Tuesday, October 8, 2013

They are mean, but they are post meanism so it is okay

In Mean Girls one of the first jokes is when Mr. Norbury, Tina Fey, spills her drink on her shirt, and when she tries to take it off reveals here bra. This to me was like Tina Fey grabbed me through the movie screen pulled me nose to nose and said, ‘see, we are over it, this is post feminism. This revealing of the bra is no longer an objectification of women because Tina Fey is doing it to herself, right? Whatever it was I it still made me feel uncomfortable. Also, a younger girl of boy would not know weather it was some evil man or Tina Fey herself revealing her bra. We talked in class about all the women who take off their own clothing, but is it really their choice? Aren’t they trying to be noticed in a world where women who have brains and personality are practically standing still while the half naked hot woman are plastered with fame and fortune. Perhaps we are not post feminism. I know when Tina Fey showed off her bra I thought the joke was cred and plan. No real though was put into this joke, it was silly, stupid, and objectifying.

The male gaze is something that is at work here even though the movie was written by women. All of the party scenes are great examples of this. The men dress up in whatever they want but the girls must dress in lingerie looking costumes. Even at the Cady’s party, the first thing that she is worried about is looking good. She even says something like, this time I was not going to be caught in a costume. She is not worried about the fact that she lied to him about math, or how she plotted to break him up with Regina, she is not worried about any personality traits at all, just how she looks. At this point in the film, cady is no longer the innocent girl from Africa and she has learned that here in the United States what matters is the male gaze. At least this is what she thinks until Aaron Samuels actually finds her. I am proud of the movie for really flipping this idea on its head. Once Cady and Aaron Samuels finally meet up in her room, he is impressed with how she looks but he quickly learns what she is like on the inside and rejects her and the idea of the male gaze. It is possible, according to this movie, to overcome the male gaze and qualify women for who they are and not just what they look like. But at the same time, as I was watching this movie, I feel like they tried so hard to make Lindsay Lohan perfectly beautiful. In some scenes it made sense with the story, but other times I remember thinking, I just want to watch this movie without Lindsay Lohan trying to seduce me.

How we Treat our Enemies

I wanted to quickly tag on a bit about my big idea for this class. My question is what does Mean Girls say about how to treat our enemies? At the very end of Mean Girls, it seems to be saying that we should all be friends. However, both my wife and I agreed that most of the movie was sharing the message to do everything in your power to give your enemies what they deserve. The movie did so some transition from Cady sabotaging Regina George’s life to feeling sorry for what she did, but I wish that more of the movie would have been both Cady and Regina turning around for the good. However, nothing is funny about heartfelt love, and that is why almost the whole movie is full with girls completely hating on each other. The conclusion I came to is that even though you feel good at the end they message that sticks with you is sabotage everyone.

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