Mean Girl at Ridgemont High

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A common theme in both movies is risk taking behavior. As our textbook states, one type of health-compromising behavior that increase in adolescence is risk taking behavior (Heneghan & others, 2015; Steinberg, 2015a; Telzer, Ichien & Qu, 2015). Adolescents just take more risks, due to peer pressure, wanting to be popular, or just an overall lack of knowledge. This is evident in Mean Girls. In Mean Girls Cady ends up throwing a big party when her parents leave. This had many, many risk including underage drinking, possible damage to her house, and possible sexual activity. Adolescent love parties, it is the ultimate convergence to show off their risk taking. Overall, this is something Cady would not have do a year ago, but due to overall peer pressure and popularity implications, she did. Meanwhile Spicoli is the ultimate risk taker at Ridgemont High. He smokes a great deal of marijuana, does not follow the school rules, and crashes a car. Car accidents happen frequently in adolescents, and leads to the majority of deaths. From the ages of 15-24, almost 40% of the deaths are motor vehicle accidents (Santrock, 2017). Luckily, in Spicoli’s case, not one died, still if the owner of the car found out who crashed the car, Spicoli might have died. Luckily, he covered up the crash and blamed it on the rival school.

Another subject which is very important to adolescents is, parent relationships. We can start with Regina’s mom, which is an indulgent parent. That is essentially allow their children to do whatever they want (Santrock, 2017). This causes her daughter to become the diva she is. The mom is always in their lives, and evens claims “I am one of the cool moms”. It is sad to see a mother not see the repercussions of her parenting. She walks in on her daughter having sexual intercourse, and laugh it off “let me know if you need anything?!” Overall this type of parenting is what led to Regina George’s lack of self-control. Also, it is evident the lack of respect the adolescent has for her mother. We can also look at Cady’s parents, which seem to be on the fence. They are new to raising a child in this culture thus it is hard to hold that against them. Still, they are authoritative parents. They take interest in her first day of school and ask if she made any friends. Also, they punish her when she begins to stray. Still her father let her out when she was punished, and her mother was wondering why she was not in the house. He can be quoted saying “Are they not allowed out when they are punished?” Obviously, there is a lot of comedic relief in these movies.

Along with parents, teacher have a huge impact on the students. At Ridgemont High, Mr. Hand meets his polar opposite in Spicoli. Mr. Hand runs class with an authoritarian style of teaching. He does not allow tardiness, eating in class, and overall any non-sense. Spicoli broke every single rule, and in the end of the year he was forced to pay. Mr. Hand went to his house on the day of the last dance, and made him study for the hours he wasted in class that year. Spicoli does it and was able to arrive at the dance, even though late. His style is old school, and it is found more effective in the teaching setting adverse to the parenting setting. In Mean Girls, Ms. Norbury is the most impactful teacher. She works two job, and is the mathletes club leader. She has a positive impact on Cady in the end, helping her follow through and join mathletes. They end up winning the competition due to Cady’s answer. She quotes herself as being a “pusher”. She implies that she likes for people to reach their potential. Teachers like these are always positive in the school force. Another teacher who is not so positive is Coach Carr, who is arrested for having relationships with students. He is also quoted stating, “Don’t have sex, cause you will get pregnant and die.” He was not the most impactful teacher, to say the least.

Both of the movies are accurate portrayals of their time period. Even though Mean Girls came out before I attended high school, I saw many similarities in the adolescent portrayal. This was a cult film for my generation, you can hardly find someone who did not like it. I quoted this movie many times during high school. Just the overall dynamic of cliques, the types of cliques was very accurate. Some other accurate portrayals include the music, style of clothes, and overall humor. From talking to a friend’s father, he said Fast Times at Ridgemont High was an accurate portrayal of the adolescent life in that era as well. He claimed he was the class clown that Spicoli was, but he did not smoke marijuana and had more female friends. Still, he says that some similarities include the clothes, the constant chase of girls, and the strict teachers. Overall, both movies are accurate portrayals of their era of adolescent life.

Both movies share may similarities even though they were in different eras, but also a great deal of differences. Some similarities include the search for romantic companionship. That is a very big part of all adolescents lives. Some other similarities include, the overall fun and lack of pressure in the adolescent lives. This was some of the best years for many people, and these characters often lived like that. Another similarity is the difference a year can make in an adolescent’s life. In both movies, it takes place in a school year, and at the end you can see the impact that all has happened in that year. Still, adolescents differ in the eras as well. Some key differences are obviously technological. There are more modern stuff and ways the adolescents can interact, and use. Another key difference is the two eras I saw was the overall sense of pace. At Ridgemont High I got the sense of a nice relaxed sense of life, back in the late 70’ and early 80’s. In modern high school the pace seems utterly chaotic. A last key difference is the lingo. All generations seem to have different lingo, so they can set themselves apart.

Adolescents from different generations can learn from past ones as they have similarities. Still, as generations go by there are many differences as well. In Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Mean Girls, there are many key adolescent’s topics that are addressed. They discuss identity crisis, self-esteem, risk taking behavior, parental types, teacher impacts and just the overall atmosphere they are in. Both movies show accurate portrayals of the adolescents of the eras and offer great life lesson along the way.

References

Santrock, J. W. (2016). Adolescence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Waters, M. (Director). (2004). Mean Girls[Motion picture on DVD]. Paramount Pictures.

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