Socialization of Cady Heron in "Mean Girls" by Evan Knowlton

The Socialization of Cady Heron in "Mean Girls"

000632_3 — 2025-03-20 13:07:46 UTC

What is Socialization?

000632_3 — 2025-03-20 13:16:46 UTC

The plot of the movie follows Cady Heron, a teenage girl who moves to the U.S. from Africa. She had never been to a public school and had been homeschooled her whole life. When she goes to an American public school for the first time, she feels very out of place and doesn't understand American norms. She quickly meets Janis and Damien who become her friends and they want Cady to infiltrate the popular girls, also known as " The Plastics". She successfully infiltrates and sabotages the group. However, when she sabotages the most popular girl in school, she finds herself becoming the new most popular girl. She has to find a way to balance her life between old friends, the plastics, and her crush.

Socialization is a huge part of this movie. We see Cady learn how to make friends, learn social norms, and learn the values of the school and the plastics. Socialization is the social process through which we develop our personalities and human potential and learn about our society and culture.

There are 3 agencies in Socialization

Family

School

Peers

1st Agent of Socialization: Family

27000717 — 2025-03-20 13:38:08 UTC

Primary Socialization is your first experience with the language, values, beliefs, behaviors, and norms of society. For almost everyone, their primary socialization is with their family. In Cady Heron's case, her parents were her only source of socialization for most of her life. Her parents taught her values such as treating everyone equally, good morals, the value of learning new things. All of this makes her a great student when she transitions to public school. Growing up in Africa allowed her to experience different cultures and see people of different races which helped her to be very accepting. However, she had no sense of Anticipatory Socialization as she never knew she what public school was like or how the social hierarchy worked. In high school, she found her values were not aligned with the "plastics" or her other friends.

2nd Agent of Socialization: School's Hidden Curriculum

27000717 — 2025-03-21 15:15:50 UTC

The Hidden Curriculum is education inside of the "real world" with aspects of life such as competition, cooperation, and differing perspectives. Hidden Curriculum is something that is prominent in every single school and is important for kids to learn how to live in the real world. In the film, North Shore High's Hidden Curriculum helps shape Cady's view on society and how it should function. In Africa, Cady was taught that everyone was equal and there were no levels to society. When she arrives at North Shore, she realizes that people are always in competition with each other and everyone has different viewpoints on topics. Cady began to learn about how the school functioned which was way different from how her homeschooled life in Africa worked. She learned that even in friend groups there was competition between each other over superior beauty and popularity. When she joined the plastics, she witnessed how Regina was always trying to look more beautiful than Gretchen or Karen. Cady is an example of how the Hidden Curriculum can influence your behavior. When she was in the school long enough and discovered the values, she began to conform to the school's values rather than her own. She began to dress differently and wear makeup to be prettier. She tried to humiliate Regina even though she wouldn't have done that before. The values that her parents had taught her were beginning to be challenged by "real world" situations.

3rd Agent of Socialization: Peer Groups

27000717 — 2025-03-21 15:18:57 UTC

Peer Groups are social groups whose members have interests, social positions, and usually age in common. When she arrived at North Shore. She ended up identifying with the popular girls (plastics). This peer group completely challenged the values that she learned from her parents and had held her whole life. This group valued beauty, knowledge of others' personal lives, and boys rather than what Cady valued in education and kindness. Ultimately, Cady started to conform to the values of the plastics rather than her own. She starts to fail math to get Aaron's attention. She starts to talk bad about Janis and Damien behind their backs. She even tries to sabotage Regina by making her fat.

Structural Functionalism Perspective

000632_3 — 2025-03-21 15:39:08 UTC

The Functional Perspective stresses the ways in which social groups work together to create a stable society. Without basic norms that dictate how these groups interact, society would be chaotic and fragmented.

When Cady first arrived at her new High School, everyone in the school had their own different popularity groups by what they were known for. Cady's first friends were Janis and Damian who were part of one of the weirder groups of the school and are the first to accept Cady. She only joined the Plastics because Janis wanted Cady to infiltrate the group to hear gossip that they say and she ended up conforming to their norms instead of staying true to herself. She learned new norms, hobbies, values, and even more from the Plastics. As the movie goes on Cady gives Regina bars that make her gain weight and people start to find Regina unattractive. This turned Cady into the most popular girl in the school for a short period of time until it all went downhill. This only mildly disrupts the functionality of the school. Regina finds out that Cady is causing her to gain weight and she gives the book to the principal the Plastics made. This book had bad things about most people in North Shore High School. The content of the book led to every female in the school fighting and all the peer groups collapsed. This completely destroyed the stability of the previous social system. For a short while the whole school is plunged into chaos as the book ruins the stability of the social structure. Eventually, these matters were resolved by all of the girls admitting they talked bad about their friends and they forgave each other. In the end, the friend groups were not restored but it formed a more stable society that everyone was happy with.

Conflict Theory

000632_3 — 2025-03-25 10:51:35 UTC

Conflict Theory views Socialization as a process that reinforces and perpetuates existing power structures and inequalities (status quo) rather than promoting a sense of shared values and social harmony.

Once Cady gets known and people realize she is part of the plastics, she becomes the most popular person in the school over Regina. This happens because Regina starts gaining weight and losing her beauty. This makes Cady the most attractive out of the school which completely throws off the status quo. This shows the power struggle of the most popular between Regina and Cady. This led to peer groups falling apart from fighting over a book the plastics made and girls were getting into brawls. This book contains bad rumors about most people in their High School. When everyone is called to the gymnasium. People confess their secrets and many reveal that they are unhappy about the structure of their social group or school hierarchy. In the end, everyone ends up forgiving each other in their friend groups which creates peace among everyone, and many social groups are dissolved to create a more equal and stable society for all types of people. For example, the plastics are dissolved, and all previous members found more happiness because they chased what they liked.

Symbolic Interaction Perspective

000632_3 — 2025-03-25 11:24:34 UTC

Symbolic interactionism is the sociological perspective that emphasizes how a person's self-concept evolves throughout their life as they interact with what they are taught during life. The 5 stages of symbolic interactions are self-concept, looking-glass self, significant others, role-taking, and generalized others. In this film, Cady goes through all 5 stages of Symbolic Interactionism and ends up becoming a generalized other.

Self-Concept - A self-concept is one's image of oneself, separate from how others see or judge them. In the film, Cady starts the film with a Self-Concept that she is a normal teen girl. She grew up in Africa so she always associated herself with the life of a normal African girl. She always was around a group of people without a social hierarchy in which everyone was equal. Her parents also taught her about the value of education and learning. This led to her being very good at different subjects such as math. When she arrived at school she found out that others' views of her were not the same and they didn't hold the same values. They viewed her as the "new girl" and gave her harsh stares. The students thought it was so strange that she was from Africa and was coming to public school.
Looking Glass Self- When she joins the school, she has a hard time fitting in because of how different the values and norms in public school are compared to her life back in Africa. She thinks that education, knowledge, kindness, and equality are all the most important things. The other students in school don't care at all about Cady's values and mostly care about popularity and beauty. When others tell her that she is hot, she never sees herself in that way before. She started to dress differently and wear makeup to conform to the values of high school instead of her own values.
Changing Significant Others- When Cady starts to see herself with the same perspective that others see her, she starts to subconsciously change whose opinions are most important about her. At the beginning of the film, Cady's ONLY significant others are her parents. They were the only people she was familiar with when the family moved to the US. However, when she meets Janis and Damien, they become her new significant others. They convince her to infiltrate the plastics even when Cady is hesitant to do so. She cared about what they wanted so she went through with the plan. When she joins Plastics, her new significant others are Aaron and the Plastics while she stops to care about her relationship with her parents, teachers, or old friends ( Janis and Damien). For example, she starts to flunk her math tests so she can ask Aaron to tutor her even though he is wrong most of the time.
Role-Taking- When Regina starts to gain weight from the chocolate bars, Cady starts to become the most popular girl in school. At first, people like Cady better than Regina. However, when Cady spends more time in Regina's position, people start to like Cady less and less. She doesn't even realize that she is completely blowing off Janis and Damien for the Plastics. Gretchen and Karen start to suck up to Cady more than Regina. When Cady decides to throw a party, she starts to realize what she has been doing. When Regina reveals the book, Cady keeps quiet and asserts that she has no secrets to tell during the assembly. Old Cady would have confessed the secrets but Cady now cares more about being popular than being vulnerable and confessing.
Generalized Other- After Cady tells everyone that she made the book, she decides that being "popular" isn't worth it anymore as she is losing her real friends, and the people she cared about start to resent her. She joined the Mathletes which she previously had declined because it would destroy her social life. She started to care about her grades again as they were values that Cady had previously held in high regard and her parents cared a lot about grades. When Cady started to do her own thing, her significant others started to like her again. In the end, a new society was born that had no social hierarchy and as based on acceptance in all groups. Everyone became equals and it created a better environment for people to express their own values and beliefs instead of conforming to the "status quo".