Liz DeNisco
Binary Oppositions in Mean Girls: The Nice Girl in a Pool of Mean Girls
There is no mistake in the saying “Girls are catty.” The word catty alone describes how girls behave like the animal itself, and the film Mean Girls delivers an exaggerated humorous view to fit the description. With the entire movie focused on the different roles high school girls take when trying to fit in, the level of cattiness is taken to the extreme. Binary oppositions are established throughout the movie and are predominantly used as reinforcing agents when representing different characters associated within the social hierarchy that is created in high schools. The binary oppositions are left resolved with the idea that girl world has found its peace. By using binary elements to analyze the film, it is clear that Mean Girls uses humor when portraying the ongoing theme of the nice girl versus the mean girl- or the Cady Heron vs. a Regina George.
Mean Girls makes use of thematic binary oppositions by establishing it through humor in its narrative in numerous ways: between the nice girl, characterized as Cady Heron, and the mean girl characterized by Regina Geroge; between the popular group, the “plastics,” and everyone else, “jocks, art freaks, sexually active band geeks, etc.”; between “girl world,” represented by the plastics, and the regular world, represented by societal norms. The countless binary oppositions shown in this film add to the reasons of why it is considered a comedy because the producers of the movie clearly thought that only in high school could all of these circumstances take place, and the problems arising during the movie could only be the product of the complex, or dramatic teenage girl mind.
In the first scene of the movie it is apparent that Cady is about to go to her first day of junior year in high school as a previously homeschooled girl who has lived in Africa most of her life. Once she arrives and passes through the high schools doors she is overwhelmed at how different high school is compared to homeschooling, as she is pushed around and ignored for most of the day. By the second day she acquires two friends, Janice and Damien, otherwise known as the “art freaks,” who show her around school. Before she sits down at lunch with Janice and Damien, Cady is intercepted by the plastics who invite her to sit with them everyday. While she has lunch with them the audience is introduced to Regina George, the rich and blonde queen bee of the school. It is here that Regina shows Cady the social structure of the school and how crucial it is not to interact with the other groups. Afterwards Janice and Damien convince Cady to keep on hanging out with the plastics because Janice wants to get revenge on Regina. Cady reluctantly complies, wanting to keep her new friends, and quickly finds out she knows nothing about girl world.
When Cady is introduced in the beginning of the movie, the audience generally likes her because of her geniality and innocence. When Cady sees Regina kissing Aaron, the audience feels sympathetic because we feel as though we know her. According to Bignell’s key concepts of Identification, the audience is pulled to feel empathetic with the characters when emotions such as these occur.
Furthermore, throughout the movie the humorous element stays in tact by playing up the binary oppositions. To quote Mean Girls, “In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” This example shows the humorous binary opposition where girl world is represented by the plastics, or any teenage materialistic girl for the matter, and the regular world, where normal people go house to house for candy.
By the end of the movie, everything starts to resolve itself with the plastics splitting up, and Cady comes back to reality and feels remorse for the damage she’s done. She takes responsibility for any drama that had been created because she wants a fresh start with a clean slate. She redevelops her own identity and becomes friends with Janice and Damien again. All of the thematic binary oppositions become resolved and girls who were once in distinctive cliques now follow their interests and hang out with people they like and share an interest with. The girls who were once “catty” realize how dumb they had been and as a result, there are no more cliques and girl world is at peace.