Genre Research : Mean Girls

Another blog being researched from the comedy genre is mean girls which has become a movie icon over the last two decades. The movie follows the life of Cady Heron who was educated in Africa from a young age by scientist parents. When her she moves to the suburbs off Illinois she finally gets to experience public school and the gets a quick run down of the highschool laws of popularity from her new friends Janis and Damian. Finding herself in the hands of supreme popularity group dubbed "the plastics" who initiate friendship with her and encouraged by Janis to reciprocate for their own amusement, Cady finds herself entangled in a world of popularity which at first starts out superficial until she fully indulges herself into becoming a plastic. This is such a great comedy movie because it accurately describes the drama and feuds that are apart American highschool. Of course a lot of the situations are exaggerated which we believe emphasizes the comedic aspect of the movie.

The opening scene of the movie starts out with Cady's parents looking down. A low angle is used to show them talking down to someone small and young which would be assumed to be Cady. The audience however isn't aware yet of who Cady is until it is revealed she was sitting down on the porch stairs and springs up. Then the voice of Cady narrates over the movie talking about how most normal kids have their first day of school when they are five but on hers she is sixteen and how great life was in Africa until her mother acquired a job in the states. As she says goodbye to her parents and heads to cross the street she nearly walks into a rapid moving bus to which her mom reacts by screaming and Cady tells her she will be alright. This is an act of surprise because it is so random and pops out of no where into what seems like a very peaceful and wholesome scene of parents getting emotional on their child's first day of school. Later in the movie there is another scene where one of the plastics gets totally run over by a bus which was Cady's initial fate. It is such a strange way for an accident to happen in a movie and the way it is portrayed is what adds comedic flair. Randomness and things being added where they normally aren't needed makeup a lot of comedy movies and are those scenes you didn't need but are glad you got.

One of the scenes from the movie shows Cady and the plastics on the phone with each other. The two other plastics had enough of their clique leader Regina George who had been taking advantage of them and belittling them since day one. Cady decides to trick Regina into saying what she really thinks about Gretchen and Karen while having them on the other line. On screen the girls are all shown split in 4 screens. Our group originally thought we could include a split screen call for our movie opening and have something different going on with each person. Some of them could be super weird bringing the comedic aspect while another person is completely unaware of what is going on on the other line.