An obsession with physical image takes over how a person would normally go about their day, being overly consumed with thoughts on how to look rather than being able to enjoy the life they are living in the moment. This can cause a person to spiral out of control of their natural ways of life, where they develop and practice unhealthy routines such as restricting calories, over or under eating, dieting and even self-harm. Forged into the life of secrecy from everyone around her, Sloane becomes tremendously involved with trying to fit in with the crowd. For example, she tells her best friend that “‘[she] just bought a new hat, that’s all’” (94) when in reality she never mentions the additional “two pairs of jeans, four tops, a pair of leather shoes and some designer hairspray thats …show more content…
She confesses in front of her entire school how she’s hurt many people from her actions, and would want a second chance. She earns this by returning to how she used to be, remarking that when “you get bit by a snake, you’re supposed to suck the poison [and] [that’s] what [Cady] had to do, [she] had to suck all the poison out of [her] life”. The venom was all of the toxic sayings, attitudes and views of how to be beautiful that was influenced by the Plastics. People began to notice how she’s become “a mean girl” and could not think about anyone else but herself, realizing by the end of the film that “[Regina] made [her] like this”. When an identity of someone is lost, others will notice the change before the person even does. One of Cady’s old friends are the first to confess to her that “[she’s] [become] plastic…cold, shiny, hard plastic”. This made Cady rethink all that she’s done, and tries to regain herself again once she found out the reality of being someone that she’s
Cady displays a solid control over her emotions. There is a scene where Regina is kissing and flirting with Aaron in front of Cady to make her jealous. Instead of lunging across the table to attack Regina (“how we would solve it in the wild”, according to Cady), Cady stays calm and doesn’t let Regina get to her. Although adolescence can be a time of emotional turmoil, Cady does not let her emotions control her. The fourth developmental task is membership in the peer group. This particular task is the main focus of the entire film. When Cady first starts school, she isn’t a member of any particular group. This changes when she gets invited to start hanging out with the “Plastics”. Even though there are only three members in the “Plastics” (four when Cady joins), they would still be considered a clique. The three members, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen are extremely close and loyal to one another (more in the form of loyalty to Regina from Gretchen and Karen). Regina puts in place strict rules and those who don’t follow them will be kicked out. Another huge part of the “Plastics” are their group boundaries and norms. As far as selection, all three girls share similar interests and values including shopping and the importance of looking “good”. At first, Cady doesn’t have much in common with them, but she is soon socialized to fit right in. Throughout the movie, Cady begins dressing,
Cady has always been homeschooled, so she did not really know what it was like to communicate with others and make friends. She thought that her actions are what she should be doing in order to make friends. As Cady gets closer to The Plastics, she starts to develop feelings for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels. Later on in the movie Cady has to make a choice whether she wants to be officially part of the group or to continue sabotaging it. Eventually she decides to be part of the group, which disappoints Janis; since Cady basically betrayed her. Cady starts developing into a whole new person; she became a Plastic. Cady illustrates different types of interpersonal communication as she tries to make everything right again in her life. Throughout this movie, the girls show how their relationships consists of: social exchange theory, communication privacy management theory, unproductive conflict, and productive
Body image is the perception, both thoughts, and feelings concerning an individual’s physical appearance. Research has suggested that exposure to an ideal standard of what it may mean to be beautiful is the norm for the media to expose a woman to. The results of an idea of feminine beauty can be disastrous for women, leading to depression, and an unrealistic body image. According to Posavac & Posavac in the article titled Reducing the Impact of Media Images on Women at Risk for Body Image Disturbance: Three Targeted Interventions...
When she ditches Janis’s art show and throws a party of her own later, she uses the excuse that she couldn’t invite them because she “had to pretend to be plastic.” But Janis spills the truth. “You’re not faking it anymore. You’re cold hard shiny plastic.” So Cady Heron transforms from being a “home school jungle freak to a cold hard shiny plastic to an actual human being.” After that, Cady apologises to everyone she hurt. She says, “When you get bit by a snake, you’re supposed to suck the poison out. That’s what I had to do. Suck all the poison out of my
On the second day when Jason tried to make fun of her, she did not know how to respond until Regina saved her. She did not know how to react in a situation like this. In the lecture, we discussed that peers allow us to make relations on our own. Peer interactions are spontaneous and non-structured. Peers can have an effect on our socialization and develop our sense of identity. When she entered high school, she was a nerd with good grades and did not know how to socialize. When Janice and Damien forced her to interact with the plastics and tell them what they talk about she agreed. At that time, she was not able to figure out that this is not good for her. Slowly her personality started changing and she became just like plastics. She started misbehaving with her parents, ditching Janice and Damien. She was getting used by people. She did not interact with peers before so she did not have the experience of it. But slowly she began to figure out that it is affecting who she is. In the beginning, Cady could not differentiate between her friends and enemies. Like the first 3 way call. Cady could not figure out about her real friends and she told Gretchen and Karen right away when she started liking Aron
Cady was blind sighted when she entered public high school without any idea of how “the system” works. She had to learn first-hand for herself the consequences of letting other people push you around. By the end of the movie Cady grew a backbone and was able to ascertain right from wrong, becoming her own
Cady in this phase explores her independence, although she struggles developing sense of self identity and role in society. Cady turns to fanaticism when she first sees her crush, Aron Samuels, canoodling with Regina in the Halloween party. For this reason Cady agrees with Janis to mess around with Regina for revenge. Cady then begins to break Regina’s relationship, eventually becoming the next mean girl, hence turning into the new Regina. Due to Cady’s repudiation, she loses her personality, admittedly falling in Erickson’s theory of ego-identity vs
Cady transitions from being a victim of mean girl behavior to becoming the most popular mean girl herself, as she picks up on the gender roles deemed appropriate by the Plastics. She is originally shown wearing loose fitting clothes, a ponytail, and minimal makeup. She is very quickly introduced to a set of rules that the Plastics follow, that includes only wearing jeans or track pants on Fridays, only wearing your hair in a ponytail once a week, and of course the infamous rule “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” These rules are very gender stereotypical, and Cady is hesitant to assimilate at first. However, Cady becomes obsessed with being popular, she is conniving and pins friends against one another, starts to wear makeup and tight clothes, and yearns for attention from Aaron Samuels, a senior jock. Cady’s gender portrayal is transformative as she becomes who she originally despised alongside Janis and Damian. She depicts a teenage girl that is easily influenced by popular and dominating
One of the most common things today could be worsening the way people view themselves: photoshopping. Recently a lot more people have been researching if photoshopping should still be allowed in todays time. People view this argument in different ways, so there is a debate happening on if it should continue on or be banned from magazines. Photoshopping can make you have the perfect body or look more attractive but it needs to be banned because it can lead to eating disorders, unrealistic body image expectations, and emotional problems. Photoshopping can cause people to have eating disorders because they see these perfect bodies and feel they need to achieve that.
The human body is one of the most beautiful things that anyone can have. There is not one body that appears to be the same. However, many people think that their body should look the same as somebody on the cover of a magazine. But little do people know that the bodies on the covers of magazines are airbrushed, or are a combination of a couple of different people put into one body. If it is so simple to see that we should not idealize others bodies, then how come people do? That is where media plays a role; they make the average person believe that they should look like the models today. When people realize they cannot look like models, they develop different disorders. One of the disorders that Dr. Phillips discusses is BDD, which is body dysmorphic disorder. This disorder consists of people who are obsessed with how they appear. Everybody is concerned with how they appear, but people who have BDD are overly concerned with how they look. This disorder can socially affect them by not al...
128). Identity Crisis Throughout the entirety of the film, Cady really struggles to figure out who she is. Damien and Janis immediately take her under their wing, but convince her to transform into a “plastic,” in order to destroy Regina George from within the group. This definitely does not make it easier for her to figure out her true identity, especially since she finds herself conforming to their thoughts and actions, instead of the sole purpose, which was to sabotage. There’s a scene in which Janis, her best friend, tells her, “you’re not pretending anymore, you’re plastic.”
Having a lack of self acceptance can cause men and women to spend a meaningless amount of time loathing on their imperfections, which can also degrade their self-perception on their bodies. Women who have a hard time looking at themselves in the mirror are in a constant battle with their inner demons, telling themselves that they are not beautiful enough. For example, in the article, "Out-of-Body Image" by Caroline Heldman, she says how, "[Women] are more likely to engage in "habitual body monitoring"-constantly thinking about how their bodies appear to the outside world . . ." (65). Women can spend a futile amount of time feeding negative comments to themselves about their appearance, which can heighten their chances of becoming bulimic and anorexic. Once women start to over-analyze their bodies, it can become difficult to reverse their mindset to generate positive feedback about themselves. Likewise, when men lose their confidence in their self-image, their self-perception can get misconstrued and suddenly they can only recognize their flaws. For example, in the article, "How Men Really Feel About Their Bodies," the author mentions how in general, men are in a constant competition against other males to improve their bodies so that they can survive in the male society ( Spiker, 73). Men are always under intense scrutiny regarding their bodies because they are engendered to be physically strong and built, and that is where the stigma begins in the male society. In order to sustain in the male domination, men are constantly trying to rebuild their bodies to match perfection. When men see others that are more built, their self-perception slowly starts to degrade their confidence, and that is when they have the difficulty of accepting themselves. As a result, men and women who lack self acceptance start to obsess over their
One of the major conflicts is the intrapersonal conflict Cady has with herself. Cady goes from being home-schooled in Africa to entering the “girl-world” in high school. Throughout the movie, Cady is trying to fit in, become popular and to get the attention of her crush, Aaron Samuels. This causes Cady to ultimately lose herself in the process of becoming Plastic. In the effort to take revenge on Regina for taking Aaron back, Cady loses her own self by attempting to be Regina. This gets Janis to notice Cady’s transformation especially when Cady throws party the same night of Janis’s art show and doesn’t even show up to the art show. Janis came to Cady’s house tell her: “You think that everyone is in love with you, when actually, everyone hates you.” Cady then has to decide whether she wants to become a better person or become someone she’s
In this essay, I will compare people that are obsessed with physical appearance and appearances. It is not strange for individuals to worry about physical appearance. In fact, we could argue that we are living in a culture that weighs the most up-to-date trends or newest fashions more heavily than more pressing issues that affects society. As a result, many people become obsessed with their physical appearance in order to keep up with trends and fashions.
Body image is the mental image of one 's own body. Body image is very important because the majority of people think about their appearance and how they look all day long. Many people today have a very poor body image. The causes of poor body image include: body size, bullying, media, low self-esteem, depression, and even gender. Body image also has some very unhealthy effects on men and women. Body image in our world today is at an all-time low, but there are many ways to help improve it. The most important ways are to focus on the good and positive talents he or she has and to not compare his or her body to another individual’s body.