
I chose a poster for the movie, “Mean Girls,” starring Lindsey Lohan to analyze. The movie is about a teenage girl, Cady, who was homeschooled all her life until she got to high school. She did not know anything about the society she had just entered. She quickly became friends with Janis and Damian, but the mean girls want her to join their clique. Janis hates Regina and the rest of the mean girls and encourages the Cady to pretend to be their friend and sabotage them at the same time. There are many aspects of the movie poster that appeal to the audience and make them want to watch the movie. These aspects include the color scheme, the stance the girls are standing in, the girls’ outfits, and the font of the wording.

The main image that is first seen while looking at this poster is Cady, Lindsey Lohan, looking fierce and strong by herself and the three ‘mean girls’ standing in confident poses behind her. This indicates that even though Cady begins as an outsider, she soon becomes a fierce and confident teenage girl when she gets into the ‘mean girls’ crowd. Out of the three ‘mean girls,’ Rachel McAdams, Regina, stands a little bit ahead of the other two girls. This indicates that Regina is the ‘queen bee’ or leader of the group. All three of the ‘mean girls’ are standing in an overconfident pose highlighting their attitude and their meanness. 

The poster features Lindsey Lohan’s name in bold font appealing to the teenage girl audience. This appeals to young teenage girls because Lindsey Lohan has been in many good films, such as “Parent Trap” and “Freaky Friday.” This makes the audience automatically think this will be a good movie. The poster also features Tina Fey’s name at the bottom, but she is not actually featured in the poster. Her name also attracts a female audience because she has appeared in many good movies, such as “Date Night” and “Baby Mama.” Through being released by “Paramount Pictures” it immediately indicates that the movie had a high budget. It also indicates that it will be a good movie because “Paramount Pictures” has released many good movies. 

Pink is a very stereotypical feminine color, which appeals to a target audience of teenage girls. All the characters being teenage girls also attracts other teenage girls to want to watch the film. The hot pink is portrayed as sexy, playful and fun, which emphasizes the sexy, popular girl Cady became when she joined the ‘mean girls’ crowd at her new school. The hot pink also indicates the Cady’s excitement for her new life and new school. The ‘mean girls’ wearing pink indicates their girly, almost ‘fake Barbie,’ mean nature. The combination of the pink and purple also symbolize passion and romance to the female population. The bright pink also leads the audience to believe the film is a ‘chick flick.’ 

The different type of clothing between the group of girls and Cady shows how different the two are. The group of girls are wearing light/bright pink tops, short skirts, and heels. The girls are also showing lots of skin. On the other hand, Cady, is wearing a hot pink shirt, jeans, and flat shoes. Cady is very covered and looks very conservative.  The group of girls is very feminine while Cady does not care how people look at her. The group of mean girls are also standing in almost sexualized positions indicating a more stereotypical and idealistic representation of women. Instead, Cady is standing straight up and very straight posture indicating she is not a typical high school teenage girl. This could attract teenage girls because they might aspire to dress like or act like these girls. 

The “Mean Girls” title being sideways is also a barrier between Cady and the group of girls. The barrier causes the audience to wonder how they all became friends. It also causes the audience to believe the film is a high school drama. The “Watch your back” tagline on the poster indicates a sense of betrayal. Betrayal in a film could actually intrigue the audience to watch it. This tagline also helps indicate that this film is a high school drama. The ‘mean’ in the title, “Mean Girls,” is in bold indicating that the group of ‘mean girls’ in the movie are actually mean, nasty, and rude to other girls that are not as popular as them. This appeals to the audience because it gives them another reason to think this movie is a drama.

In this paper, I pointed out the different aspects of the “Mean Girls” movie. I discussed the color scheme, the stances the girls stood in, the different outfits they wore, and the font of the text. Some words were bolder or bigger than others. They also used actress’ names such as Lindsey Lohan and Tina Fey to attract an audience. The color pink is used to identify how feminine, girly, and passionate the movie is. Also the color pink was used a lot to identify this movie as a ‘chick flick’ and a drama. 