Covering Today it is common thought that a 13 year old would spend their days trying to conform to the new found norms of being a teenager but Yoshino has made a strong argument that perhaps our desire to fit in last way longer than our awkward teenage years. Yoshino introduces us to covering, the concept of conforming to the mainstream, and he suggest that in some way shape or form everyone covers. In the popular movie Mean Girl Regina George even though some could argue is a perpetrator of covering. Even with her cult like followers and adoring student body to me Regina George covers the most out of any character in the film and because of her insecurities and way of life is able to hide her true self for years. In 8th grade character Regina …show more content…
George concocts a rumor that Janis Ian is a lesbian and subsequently turns the whole class against her. One could reason that Regina creates this rumor is because she had just gotten her first boyfriend and feels pressed to show that her friendships are inferior to her relationship. As a young teen when you enter into your first relationships you feel a compulsion to keep said boyfriend or girlfriend even if it cost you a relationship with a parent or friend. Yoshino even mentions that “one of the most agonising dilemmas of parenting is how much they should require their children to cover in the world”(542). Regina and Janis begin middle school as best friends and with all these new pressers and ideas they end up turning into mortal enemies because of Regina's compulsion to cover her “trueself”(541). Conforming to the mainstream to have a boyfriend was a “necessity of social life” to Regina and that decision “whether consciously or not” to shut Janis out eventually ended with a “significant personal cost”(539). While the constraint Regina was under to cover was greater, some feel that Janis had an even greater presser and reason to conform although, unlike Regina she ignored. When Janis doesn’t conform Regina, in a way, punishes her for not being like everyone else and makes her an outcast because of it.
Even though Janis wanted Regina's attention that didn't actually make her a lesbian she actually could've just valued her friendship over boys. Just like the female college of Yoshino mentions we should avoid “making assumptions about culture groups” where in some situations the individual may not be covering “when in fact they might just be being themselfs”(543). Just because Janis wanted the attention of Regina does not mean that she was attracted to her or any girl for that matter, she just never gave into the pressure to have a boyfriend because that was different from the mainstream she was attacked for being who she was. Later in the film it’s revealed that Janis shaves her head once she enters high school again going against the mainstream which gets her labeled as a a dyke and a freak. For someone assume that she did these things to actively go against the mainstream are “diminishing) (her) as a human being” and “try to take away her ability to be the individual” that she is(544). Janis could have just choose the new hair style because she liked it or because of any other personal reason, but people assumed that because she has short hair that she was a “lesbian freak” Because Janis isn't like every other female in the class they judged her and assumed that she was covering, “one way that minorities break stereotypes is by acting against them”. If everyone always assumes that people are covering “some essential stereotype identity, the stereotype will never go
away”. Later in the film it's revealed that Regina had not been invited to Cady’s party and tricked into eating weight gaining candy bars so she retaliates by exposing the Burn Book. The plastics used the Burn Book to make themselves feel better about their own insecurities. “But I want to underscore that we have come to some consensus that certain reasons are illegitimate -- like white supremacy,patriarchy, homophobia, religious intolerance, and animus towards the disabled. They truly believed that it was ok to trash people in order to boost their own self esteem. In the film with the discovery of the book they force the girls to uncover them self and speak their truths about their personal experiences . Even if it wa shard the spoke their truths and apologized for their wrong doings. “People confronted with demands to cover should feel emboldened to seek a reason for that demand , even if the law does not reach the actors to make the demand, or recognize the group burdened by it. Mean Girls is a perfect example of how covering affects the life of every single person no matter their background and where they comfrom, it does and will happen to everyone. There are numerous pressures to conform and be apart of the main stream to be like everyone else and the consequences from that can lead to tricky outcomes.
The film Mean Girls is about a young girl, Cady Heron, born and raised in Africa by her zoologist parents, who were also her homeschool teachers for sixteen years. When Cady moves to the United States, she enrolls in a public school for the first time. Here she realizes that high school students have the same hierarchy as the animals she observed in Africa. The lowest ranking group in this high school hierarchy is the outcasts, who also happen to be Cady’s first friends in the U.S. The highest on the high school food chain are the “plastics”. The “plastics”, are the most popular girls in school. The plastic’s notice Cady’s charming personality and stunning good looks and invite her to join their clique. In order to avenge her first friends,
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
The film Friday Night Lights, directed by Peter Berg explains a story about a small town in Odessa, Texas that is obsessed to their high school football team (Permian Panthers) to the point where it’s strange. Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) is an cocky, star tailback who tore his ACL in the first game of the season and everyone in the town just became hopeless cause their star isn’t playing for a long time. The townspeople have to now rely on the new coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), to motivate the other team members to be able to respect, step up their game, and improve quickly. During this process, racism has made it harder to have a success and be happy and the team has to overcome them as a family.
Adolescent egocentrism can occur when teenagers think they have an imaginary audience or think people are more concerned with their appearance and behavior than they really are. In the movie Mean Girls, Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, Cady Herron, and Karen Smith are referred to as the "plastics" by their fellow classmates because of their self-absorbed personalities and glamorous looks. They have a book titled "The Burn Book" in which they talk about everyone in the school in a very nasty way. They believe that these people are concerned with how they look and act at all times. Gretchen Wieners said, "I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me...but I can't help it that I'm so popular." In the beginning of the film, Cady has a very humble personality in which her true friends admire. However, as the movie progresses Cady begins to think that everything she does is important to all of he...
Amy Heckerling’s movie Clueless focuses on an upper middle class 16-year-old girl, Cher, who lives in a nice neighborhood with her father and stepbrother, Josh. Cher and her friend, Dionne, take in a new girl, Tai, to help her fit into their high school. All of the major characters in the movie are in adolescence, which ranges from 10-19 years of age. In adolescence, teenagers undergo cognitive and emotional development. According to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, adolescents are in formal operational period from 11-20 years of age. During this period, adolescents develop abstract thinking and rational decision making. They experience two aspects of adolescent egocentrism, imaginary audience
The 1991 movie My Girl tells the story of 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss who, having lost her mother at birth , lives with her dementia-ridden grandmother and her job-oriented father in the funeral parlour that he owns and operates. The story follows Vada, an extreme hypochondriac who has many strange misconceptions about death, through a variety of life-changing experiences, including the engagement of her father and the devastating loss of her best friend, Thomas Jay. Through these experiences, the audience witnesses Vada’s social, emotional, and intellectual growth, as well as her changing views of death.
My Mise-en-scene analysis is on American Beauty on page 217: number 1(The dinner scene). The frame itself is a very closed, tight shot; there is no way for the characters to escape and they're left with only confronting each other in this very little space. The shot of the camera isn't necessarily far away or close either. It's neutral, and we can see the full action of the family's dinner conversation happening right in front of us. My eyes were immediately attracted to the bright, white table and then my eyes focused on the faces of the family. The scene's texture is slightly fuzzy, and is not very detailed. But the character's faces are still recognizable. The foreground of this scene is the table with the man and woman sitting at each end; the middle is the girl-who is
The Hollywood movie Pretty Woman (1990) is about a prostitute in Hollywood, marrying an extremely rich businessman, in spite of her mutual distrust and prejudice. The movie contains the basic narrative of the Cinderella tale: through the love and help of a man of a higher social position, a girl of a lower social status moves up to join the man at his level.
An interpersonal element that is hugely represented in Mean Girls is culture, which is defined as the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. Cady Herron is forced to move from Africa to America, where society is extremely different. On her first day at an American public high school, Cady enters the lunchroom and notices a group of African American students sitting at a table together. Growing up around African people, she identifies with them and she assumes that they are her in-group, so she approaches them hoping that they will let her sit with them, but they are confused as to what she is doing. To them, she is part of the out-group because she is white. They do not identify with her, so one of the girls puts her purse in the empty seat next to her, communicating that Cady
The adolescence is proposing questions of self-identity and trying to understand more of self during these years. Mean Girls emphasizes these self-identifications by capturing different cliques and group of people that the high schoolers associate and label themselves as. For instance in the film, Cady is being accepted by Janis and Damian, but they want Cady to engage in a risky behavior by associating herself as “The Plastics.” This plan started out with the intention of trying to find out more high school secrets and to humiliate “The Plastics,” but Cady turned more like them as she received more acceptance by them. Mean Girls demonstrates not only the sense of self emerging during the adolescent age, but the struggles of all it takes to find a sense of self-identity. Cady eventually put her relationship with Janis and Damian, parents, and acquaintances of school on the line by trying to maintain her “Plastic”
"The Pursuit of Happyness" is the title of an American film starring actor Will Smith. This film is based on the fascinating true story of Chris Gardner, and tells us the difficulties of a man who struggles to overcome the obstacles to give his child a better life.
Cady Heron begins the film Mean Girls as a good character. She is kind and wants to be accepted by her peers. She values family, friends and her education. Cady is happy to remain true to her personal beliefs and doesn’t feel that she must change her opinions in order to achieve acceptance from her peers. As the movie progresses and Cady spends more time with The Plastics, the audience see her change from an affable and animal-loving African girl, to a narcissistic, egocentric “bitch”. After Cady makes this transition she changes to a bad character. Plastic Cady uses her power within the school society to put down others and notes others their weaknesses rather than their strengths. At the “Mathletes” finals Cady comments “Miss Caroline Krafft
The movie that I chose to do my analysis on, is Mean Girls because it is my all-time favorite movie. I watched it a million times, it never gets old and plus I know every single line in the movie. The main character Cady, played by Lindsay Lohan, exhibits how to go from being a nerd, popular, hated and rehabilitated all in one school year. It’s hilarious movie about high school but, it also covers many interpersonal concepts that we learned in class like: verbal communication, conflict and relationship dynamics. Before I provide my analysis, I’ll present my brief summary on the movie Mean Girls.
Recently, there is a spike of historical films being released lately. One of the films is an Academy Award nominee for “Best Picture,” Selma. The film, Selma, is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches. The film shows the struggles of the black community face with the blockage of their voting rights and the racial inequality during the civil rights movement. Selma is about civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. heading to the rural Alabama City, Selma, to secure the voting rights for the African American community by having a march to Montgomery. It shows the struggles from what the African American community had to endured during the 1960s. Selma shows a social significance to today’s current events, specifically
The romantic comic drama film Pretty Woman began on Hollywood Boulevard and progressed to Beverly Hills which transitioned from the impoverished areas to the richer area in Los Angles California during the 1990s. The film stars Richard Gere, who played Edward Lewis and Julia Roberts, who played Vivian ward. In this film, Vivian is a Los Angeles prostitute battling with her way of life associated with sexuality and poverty and needing money to pay the rent. Edward is a rich businessperson who purchases companies that are in difficult financial situations and sell them in pieces. On a business trip to Los Angeles, Edward proposition Vivian to be his escort for business, personal, and social functions while he accompanied his wealthy groups of