Happy National Mean Girls Day! Cady Heron’s story arc in Mean Girls is really a study of the dangers of peer pressure. At first, Cady doesn’t fit any of the clearly delineated categories that her peers are neatly sorted into and as a result she feels completely alone. So Cady lets herself be directed – first by Janis, and then by the Plastics. But this means completely losing sight of herself and denying her true interests. Here’s our take on how Cady Heron illustrates that adolescence is about figuring out who you are, not who other people think you should be.
TRANSCRIPT
Cady Heron’s story arc in Mean Girls is really a study of the dangers of peer pressure.
When Cady starts going to a normal high school after a life of homeschooling, her journey showcases how seductive peer pressure can feel. At first, Cady doesn’t fit any of the clearly
delineated categories that her peers are neatly sorted into and as a result she feels completely alone, ostracized by the student body. So Cady lets herself be directed–first by Janis, and then by the Plastics. She learns to blend in and eventually achieves social validation by following others’ rules and copying their behavior. But this means completely losing sight of herself and denying her true interests, and ultimately her popularity comes at the expense of her happiness. Here’s our take on how Cady Heron illustrates that adolescence is about figuring out who you are, not who other people think you should be.
CHAPTER ONE: UNDER PRESSURE
After a childhood of warm, nurturing homeschooling and open-minded travel, Cady is suddenly dropped into a high school experience that’s defined by intense pressure. Within this environment where there is little trust from the adult authority figures and a plethora of arbitrary rules that dictate daily routine, it makes sense that students look to their peers to establish a sense of order. Initially, peer pressure is what helps Cady get over her culture shock. That peer pressure doesn’t come, at first, from the “popular group,” the Plastics; it comes from outsiders–the so-called “art freaks,” Janis and Damian. They trick and manipulate her into skipping class to hang out with them, by dangling the promise of “friendship” in front of her
This feels like a warm and friendly thing to do–but it still pressures Cady to ignore her own instincts. Her new friends then present her with a map of the lunchroom as a guide to who’s cool and who’s not, and encourage her to be fearful of the situation, as they warn her about who she should and shouldn’t get caught up with. They also tell her not to join the group that she (as someone with a natural gift for math) probably has the most in common with: the Mathletes.
And this advice actually echoes the words of Queen Bee Regina George, who earlier gave Cady the same tip, proving that rules like how uncool it is to join the mathletes actually come from the top down.
Cady: “I know it’s wrong to skip class, but Janis said we were friends, and I was in no position to pass up friends.”
When Cady is asked to join the Plastics for lunch, it doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice–much like she, Karen and Gretchendon’t have a choice when it comes to wearing pink on Wednesdays. These rules don’t have any meaning behind them, as Regina later admits; they’re purely about enforcing assimilation and imposing the superiority of the person at the very top. But because almost everyone follows them, no matter how miserable they might feel, they believe that there’s no alternative.
Gretchen: “If you break any of these rules, you can’t sit with us at lunch. Not just like you, any of us.”
At first, Cady’s journey of following peer pressure appears necessary to her and not all that draining. But over time, it comes at a cost, and that cost is herself. She eventually metamorphoses into a plastic—a cold, artificial person with little relation to her inner self, and in clear contrast to the organic world she’s come from. As she rises up the social hierarchy, there’s an erosion of her personality that she doesn’t realize is happening until she’s alienated all of the people who truly care about her. She has to start from scratch again, once more isolated from the student body, eating lunch on her own in the cafeteria toilets. But this time, she gets her happy ending by not giving in to peer pressure, following her heart, and doing what she thinks is the right thing.
Cady: “All my friends hate me and now my mom hates me.”
Chip: “Your mom does not hate you, she’s afraid of you.”
CHAPTER TWO: THE DANGERS OF SOCIAL CURRENCY
High school movies are all about social currency. What are the traits that move you up the social ladder, and what are the ones that keep you down? In She’s All That, Laney Boggs is clearly beautiful–a quality prized by her classmates–but because she’s interested in art and has a unique style, she remains at the bottom of the ladder until she’s effectively socialized by Zack.
The popular teens in these stories are also keenly aware that social cachet is conditional and can go away if popular teens break the “rules”. In The Faculty, Stan has peak social status as a star football player dating the head cheerleader, but his girlfriend makes it clear that popularity won’t endure if he quits the team to focus on his studies.
“The accepted social order is head cheerleaders date star quarterbacks, not academic wannabes.”
- The Faculty
Cady has an advantage in rising up the ranks due to a social currency she naturally possesses: her beauty. It’s telling that both Janis and Regina remark on this when they first meet her. What differs is how each group reacts to this social currency. For Janis, it’s almost with a tone of resignation: she sees quickly that Cady will have more social currency than she does, which does ultimately become a threat to their budding friendship. Damian, who seems more content with himself and his place in this structure, urges Cady to embrace her hotness. Meanwhile, Regina’s reaction is combative, treating Cady’s beauty as a potential threat to her position at the top of the pecking order. In fact, it’s not a desire for friendship but this beauty (and resulting social currency) that motivates Regina to bring Cady into her group - so that she can control the outside threat of a hot new girl.
Regina: “Get in loser we’re going shopping”
Cady’s growth in popularity is mirrored by her showing off her looks more as the film goes on. This is illustrated in how differently she approaches the two parties she goes to in the film. At the early Halloween party, she goes as a zombie bride-esque “ex wife,” making herself as ugly as possible–because her goal isn’t to look hot, but to have fun. But she learns a key lesson when the other girls dress for maximum sexiness, and Regina scores a kiss from the hot, popular guy Cady is pining over, Aaron Samuels, while dressed in a revealing bunny costume. By the time Cady’s a Plastic throwing her own party, she’s got great hair and make-up and is wearing a far more glamorous, revealing party dress Still, rather than truly owning her hotness as Damian encouraged her to do, she’s just imitating Regina’s styles and mannerisms. She’s still obviously beautiful, but in a way that’s inauthentic and not truly attractive in a deeper sense. And whereas Aaron seemed to like her initially when she was being herself , he’s turned off by this more appearance-obsessed Cady because he recognizes she’s not being herself.
Cady: “I know it may look like I’d become a bitch, but that’s only because I was acting like a bitch.”
The reality is that Cady can be hot and authentically her. She can be in the Mathletes and still get the guy. It’s a lie perpetuated by these hyperintense social structures that any of these things are mutually exclusive. But Cady has to realize on her own that there don’t have to be rigid rules about what behaviors you have to engage in to make other people like and accept you. If you dare to break supposed social laws that don’t make sense to you, you might find that others are willing to go along, too.
CHAPTER THREE: DISCOVERING THE REAL YOU
Cady is far from the only person in this film who feels unhappy because she diminishes some aspect of herself in order to fit in. Gretchen may be the second most popular girl in school, but she too is a victim of Regina’s peer pressure. Regina consistently clamps down on Gretchen’s individuality, forcing her to tow Regina’s party line.
Regina: “Gretchen, stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen, it’s not going to happen.”
Even Regina’s cruelty comes from a place of fear, insecurity, and being out of touch with how she’s really feeling. We get hints that her home life isn’t providing the order and normalcy she craves. She has few outlets in her life besides fixating on her appearance. And she makes choices based on protecting her status, rather than doing what she actually wants to–whether that’s befriending her potential rival Cady or dating Aaron even though she doesn’t seem into him because she can’t let another girl get the validation of being with the one of the school’s most popular boys.
Ironically, some of the characters in the film who seem the happiest are the least popular ones. Damian is a social outcast like Janis, but he’s comfortable in his own skin, and his sexuality, and so he can fight through any abuse he receives. Even more confident still is Kevin, the captain of the mathletes. Despite that group being ‘social suicide’ according to her friends, he has the swagger of a popular high school jock and views himself on an equally elite level. He’s in no way awed by Cady’s social status or beauty–and even rejects the idea of dating her when he thinks she has a crush, despite the fact that being with a Plastic would undoubtedly increase his objective popularity. He’s excited about the Mathletes State Championships, and pleased with the size of the audience–because even though it might not be the crowd the football games get, he’s not torturing himself by making that kind of comparison to other people’s lives and priorities.
Both Damian and Kevin show that by tuning out peer pressure and tapping into what you think is cool, you’ll be much more content in the long run–even if that comes at the expense of some social currency. At the end of the day, all that currency is fleeting, fragile, and relative. Within the circle that he cares about Kevin has just as much authority as Regina does–and in a few years, being accomplished at math will probably mean more in the adult world than having been Spring Fling Queen. Damian, too, may have fewer friends–but having just one friend who loves you for you is more fun and satisfying than attracting flocks of worshipful underlings who don’t really like or get you. Cady’s act of sharing the Spring Fling crown is an act of recognizing the person in everyone–because while the lie of social hierarchy is that we have to all be ranked as better or worse, the truth is everyone has their own particular potential.
Cady: “I think everybody looks like royalty tonight.”
Cady eventually recognizes that happiness isn’t tied to any markers of status she could achieve–whether that’s popularity, her friend group, or her dream guy. Ultimately, none of those things are totally within her control. The fake social hierarchy of Regina’s world tries to manufacture a feeling of total power through putting others down, but this doesn’t work to counter the powerlessness that’s inherent to teenhood, and life in general. So Cady realizes that the key to contentment is focusing on what you. Her happiness comes from tapping into her authentic self, because that’s the only way to be a real person.
Cady: “I had gone from home-schooled jungle freak, to shiny plastic, to most hated person in the world, to actual human being.”
OUTRO
It’s telling how much happier everyone is at the end of Mean Girls, when the rigid cliques have disbanded. The new social order still has friendship groups and niches , but by breaking the Spring Fling crown, Cady symbolically destroys the up-down framework of winners and losers. And this frees the students from that pressure to conform to an inauthentic idea of who they should be. The characters invest instead in activities that give them a satisfying outlet or sense of achievement. And this is what actually makes people thrive: feeling good about what we do, instead of worrying about what others see when they look at us.
Cady: “School used to be like a shark tank, but now I could just float.”