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Mean Girls is a coming-of-age movie that follows teenager Cady (pronounced Katie) Heron as she navigates North Shore High located in Illinois. Being a teenager in high school is difficult for most as they are trying to figure out who they are, how they want to dress, who they want to hang around, and who they want to become. What makes this transition even more difficult for Cady is that she was homeschooled in Africa up until the present day, so not only does she have to start high school as the "new girl," but she has to learn how to assimilate into both American culture and teenage culture. Things start off very lonely for Cady. She cannot seem to make any friends, and everyone insists on pronouncing her name wrong, no matter how many times she corrects them. Finally, she stumbles across two people, boisterous and outgoing Damian alongside quiet, snappy, and black-loving Janis one day in math class. She chooses to sit by those two in order to avoid the smelly guy in class who is known for passing gas. The pair end up showing Cady the ropes of the school and tell her which clique-filled lunch tables she should avoid. One of the most popular class cliques, known as "The Plastics," ends up befriending Cady. When Cady tells Janis and Damian the news, the two tell Cady that she should pretend to be friends with the plastics to feed them information about all the horrible things they say and do to people. In other words, Cady would become a double agent. Cady reluctantly agrees and begins sitting routinely with the plastics at lunch. She would tell Janis and Damian the information she finds out when they meet at the end of the day. Cady begins hanging out with them, talking like them, and even dressing like them to make it believable. Eventually, Cady begins to morph into the people she is hanging around. Her grades are starting to slip, she is starting to focus her attention on boys instead of school, she is leaving Janis and Damian behind, and she is starting to backstab people. Essentially, she no longer has to pretend to be a mean girl because she is one! Cady gets a reality check when Janis and Damian tell her that they no longer want to be friends with her because she is starting to become unrecognizable. Cady insist that it was their plan for her to befriend the plastics all along and she blurts out that Janis and Damian are jealous of her. Cady's plastic "friends" start to begin to show their colors and begin to show why they are mean girls. All of the girls in the plastics, including Cady, begin to sabotage each other out of jealousy and spite. Cady even ends up falling for Regina's ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels and continues to try and pursue him after she finds out he was Regina's ex-boyfriend. Eventually, Cady gets into trouble after Regina frames Cady for being the author of the "burn book". The burn book is a pink book that is filled with various pictures of the people of North Shore High, both students and staff and horrible rumors and sayings written right under their pictures. Cady ends up taking blame for writing the book even though she did not do it in order to save her math teacher, Ms. Norbury, from getting fired. Cady gets suspended for a couple of weeks and she is also not allowed to attend her Spring Fling dance. Instead of going to the dance, she ends up joining the Mathletets, which is a part of her punishment for taking fall for the burn book. Cady ends up helping the school win the competition and they all celebrate her. Cady ends up being able to attend the Spring Fling and she ends up winning Spring Fling Queen as well. It is during her acceptance speech that she states that the crown she won does not matter because popularity does not matter and that they all should be seen as equal. Afterwards, "the plastics" end up breaking up as a friend group and they all find their own separate hobbies. At the end of the movie, it is seen that history repeats itself because there seems to be a new "plastics group" formed by the freshmen.

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Mean Girls (2004) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

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"Get in loser...we're going shopping!"🛍 

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"Get in loser...we're going shopping!"🛍 

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Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory  

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Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory  

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Overview of Theory: Bronfenbrenner believed that a child is affected by various ecosystems. The first ecosystem is intimate and directly affects the child. The ecosystems that come after the first level become more broad as they travel through the rest of the ecological systems theory. This theory deals with the nature vs. nurture argument that has been around for centuries (M Pomerantz, 2022).

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Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems: 5 Forces Impacting Our Lives

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Get in loser...we are going to learn about psychology!💋

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Get in loser...we are going to learn about psychology!💋

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Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-American psychologist. Bronefenbrenner believed that people were not simply born to be in every way. For example, a child who is in poverty should not be ignored for the sake of "that's just the way they were born." Instead, Bronfenbrenner believed that many children end up in unfortunate situations due to a multitude of values. Witnessing the problems that the children in Russia were going through during that time period, Bronfenbrenner created his ecological systems theory as he observed the children around him.

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"Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!"

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"Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!"

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From left to right: Gretchen, Regina, Cady, and Karen. Source: Letterboxd.com

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Cady Heron grew up in Africa alongside her two scientist parents, so she gained an education in a way that was not quite normal for many. Her education took place outside of the classroom and in Africa's wildlife. She is an only child, so she gets her parents' attention, and all eyes are on her. Because both of her parents are highly intelligent people in science, Cady herself adopted their intellect and is really good at math. It is her favorite subject because she likes how math is consistent in every part of the world; it is a universal language.

Cady meets classmates who eventually become her friends, Janis and Damian. These two figures help show Cady around the high school, which helps Cady assimilate. The two show Cady the do's and don'ts she must follow to "survive" high school. These two are key figures because they helped mold her into how an American teenager should act during the early 2000s at a public high school. They also help her recognize in the end that true friendship is between the people who expect you for who you are rather than who you are trying to be.

While at North Shore High, Cady stumbles into another set of people who will become her "friends." These girls are called "the plastics". The group consists of Regina, Karen, and Gretchen. These girls befriend Cady one day and prompt her to follow a long set of rules to keep them as her friends. This ranges from only wearing pink on Wednesdays, only being allowed to wear sweatpants or jeans on Fridays, and maintaining a certain glam look and weight. They even pressure Cady to dress more promiscuous and engage in sexual activity.

Another vital component of Cady's microsystem is her math teacher, Ms. Norbury. When Ms. Cady transferred to North Shore High School, Ms. Norbury immediately liked her because Cady was bright and sweet and reminded her of herself when she was younger. Because she saw Cady's potential, she often encouraged her to pursue various academic opportunities to put herself out there. Ms. Norbury was the reason why Cady joined their math competition team.

All of these key relationships Cady has within her microsystem help shape her into the person she is as she tries to figure out who she is as she grows through adolescence. Sometimes, the molding is positive, and other times, the molding is more negative. Nonetheless, the molding occurs due to the intimacy of these relationships.

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Because Cady was in high school, she left her parents out of most of her personal life as most teenagers do. Her parents had no relationships with any of the teachers at her school so they had no idea what was going on with Cady once she left the walls of their home. When Cady got in trouble for writing the "burn book" after being framed by frenemy Regina George, Cady is suspended from school for a couple of weeks and she is not allowed to attend their upcoming dance which she was really looking forward to. The reason why the burn book was such a big deal was because it had various rumors and untrue statements written about the students and teachers. Some of the rumors were so inappropriate about the teachers that it almost caused one of the teachers to get fired. Had Cady's parents established a strong mesosystem for Cady by involving interacting with the other people in Cady's life, Cady most likely would have not started failing her Calculus class and she most likely would not have gotten suspended either. In other words, Cady's parents could have saved her from getting in a lot of trouble from trying to "fit in" if they would have established a relationship with her teacher because all of the adult figures in her life could have teamed up for her best interest.

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North Shore High pictured behind the group of people. Source: MovieMaps.com

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North Shore High School was located in the suburbs of Illinois. For the most part, all of the children who attended that school fell into the middle class range in terms of economic status. There were a few outliers who fell into the upper class economic status and those people mostly consisted of The Plastics (Regina, Karen, and Gretchen). Because the school was located in a good area, their school did not receive many budget cuts being that the school had a mathelets club and the mathelets club seen buying new custom jackets for all of their members to wear to their tournament in one scene. Because of this privilege, Cady was able to showcase and exercise her intellectual talents in a fun and safe way. North Shore having better funding than other public schools also effected the people within her microsystem that she met at school which plays a role in her development as well. She did not have to deal with being around people who did crime or participated in illegal activities because nobody in her school, that we know of, did those kind of activities. Sure hey may have gossiped about each other and dated each other ex's behind each others back but those situations are trivial compared to the things other teenagers around the country has to deal with.

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Gender roles such as women being catty, drama filled, and obsessed with the color pink can be seen. These new opposing ideas are shocking to Cady because she was raised in an area where gender roles were different. The way Cady dresses when she first is scene in the film is very basic. She often is seen sporting jeans or capris and is wearing neutral colors or colors that are masculine associated such as blue. Cady not feeling pressured to wear skirts and heels throughout her life can also be attributed to the fact that she never saw her mother dress like that either being that her mother often worked in the jungle with wildlife. The way Cady dressed was normal, even for women, where she came from. It was not until Cady moved to America wen she saw that different types of ideas about gender roles were implemented on young women. This can also be seen when Cady was told by The Plastics that she must wear pink on Wednesday and she realized that she did not own anything pink! She had to ask her friend Damian, who was apart of the LGTBQ+ community to borrow his oversized pink polo shirt. Again, wearing an obviously male shirt and jeans did not bother Cady because she was not yet conformed to Western gender influences.

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Cady and her father pictured in South Africa together before they moved to America. Source: FilmFan.com 

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Having to move from one country to another and having to change schools due to her parents getting a new job at a University nearby as a teenager is a life-changing event for Cady. She essentially had to give up the life she had known for the past 16 years and create a new one while she was navigating puberty. This stressful event has caused Cady to have various moments of internal turmoil, such as when she joined the plastics and became the very people she despised to the point where she was unrecognizable to the people closest to her. Or when she began to pretend that she did not know how to do calculus problems to impress her crush, even though she secretly knew math was her favorite subject. This one move was so stressful for Cady and was monumental in her personal development and growth.

The stress of changing to new schools due to her parent's job is pivotal in her growth because it forced her into a new environment with people, which affected her academic performance.

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Microsystem:

The microsystem is the closest level to the child. The system involves intimate relationships that directly interact and effect the child. Examples would include a child's parents, siblings, teachers, or classmates.

Mesosystem:

The mesosystem is the second system focuses on how the various relationships in the microsystem work together which, in turn, effects the child. For example, if a child's parents have a good relationship with their teacher, this indirectly effects the child because the teacher is more likely to treat them in a kind manner and offer the child help with their school work would in turn effect their academic performance.

Exosystem:

The exosystem is the third system and gets a bit broader. During this level, things such as societal beliefs and structures effect the child's microsystem which, then effects the child. An example would be the government cutting educational funding at a child's school. This would then effect the quality of education a child will receive which will in turn effect the child.

Macrosystem:

The macrosystem deals with all of the cultural aspects that influence a child's development. These cultural aspects also include gender roles and social issues as well. For example, if a child grows up in a culture where women are expected to take care of the house instead of seek higher education, this will effect the child's development because it effects how they view education and can even effect their academic performance.

Chronosystem:

The chronosystem is the most broad level of the ecological systems theory and deals with the transitions that a child goes through over their lifetime. Examples would include major historical events such as a pandemic or growing up during the time of a major war.

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Critiques of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory 

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Critiques of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory 

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Because nothing in life is perfect, there are many critiques about Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory. One of the critiques is that Brofenbrenner does not focus enough on the socioemotional part of development (Dalton State). In other words, many critics believed that Bronfenbrenner's theory did not focus on the importance of the emotional intelligence that a child learns as they develop.

Another critique of Bronfenbrenner's theory is that it is a theory that is extremely hard to test. Correlation does not always equal causation so there is no way to definitively tell if the systems that Bronfenbrenner has created are directly cause the effects that he claims they do.

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Does Bronfenbrenner's Theory Truly Capture Cady? 

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Does Bronfenbrenner's Theory Truly Capture Cady? 

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I would say that Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory is a good foundation to start but it is not one-size fits all. There are a lot of nuances within Cady's life that does not necessarily fit into some of the systems perfectly. An example would be the fact that Cady goes through a lot of internal turmoil as she tries to figure out her emotions that the ecological systems theory does not cover. She is a teenager going through puberty which means she has a lot of hormones running through her body at once so, maybe she makes bad decisions because she does not know how to handle her emotions well. Or, she could simply be making bad decisions because she is under the age of 25 so her frontal lobe in not fully developed so she is simply confused and ignorant on how to go about situations. Cady does end up having major character development when she realizes that her actions can severely hurt the people around her and cause them to suffer consequences for things that had nothing to do with. It is the emotional interactions and internal conflicts such as those that often get left out when using Bronfenbrenner's theory due to him categorizing the various aspects so strictly. While I do believe that the theory was able to partially capture Cady's life and development, I also believe that it does not leave room for the nuances found throughout a person's life which is why I had a hard time trying to find examples for some of the systems within Cady's life. Also, I believe that Bronfenbrenner's theory does not truly capture Cady in some aspects because Cady did not have a "normal" life in terms of society until she moved to America so, holding trying to fit her into his categories was difficult at times because Cady's story overall was so niche.

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While Cady was competing at the math tournament, she was up against another girl from the opposing team. This was crucial because this round would break the tie and determine which school would win the competition. While Cady's opponent walks to her podium, Cady begins criticizing the girl's looks. It is during that moment that Cady realizes that attacking the girl's looks does ultimately does nothing in the end because that will not help her win the round. The only way she will win the round is if she relies on her intellect to win the competition or not. It is here that Cady realizes that she indeed is a mean girl and being a mean girl will not cause her to advance further in life. The only way she will advance is if she stays true to herself and focuses what is on the inside more than what is on the outside. This is where viewers finally get a resolution to the problem of Cady not being her authentic self.

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We followed Cady Heron, nice girl turned mean, as she navigated through a major life change of moving countries and schools during high school. We saw Cady begin off strong as she started school dressing and acting like her authentic self. Overtime, viewers began to see Cady morph into the very type of person she did not want to be. The new person that Cady became caused relationship strains between her long-time crush, her parents, teachers, and friends. It was as if Cady was completely isolated onto her own island. It became very apparent though, that Cady needed the isolation because it caused her to realize that the reason why it seemed as if everyone was against her was because she was acting as someone she was not. In the end, Cady was able to recognize her own faults and was able to change her nasty ways and become her original self again. The journey of Cady's self growth in the 2004 film Mean Girls, was used as an example in order to psychoanalyze child/teenage development using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory.

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M Pomerantz, A. (2022). Development across the life span. In My Psychology (3rd ed.). Worth Publishers.