Wide Reading Log #5

Level 1 Wide Reading Log:

Text Title –  Mean Girls

Author – Mark Waters

Text Type – Film

Date Watched – Term 3

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Brief Plot Overview(3 sentences)

Mean Girls is a film directed at a High school age group. Cady Heron (said like Katie) grew up in Africa and was homeschooled her whole life until she moved to America. Cady didn’t understand the simple meaning of ‘Mean Girls’. She soon learns that if she wants to ‘fit in’ she has to change, coming to the conclusion that to do that she wouldn’t be herself. Once falling out with her true friends that liked her for her, she starts to change for certain people’s approval. 

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Characters You Find Interesting And Why

One character I found the most interesting in Mean girls was Cady. I found Cady the most interesting because of the way she approached high school in the first place. She had such an open mind about making friends, learning new things that didn’t come from her parents and just in general attending a high school for the first time with such confidence. When Cady realised that for some reason certain people had a different high school experience she wanted to make sure she got the same opportunities. Changing herself for other people’s approval made her a completely different person that even she didn’t like at times. I found this really interesting as I have always found that if you are changing yourself to make other people happy then why would you want to be friends with people who wouldn’t like you for you. This has always been a solid opinion of mine as I think it is very important to know in your life that you shouldn’t be trying to get approval from others if it’s going to be based off of something that is fake. I feel as though Cady understood this as the movie came to an end. She started to realize that having a small group of friends that truly knew her is way better than having a larger majority of the students pretend to like her just because she is in with certain big shot people.

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Messages You Took From The Text And Why

One message that I took away from this film after watching it would have to be that self love is way more important than needing to worry about what others think of you. In this film throughout the movie it demonstrates how in high school’s today there is a big problem around the fact that teenagers can not feel like they can be themselves around certain people because they think instantly that others are going to judge who we truly are. I think that in our lives it is very important to feel like we can be ourselves and not worry about what others think of us. In societies today I think people are too quick to assume or judge certain things based of off sight when they have not looked into something more clearly and have no idea what is really happening to that person.

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Challenges That Characters Had To Deal With And Your Response To These

One problem that Cady had to deal with was when Regina, one of Cady’s ‘friends’ framed her for saying really bad things to every person in their school when Regina was the one who did it. This was a really bad situation for Cady and made her realise the type of people that she wanted to call her friends.Cady’s first reaction was to get revenge on Regina but she knew that wouldn’t do good with everything that she was already blamed on. Cady didn’t have any friends now because she pushed her real ones away for some fake ones that turned out having a really bad effect on her. She knew that she had to make it up with everyone she really cared about. My response to this was a realisation that this whole time Cady actually knew that what she wanted to do was not right, trying to make friends with people she didn’t even really like that much and who treated her poorly. She knew that she put herself in this situation and it was her own doing so it was all on her to make things right. I thought that this was a good response on Cady’s behalf as it wasn’t the reaction anyone else was hoping for. I think that this challenge thrown at Cady was a good wake up call for her as she needed that extra push to realise what kind of people she wanted approval from.

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Discussion About The Title Of The Text And Why It Was Appropriate

As the title suggests there is probably going to be something about Mean girls and of course in this movie there is. So I think that the title of this film is pretty appropriate for what it is about. The title of anything, books, films, campaigning, anything that needs a title should set up whatever it is about. That’s why I think that as the title ‘Mean Girls’ it is an appropriate title for the film because of how it sets up the watchers thoughts, thinking about what this movie is going to show. 

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Who Would You Recommend This Story To And Why 

I would recommend this film to teenage girls as I think that teenage girls are really good at trying to get approval from others, thinking that they are not good enough. As in they think that they are constantly being judged so they just change who they really are. I think that this film is a good representation of how it can affect your family, friends and yourself. Even though this film is a teenage comedy I feel as though watching it has opened up my eyes a little bit more about how easy it can be to want to change for certain people but also how fast it can all blow up in your face and break down around you. That’s why I would recommend this film to teenagers, in general more girls but around that age for anyone.