What I Researched and Why: After our short introduction to the mean girl phenomenon in class, I decided to go home and research the background of the film, Mean Girls. I had seen the movie quite a few times, but did not really know the motivation for the film, or the sources that were used when writing the script.
What I Found: I found that the movie Mean Girls is based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and other Realities of Adolescence" written by Rosalind Wiseman in 2002. A synopsis and several reviews can be found at this website. This book is essentially a guide to parents who feel that they do not relate to their teenage daughters well, and would like to become more involved in their lives.
This book categorizes teenage girls into groups. There are the "Queen Bees", or the girls who rule the school by tormenting others, the "Wannabees" or those who want to be the Queen Bees, the "Targets" of the Queen Bees torture, and the "Torn Bystanders" who do not know whether to participate in the torment, or to report it to higher authorities.
Not only does the book give parents insight into the secret life of teenage girls, but it even goes so far as to categorize parents into different groups like, hip parents, best friend parents, and others. The book also enables parents to examine their own parenting styles, "Check their Baggage," and identify how their own background and biases affect how they relate to their daughters.
Queen Bees and Wannabees offers step by step strategies meant to help parents gain an understanding of their daughters while avoiding and defusing the "landmines" than inherently plague parent/child communication. It also exposes the hierarchical structure of the girl world, and encourages teens to be floaters rather than basing their happiness off of one group, but to instead be individuals. It also urges parents to be "The Loving Hard-Ass," where unconditional love is teamed together with personal accountability.
My Interpretation and What it adds to our discussion: I think that keeping this book in our minds when watching Mean Girls will be very beneficial to everyone. Each character in the movie directly resembles one of the stereotypes portrayed in Queen Bees and Wannabees. Regina and her "plastics" are obviously the Queen Bees who rule the school and get pleasure out of tormenting others, a very large percentage of the high school girls are Wannabees, and they try to copy everything Regina does, even cutting holes out of their shirts to show their bras. Cady starts out as an innocent bystander, or a Target, but then is swept up in the world of the "plastics" when her plan to sabotage and blackmail them turns on her. The parents in the movie also take on the various roles described in Wiseman's book. Cady's parents seem to have it on the ball, and embody the "hard ass" parent model. Regina's mom resembles the "hip, best friend" parent, who would do anything to have her daughter and her friends like her.
Rather than watching the movie purely for entertainment, I think that keeping these different character roles in mind, and correlating them to real life situations may help us understand how Mean Girls attempts to expose and possibly overthrow the new mean girl culture that is taking over high schools everywhere.
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9 comments:
I actually read "Queen Bees and Wannabes" a couple of summers ago. After watching Mean Girls, I could see how its stories were the inspiration for the film - and I definitely agree that the movie provides a great vantage on the various "roles" played in girl culture that we've been discussing. I think Mean Girls was a success because it satirizes the girls' escapades while ultimately confronting the insidious nature of their behavior. The movie's hyperbolic scenes of the evil girl sphere were shrewd observations in an entertaining presentation, whereas the book's sensationalism had the effect of undermining its authority at points.
I think that this finding is extremely interest. I have also seen Mean Girls quite a few times, but I was never aware that it was based on a book. From this blog, I get the feeling that "Queens Bees and Wannabes" could be pretty helpful, not only for parents when trying to understand their teenage daughters, but also to help the girls somewhat understand the behaviors of other girls. I believe that the majority of schools, if not all, have some form of this "mean girl phenomenon," which allows this book to be relatable to girls everywhere.
This might be somewhat similar to what Jess said, but it bothers me that a book that is actually trying to instruct parents (vs. the movie as a satire) would exaggerate the extent to which parents and girls are defined by their "roles." Girls, even if they fit into these roles to an extent, are usually not totally defined by them. Along the same lines, it seems like much too simple of an answer to recommend one parenting style as appropriate for all parents/girls.
It's so interesting that this phenomenon is so grand that there was actually a book published about it and then made into a movie. It is beneficial to learn about the structure of girlhood in the schools, not just for our class, but for dealing with adolescents in the future. It just makes me wonder that if it's such a phemonemenon or problem that a book is actually published about it, then maybe shouldn't something be done to stop it or to make it better somehow? We all have been part of the cycle of the mean girl phenomenon probably on both ends, but I think that something should be done. It seems to be getting more and more serious as each year goes by, and I'm aware of some schools considering this as a type of bullying and implementing programs to stop it. They should be teaching more about individuality during this time when superficiality and group cohesiveness seem to rule.
This book seems to be a very interesting and relevant find. The discussion of a class type system reminds me of the discussions we have had in class of the different ways power can divide a population into various groups. It seems to me that the divisions are pretty similar. There are the queen bees or lion class of people with power using it abusively to keep others down, then there is the lamb class or wannabes who lack power and have to use alternative methods to assert power, possibly similar to wannabes mimicing the queens. It is interesting that so many parallels exist across different themes.
I would really love to read a book which is able to address the issue of "Mean Girls" in schools in terms of parenting. I have serious doubts about its effectiveness in terms of acutally aiding parents with their children and the "mean girl" phenomemon. For example, most of this nastiness is behind closed doors and certainly outside of the realm of what adults can witness. The principal in the movie has no way to know what exactly is going on in the shcool, and neither do the teachers. How then, are parents supposed to be able to help their daughters maneuver through this meanness when they can't actually know what's going on?
I suppose if parents weren't familiar with the idea of what actually goes on in school today in terms of the nastiness (which I sincerely doubt...there have always been mean girls...at least my mom, aunt, and grandma have all experienced them) then this book would help...but other than that, I think it would be more entertaining than informative.
Several of the posts have expressed doubt as to how helpful the book would be to parents who are actually going through these challenges with their teenage daughters. I think the book would be very helpful. The descriptions of the 'types' of girls and parents sound very much like psychological relationship styles that I have come across in psychology courses. Having applied these relationship style models to friends and relations in the past, I think that these models would similarly help someone to better understand why their child is acting in a certain way and how to respond. This book seems like a psych 101 text book disguised with a pretty cover and hip buzz words. I think this is a good way to help people with their real-life deep problems in a post-modern era based on surface and shine.
How are Cady's parents the "hard ass" model? I think they are the opposite and pretty dumb too because they don't even know how to discipline their daughter when she turns into one of the plastics. Cady's father didn't even know what it meant to ground her, i mean i understand she probably did not need it in Africa, but come on. Also, speaking of the role of the parents, I found it interesting that the only time you see Regina's father in the entire movie is when her mom is taking pictures of her in her halloween costume and the dad is seen crying. What is up with the inept fathers?
I feel that the "Queen Bees and Wannabes" book would give parents useful insight into the high school world. The book is recognizing the fact that high school cliques can sometimes be a big problem. I also think it's interesting that there is a lack of authority from Regina's father and not much authority from Cady's father. Freud would probably have a lot to say about that.
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