Based on my experiences with the media, there has been a very clearly defined stock character in films and television of The Popular Girl. She has many aliases: The Bitch, The Snob, The Maneater, The Hot Chick, The Evil One, The Queen, The Manipulator, The Seductress, The Fake One, The It Girl, etc.
Because this girl is almost always cast as the "bad guy" in the media, we (or maybe it's just me) generally identify more with her nemesis The Good Girl (The Girl Next Door, The Geek, The Plain Jane, The Virgin, etc.). We're almost always supposed to root for this girl instead of The Popular Girl. And, in the end, she almost always wins.
This is what's interesting, though: I have a girlfriend who told me recently that she wants to be just like Regina George. Regina George is The Popular Girl in the movie Mean Girls. As the title implies, she is mean. She is the leader of the popular girl group. She is beautiful. She is powerful. She is evil. Katy (The Good Girl) is smart and kind and cultured and cool. She ends up trying to be like Regina, but then learns the oh so important message that being kind to other people is more important than being cool, and looking good on the inside is better than looking good on the outside. Regina goes down in flames. Really original plot line.
So why does my girlfriend want to be like Regina??? She is clearly painted as the "bad guy." She loses in the end. The Good Girl gets the guy, etc. I don't get it. I didn't ask her why. I know. I should've. But instead I'll just have to guess...
I think the reason girls want to be like these girls we hate, is because even though we know all about how looks and popularity shouldn't be that important and being a good person should...blah blah blah.... we're still constantly told about this in ways that contradict that message. Even in Mean Girls. Yeah The Good Girl wins in the end, but up until then The Popular Girl is basically worshipped. Think about the movie Grease. In order to get the guy in the end, Sandy has to throw out all her morals and pick up smoking...and we LOVE her for it! Why? Because now suddenly she's everything we preach against, but that makes her so much hotter. Really cool girls. Great role model.
Terrible. It's terrible. We ladies need to stop being so confused, and so inconsistent! And I'm sure a similar phenomena occurs with men trying to be The Badass. The media glorifies these villain characters and depicts them as the most unattainable, and therefore desirable, types of people to be. I just see all these young girls trying to look sexy when they're 12, and worrying about their waistlines even earlier, and I hate it. As a society, we're sending them the wrong message. The media very consistently tells young, impressionable individuals that bad is good. And maybe my understanding of the words is a little off, but that just doesn't seem to make sense.
That's all...
I agree! There is something very twisted about our innate desire to assume the "bad girl" image... but think about it. The lives of the girls we love to hate are portrayed as exciting, glamorous even. They assume every trait that the media tells us we should strive to attain. Beauty? We want their flawless skin and flat stomaches. Popularity? We want their determination and their seemingly effortless display of power. Personality? We want their confidence and self-assurance. Who doesn't want those qualities?
ReplyDeleteYet somehow the main character always seems to grasp these traits in the end. Take Katy for instance, keeping line with your Mean Girls example. In the beginning, she's nice, but lets face it: a little boring. Yet we can relate to this plain, ordinary character: she is what we are. In comparison, Regina is everything we wish we could be. She is the epitome of every commercial we have seen and every celebrity we have worshiped, telling us to conform to an image of perfection and glory.
No wonder we can't help but cheer for the bad guys and girls once in a while.