Period 1
L to R: Gretchen, Regina, Cady, Karen
Archetype Essay
The Quest: Mean Girls (Destroying Regina)
Dos Santos, Manoel
11
Dos Santos 1
"Regina George is an evil dictator. How do you overthrow a dictator? You cut off her
resources. Regina George would be nothing without her technically "hot body," older boyfriend,
provocative clothing and ignorant band of loyal followers" (Tina Fey (2003) Mean Girls Script, pg39).
A quest that starts with these words is placed in the movie Mean Girls. Throughout the movie Mean
Girls, there is a situational archetype of the Quest, to achieve the objective of Cady: destroy Regina
George. The objective of this quest is to destroy Regina George. Cady Heron has always lived in
Africa being home schooled and has never attended a real school. With her arrival in Illinois, she was
placed in the public school, North Shore High School, where she met two outcasts named Janis and
Damien. Soon enough they became close friends. Janis and Damien explain to Cady the social groups
within their high school, one of which was "the Plastics". “The Plastics” consists of three rich, snotty
girls who believe that the world revolves around them. The Plastic trio consist of Regina George the
leader and the follower Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith. “The Plastics” were referred to as
“meanest”, “meaner” and “mean”. One day Cady was retrieving her school lunch, she stumbles upon
the table of the Plastics. Regina invites her to sit and eat lunch with them. “The Plastics” started to
interrogate Cady about her life and past in Africa. They start to like her and invite her to eat lunch with
them for the whole week and explain to Cady the rules of being in the Plastic. This is a historical quest
archetype that has repeated itself though history dating it far back in time that people try to get rid of the
person with power it they feel that they don’t deserve it and isn’t using it correctly.
Janis and Damien saw what had recently happened during lunch and asked what happened and
what they said. While they had talked, Cady informed Janis and Damien that she had been invited to eat
lunch with them for the whole week. With this astonishing news Janis and Damien came up with a plan
and demanded Cady to go along with their plan. The plan that they forced Cady to go along with was to
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accept the invitation which allowed Cady to hear all the mean things they said and then told Janis and
Damien at night what it was that they said. At first Cady found Regina and the other girls to be really
nice, so she does the mistake of telling Regina that she likes Aaron Samuels who she met in her
advanced math class who happens to be Regina’s ex but she didn’t know at first. Regina invites Cady to
the Halloween party that she will be throwing and says the Aaron will be there and that she will talk to
Aaron for Cady to “hook them up”. But, it ends up that Regina lies and she back stabs Cady by making
up lies about Cady by saying that she (Cady) is obsessed with Aaron. Regina ends up open mouth
kissing Aaron in front of everyone including Cady. By Cady seeing this she becomes furious and runs
back to Janis and Damien’s basement and they come up with a plan to destroy Regina. The plan that
they come up with to destroy her is to make Aaron break up with her, make her lose her perfect figure,
and breaking apart her followers.
“The quest, here, the character(s) are searching for something, whether consciously or
unconsciously. Their actions, thoughts, and feelings center around the goal for completing this quest.”
(Understanding Literary Archetypes, 2002). Cady’s quest in this movie was to destroy Regina George’s
popularity and power. The reason that they wanted to destroy Regina was because she was evil and held
too much power, so she is able to have anything that she wanted. The measures that Cady, Janis, and
Damien took to complete their quest were very consciously difficult. First, they had to destroy her
appearance which cause for her to doubt herself and people not to respect or put her on a pedestal
anymore. Next, they made her older, senior class boyfriend end their relationship. To accomplish that
they had to confess to him, that she was cheating on him. By doing that it made her emotionally
unstable. Following, Cady, Janis, and Damien cut Regina’s resources to “provocative clothing” by
making her gain weight, so she wouldn’t fit the cloth and look good. Finally, they disbanded the “and
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ignorant band of loyal followers”. This causes her not to have people by her side and not to fear her
anymore. Cady, Janis and Damien were consciously doing this to Regina because they disliked her due
to what she had done to them. They this and it socially destroyed her and no one liked her anymore and
stood up to her. When this happened she met her doom.
A “quest” consists of a young hero male or female (main character) that sets of to complete a
mission. In this case the young hero happens to by a fifteen year old female. This normally means that
the hero will have to travel a long way to complete the big mission. But on the way of the hero (Cady)
completing her mission we will meet partners and “group members” (Janis, Damien, and others) who
well be willing to help her complete her mission. Along the way to complete the big, main, and final
mission the hero and sub characters have to deal will mini challenges or adventures (destroying here
"hot body," taking her older boyfriend, not allowing her to use provocative clothing and make her
ignorant band of loyal followers not like her anymore) that they must complete. And by completing
these mini challenges it will help them overcome the “Monster/Bad Guy” (Regina). Also they will meet
new characters that will help them achieve their goal. In addition a “quest” has normally a time limit
within that the important goal must be achieved (in this case it was to be complete before “Spring
Fling”). As well, normally the hero goes true some misadventures which puts the final plan at rick so,
they must find the fix the mistakes (Cady lies to her friends and they get in to a big fight). Finally,
normally in the end of their “quest” after they achieve the goal the “hero” finds out about themselves
who they really are. In this case Cady found out that one can’t fight fire with fire because that will get
her nowhere and that she loves peace. So, this was a “quest” consists of and these are the step taken by
the main character. And the quest of the movie Mean Girls had all the requirements of a quest.
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This archetype has a great amount historical meaning. The main historical connection that was
connected to, even in the own Mean Girls Movie would be the assassination of Julius Caesar. When
Gretchen is doing her speech filled with anger about Julius Caesar, that no one likes Caesar and that all
that he wants to do is stomp over the little people. As a matter a fact Julius Caesar and Regina George
are very much alike. The historical figure of Julius Caesar was feared by the people and wanted to rule
the world even though he was just like anyone else. “The Senate aristocrats killed Caesar because they
perceived him to be a popular leader who threatened their privileged interests” (Michael Parenti, 2003,
Why Caesar Was Really Killed). The historical quest that repeats itself would be that normally when
people dislike, fear, and envy their leader/ruler. Brutus and Cassius along with other conspirators got
together to make plans to bring down Julius Caesar and to remove his power, because they didn’t
believe that he deserved it or that he achieved that on the right terms. The same way Janis and Damien,
along with Cady, made plans to socially destroy Regina George to make her lonely and ugly, was
because Janis, Damien, and Cady felt that she was evil. The reason they felt she was evil was because
she made fun of the ugly and heavier people and made everyone ignore them and they felt it was time
for here to felt a taste of her own poison. In the end Brutus, Cassius and other conspirators were able to
accomplish their quest which was to destroy in this matter it was to kill Julius Caesar because of their
mixed feeling regarding his crowning and all the power that he held as being king so their quest was to
kill Caesar. Like, Janis, Damien, and Cady which their quest was to destroy Regina George social life.
Their reasoning for destroying Regina was because she was mean and didn’t deserve the rights to be the
Queen of the school and continue being evil to people. It has also happen in the historical story when
J.F. Kennedy was murdered because people were on a quest to remove him for power. As well like
Abraham Lincoln was also murdered to do power and also Martin Luther King Jr. who also held and
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great deal of power and people didn’t like the way they were using their power even thou it wasn’t being
used for bad. That is one of the many historical quests that are just like the one for the Mean Girls.
The conclusion that has been made is that archetypes have been continues to be used repeatedly
through out time. And it will continue to be repeated over time. So if it’s in history or in some silly
chick- flick. Archetypes of a quest to destroy or kill someone try to remove them from power will
continue to replay itself along the future. No it rest for the world to see what it will come for future
quest.
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Bibliography
(Tina Fey (2003) Mean Girls Script, pg39)
"Regina George is an evil dictator. How do you overthrow a dictator? You cut off her
resources. Regina George would be nothing without her technically "hot body," older
boyfriend, provocative clothing and ignorant band of loyal followers"
(Michael Parenti, (2003) Why Caesar Was Really Killed, History News Network, Retrieved from
http://hnn.us/articles/1643.html ).
“The Senate aristocrats killed Caesar because they perceived him to be a popular leader who
threatened their privileged interests”
(Mean Girls, (2011) Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_Girls )
I found various types of information regarding the movie.
(Altair Roxas, (2010) Plot Archetype Synopsis: The Quest, Suite 101, Retrieved from
http://www.suite101.com/content/plot-archetype-synopsis-the-quest-a259665 ).
(Understanding Literary Archetypes, (2002) Essortment, Retrieved from
http://www.essortment.com/all/literaryarchety_rabl.htm ).
“The quest, here, the character(s) are searching for something, whether consciously or
unconsciously. Their actions, thoughts, and feelings center around the goal for
completing this quest.”
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