Logical Fallacies in Mean Girls

The film Mean Girls incorporates many logical fallacies. Even though these fallacies are for the most part extreme and made for the purpose of humor, they are still representative of fallacies used today. Hasty generalization is used towards the beginning of the film. Cady Heron (new to the school) is white and from Africa. The teacher announces that a new student has arrived and is from Africa. The class turns to the only black kid in the class assuming it’s that student, however it isn’t. This shows a hasty generalization, or a conclusion made about a population based on a sample not the population as a whole. This applies to this situation specifically because; the students assumed that all Africans are black based on what they have seen in the media (a hasty generalization).

         

 

Secondly Post Hoc is used in this film when Aaron Samuels (the object of Cady Heron’s affection) asks Cady why she never talked to him even though she loves him. Cady explains that it was because Aaron was Regina George’s (his ex-girlfriend) property. He gets upset when she suggests that he was the property of his former girlfriend, causing her to immediately refute her past claim. This is an example of post hoc, a faulty cause, because Cady proves that her excuse was never valid in the first place when she refutes her own excuse when Aaron is upset by it.