Mrenportfolio.files.wordpress.com



Miranda RendellComm 1050Mean Girls: The Story of Saving FaceIn 2004 a new movie hit the theatres, one that told the story of Junior girls at North Shore High School, and how important their “face” is to them, and not just in the physical sense. Throughout this movie you watch these young woman constantly attempting to save their faces. Beyond that, they’re attempting to locate their self-identity, what kind of person they are. And in the end, the idea that collectivism may be detrimental towards everything they’re working towards. It’s amazing how much face plays a part in not only our society, but in the movies that portray our society.Face-Negotiation Theory, what does it mean? The theory has many sections, making it difficult to explain succinctly. However, personal belief is that Face-Negotiation is the study of portraying and maintaining desired “face,” or social appearance. Society has an obsession with how they are perceived by others; and Mean Girls definitely shows this. The lead characters are continuously dealing with face concern: or maintaining face, primarily their own. In fact, a large part of the plot is dedicated to the idea of collectivism, positive face, and destroying the face of others. Cady has recently moved from Africa and started public school for the first time, her new friends convince her to befriend the school “Queen Bees” to knock them down, and destroy their popularity within the school. Eventually, solidarity facework occurs and Cady falls into the clique, or “The Plastics,” and becomes more obsessed with face management and face concern than with obtaining a true positive face and finding her self-identity. Beyond all, face saving appears constantly throughout the movie, which is clear when you look at quotes from Cady in the movie: “Grool…I meant to say cool, but I started to say great.” This is said to her current crush to attempt to assuage her embarrassment. “I know it may look like I was acting like a bitch, but it was only because I was acting like a bitch.” This particular quote is given to the audience, attempting to defend her actions within her new group of friends. While there are many instances of saving face through words, there are many that occur through actions as well. For instance, the lead “Queen Bee” often takes attacks against her in stride, e.g. walking with a shirt cut out in the chest, or attending prom in a neck brace. Mean Girls has been a long time favorite, however, once it was analyzed underneath the FNT, the “good” and “bad” people seemed to shift from good and evil to human. Every character had their faults, and all had their strengths. And yet, who was the strongest? The strongest were those that were able to drag down the least amount of people, who were trying to help others build their faces. This prompted the idea that perhaps that is who is “good” in the world. The people who use approbation facework and compromise to achieve positive face for all those involved. These individuals also have a strong self-identity. This provoked me to analyze my own face, and if I was prominently positive or negative; refusing to believe that any person is only one or the other, only a mixture of both. These thoughts made me more conscientious of my actions and words towards others. I am under the belief that being more sensitive towards these ideas will help my self-identity, face, and the face of others. However, I gained more from Mean Girls, than just the observation of FNT and personal correlations. The director, Mark Waters, relayed a rather clear message, or theme, in his movie. In complete honesty, this movie’s message is not that of Face-Negotiation, or rather, be decent towards one another. It is a movie that focuses on young women, and the pressures they face to be and act a certain way to appease others. Even more than that, it discusses the issue of women tearing down other women, for no other reason other than making them higher to find themselves attractive to men. In the roughly abridged words of Tina Fey’s character, why do we make each other the enemy? Granted, you can find many communication theories within the movie, but the message speaks through the movie. There is no doubt about it, especially with the involvement of comedy feminists, Tina Fey and Amy Poheler. So, who was crazy enough to work on a theory surrounding faces. Stella Ting-Toomey built this multifaceted theory, primarily interested in cultural differences. Toomey still works on the theory, refining what she can over the years. She is currently a professor at California State University, teaching Human Communication Studies. She writes many books, co-written and edited with a multitude of people, and has spoken in: Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Norway, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and parts of the U.S. Toomey built the theory off of comments from persons of different backgrounds and cultures, primarily comments to do with face. All in all, Mean Girls is a fantastic example of Face-Negotiation Theory. It is a movie of young girls who are focused on their face, and keeping their collectivism strong, and their face positive. Many of the lines within the show are built for the characters to save-face and build their reputation. Search far and wide, and you may be hard pressed to find another movie that showcases FNT as beautifully as Mean Girls. “Maybe we’re not in that book because everybody likes us.” –Gretchen Wieners, Mean Girls. References1.) Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application, 4th Edition By: Richard West and Lynn H. Turner2.) Mean Girls 3.) .) commfaculty.fullerton.edu/stingtoomey/ ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download