Mean Girls Subculture Analysis

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. For example, Tina Fey’s Mean Girls (2004) is a critical representation of one of the most popular and long-standing subculture’s in mainstream society: the high school popular female social clique. The basis and inspiration for this movie was from Rosalind Wiseman’s self-help book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, which focuses on how high school girls form cliques that are permeated with aggressive behaviour. Mean Girls (2004) aptly portrays the complex hierarchal social dynamic of a subculture. The overall aim is to critically analyse Cady Heron’s socialization from

As brand communities are based on the collective appreciation of a certain brand we could not view the Plastics as a part of this kind of community since there is no focus on a brand, rather a lifestyle. To label the Plastics as a subculture did not suit either since it is experience based and are escapist from mainstream norms which is the opposite of what the Plastics are since the High school subculture identities that are shown in Mean Girls (2004) reflect popular culture. Referring to Figure 1 in de Burgh-Woodman’s (2007) article, the subculture of consumption is comprised of the following eight