Sunday, November 22, 2015

Mean Girls: Satire in the Burn Book


Mean Girls is a popular movie that made its debut in 2004. The movie follows Cady Heron as she navigates the world of high school. Cady is supposed to be spying on the "plastics", the mean popular girls at her school, but she soon becomes caught up in that life that she forgets about her real friends. The idolization of the "plastics", mostly the leader Regina George, in the movie is a satirical tool. Regina George is seen as the girl that every girl wants to be friends with as the queen bee of the school. The movie uses verbal irony to show the satirical motives behind girls in the movie idolizing Regina George. When the "plastics" are introduced there is a section of girls from the school talking about Regina George. A girl talks about how Regina George punched her in the face once and how it was awesome. This is verbal irony because it is clear that no one likes being punched in the face but it is awesome to this girl because of who punched her. 

The movie also uses situational irony in the form of the "burn book". The "burn book" is a book that the "plastics" have where the write mean stuff about all the girls that they go to school with. The book ends up being seen by all the girls that are talked about in the book. This is situational irony because in reality people know that it is wrong to have a book made specifically to bash people that you go to school with.


The movie Mean Girls is a genius satirical work that targets how girls treat each other in high school. The movie as a whole is an over exaggeration of how girl treat each other once the reach high school. It is an attempt to open the eyes of society of how the way some girls behave is acceptable because they are popular. The movie exposes the idea of what it means to be a popular girl in high school society and what you have to be to make that happen.


3 comments:

  1. I was considering making a post about this movie myself. Mean Girls's third act is so powerful because you spend most of the movie laughing at the crazy shenanigans these girls get into and all the evil things they do to each other but at the very end you find out that the movie isn't about the group of 4 girls but all girls in general and how mean they can be. It's funny but purposeful at the same time.

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  2. This is really interesting because so many kids today have seen this movie however, I have never thought about the forms of irony that it has. Also, because so many people have seen this movie, it provides a really great example of what satire is.

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  3. Definitely one of my favorite movies. I would not have thought about the irony in this movie. Looking back at the movie, I would not have pointed out these examples of irony. Great job!

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