Mean Girls: A Gans, Marx, and Functionalist Perspective

When watching the film presented in class, I couldn’t help but think back to my own high school days. I fall into the category “I-wouldn’t-go-back-even-if-you-paid-me”. I hated high school not because I was lowest on the totem pole, but because of the pointless stratification involved. Stratification is the sorting of people into groups based on like characteristics (think The Sorting Hat on Harry Potter). These can be race, gender, economic status, and so on and so forth. Applying it to high school, some stratified groups might be the jocks, band geeks, nerds, preps, etc.

Now, let me tell you a little about my high school experience. I grew up in a small town, born into a family that had been there for a few generations. Hence, my family name was well known and respected. Teachers taught me who had taught my father, etc. Automatically this social notoriety propelled me into a popular group. It didn’t hurt that I was athletically blessed and decently intelligent. Growing up, I always thought that doors opened if you asked. I didn’t have to work much to be popular or liked. I just was.

My junior year of high school, my parents moved to a big city about 45 minutes away from my hometown. I remember walking into school my first day and literally knowing not one soul in the 4000 plus enrollment. I am not sure what I expected, but dropping about fifty points on the food chain wasn’t what I had in mind. Curiously enough, the movie we watched in class hit on one of my survival mechanisms. I realized that while I wasn’t first-class, I certainly wasn’t low man on the totem pole either. This boosted my morale and essentially got me through the rest of high school. In the Gans article, he points out that, as a society, it’s important for us to know where we stand. In the functionalist’s perspective, Gans stated that poverty functioned as a guarantor for the rich and their status. Taking this a step further and applying this to the popularity levels at high school, the functionalist might say that the least popular kids serve an important purpose- they establish others’ worth and set a standard to distinguish popularity by.

One of my all-time favorite pointless chick movies is Mean Girls. While the classic tale of female deviousness and the plight of the teen popularity contest is entertaining, it’s also a perfect (although somewhat exaggerated) example of the social stratification teenagers face everyday. As I mentioned, high school wasn’t something I excelled at, simply because I hated the social rules. I never really understood how to play the game. It seemed that the majority of kids didn’t either and most everyone was inferior to the select popular crowd. It puzzles me as I look back, why didn’t anyone rebel. Marx had it right when he said there were two classes, the Bourgeois that controlled everything, and the proletariat who worked for them. He stated that if they ever did rebel, they had an overwhelming majority of numbers to make it effective. Thinking back to high school, why not take Marx’s approach and rebel against the popularity? It can’t be that functional for everyone, and I would argue that the numerous dysfunctions outweigh the functions. I’m not sure anyone could have said it better than one of the mean girls herself, as presented in the following short clip. Enjoy!