Critical Review of Personal Film Spectatorship - Characters and Themes

There are quite a few themes and issues touched on or dealt with in Mean Girls, but they are dealt with in a comical way so they are not forced down my throat as a spectator but I do still recognise that they are there.

One issue touched upon is the idea of stereotypes. On Cady's first day of school, the principal comes into her classroom to let the rest of the class and her teacher know that there will be a new student joining her class. The principal mentions the fact that the new girl is from Africa. Despite the fact that Cady is standing directly by the principal and we can assume that the teacher, Ms Norbury has never seen her before, automatically it is the single black student in the room that she turns to and welcomes. The scene is humorous as the girl, who wasn't paying attention, suddenly realises that she is the one being spoken to and responds with "I'm from Michigan". I can relate, being black myself, and having had a similar experience to the girl. Further into the movie, there is a scene in the canteen with Cady and the plastics when one of the girls asks her "if you're from Africa then why are you white?". It's a common stereotype and error made, particularly by young people, that all Africans are black when this is really not the case. Nearly 10% of people living in South Africa are white. This stereotype is only touched upon in the movie, but I think that it's good that it was included at all.