Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen!

The most quotable comedy of our generation, Mean Girls,  has outstanding examples of interpersonal conflict and communication issues throughout the entirety of the movie. The movie is based off of revenge and back-stabbing; the new girl Cady arrives at a new school and is introduced to Janis and Damien, who expose her to "the plastics" (Regina, Gretchen, and Karen). Cady attempts to take down the plastics as part of a plan developed between herself, Janis, and Damien, but ends up becoming obsessed with the popularity she gains by pretending to be a plastic. With Cadys growing popularity throwing Regina to the past, the lead plastic develops her own plan to take Cady down, throwing North Shore high into a havoc.

Although most, if not all, of the main characters from Mean Girls could benefit from taking our HCOM class, I'm going to just talk about Cady to save some time. If Cady were apart of our class she would realize that she tends to have a more avoidance style of dealing with conflict. She doesn't express her true feelings of resentment to Regina, or her true feelings towards anyone really for that matter. Cady let her new-found 'plastic' persona take over her and allowed it to dictate her life; much like Regina to Gretchen and Karen. Had Cady, or even Janis or Damien, used the aggressive style we learned about in class to deal with their issues towards Regina by flat out expressing their dislike, there would have been no need for Cady to try and infiltrate the plastics.

Power is the most apparent interpersonal conflict theme throughout Mean Girls. Ultimately every main character is fighting for more power than the other at one point during the movie. The lead plastic, Regina George, expresses her thirst for power direct and indirect applications, persuasiveness, and collaboration, while also using all three types of power (personal, relational, and situational). She demonstrates personal power with her conniving ways of taking down Cady and her fellow plastics once Cady (and Janis and Damien) had basically kicked Regina out of her own group. Relational power is seen most easily with the nature of the plastics; Regina has complete control over every thing they do, right down to what they wear on what days. Then situational power is shown with Regina simply by the fact that she seems to hold power over some of the staff members at North Shore high, as well as the entire student body.