schooled in Africa to moving to America and attending a regular high school. While attempting to sabotage the plastics, the girls who hold the most popularity in the school, Cady unknowingly turns into one of them, leaving aspects of her old personality behind. By analyzing the film through sociological perspectives, the deeper meaning of the film can be revealed. Socialization Socialization is the process of connecting individuals to their community allowing individuals to experience new attitudes and perspectives.

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The functionalist would view teen homelessness as a necessary part of society that keeps things going and gives out more jobs. The functionalist would view the teens as being homeless as their fault; the blame is placed on the individual. The solution they would propose to combat this social problem would be to give out more jobs like consolers, so the society can benefit from the homeless teens. Another sociological perspective would be the conflict perspective. The conflict perspective is social life formed by groups and individuals that are struggling with others for rewards that result in power and wealth and get you higher in the social system.

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Youth culture can pertain to interests in styles, music, clothes and sports. It also pertains to behaviours, beliefs, and vocabulary; this refers to the ways that teenagers conduct their lives. The concept behind youth culture is that adolescents are a subculture with norms, morals, behaviours and values that differ from the main culture of older generations within society. For instance, young men and women, teenagers in this case, are mostly represented as unpredictable and not easy to understand. In the film, Mean Girls directed by Mark Waters (2004), adolescents are represented as bullies, who use manipulation to achieve what they want and are two-faced with the people around them; they are constantly stereotyped as a high social group like the plastics and a low social group like the mathletes; also they are presented as young people that fall under peer pressure, and are overly concerned about their appearance and about being socially accepted.

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All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I was watching the movie “Mean Girls,” because it reminded me of the cliques and peer groups that were in my old high school. The movie is about a teenage girl who ends up becoming a part of this clique full of mean girls and after an incident she sets out to try and ruin the leader of the clique’s life. It was the cliques and peer groups that made me start thinking sociologically, because it made me look back and see how much I have changed since I came to the University of Kentucky, and left my old clique or peer group behind. In my sociology class I learned that a peer group is a “group of individuals who are often around the same age and are linked by common interests and orientations.”

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