The QUICK fix, not just in cleaning supplies

Genre films temporarily solve social or political problems so that we do not have to. Tonight I am considering watching a movie to relieve some stress of midterms week. I am going to watch others fix their problems so I can procrastinate my own. Movies give us an escape of taking action against a real conflict because someone else is. Also, the conflicts are solved in impossible ways that awe us, but give us unrealistic lessons on how to solve our own life problems.

Now this might be a stretch, but the only category I could fit these movies in out of horror, sci-fi, western, and gangster is…



Gangster.

That’s right. I argue that in Mean Girls, Elle Woods, and Accepted the main characters are all trying to reach the top. They are all trying to rise through the ranks. Rather than questioning the capitalistic structure they are in, they instead try to use ploys within the structure to reach the top. Each one has the “leader” as vulnerable to those who want to take their place. They are run by a social hierarchy and can only survive if they stay in one’s own class. They also all finish in insanely impossible ways.

Cady tries to fatten, destroy Regina’s relationship with the hot boyfriend Cady lusts after, and destroy the friendships that keep her popular. In the end, Cady becomes popular, but at the moral expense of her true self and true, unpopular friends. She reverts back to her true self. The quick fix of the movie is of course, a bus hits Regina, so Cady feels guilty and realizes what she has become. This is highly unlikely to say the least.

In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods is trying to win back her man. In order to do this she has to comply with the structure of Harvard Law, and reform herself to become what she thinks her man wants. She has to rise in the structure and prove she is smart, by working harder rather than throwing mixers and wearing pink. In the end, after being sexually hit on by a teacher she finds a random rule that allows her to take over a case, wear pink, and win it because of the laws of perm-ing one’s hair.

In Accepted, an entire college is created to accept students who cannot be accepted by anywhere else. The college magically becomes real and receives students. Rather than anyone questioning in the beginning they are able to play it off for a while and instead of dealing with the consequences the kid who majored in “blowing things up with his mind”, blows up the school. The whole movie is based on trying to be a part of the society we live in by trying to fit into what every high school student should do after college.

I know this might sound crazy to put them in the gangster genre, but I feel it’s the most appropriate for them. Horror might be more suited for a man watching them though…