This thesis examines the expression of anger and aggression in interactions of 6 black and 4 white female siblings on family sitcoms from the 1980s, 1990s and the 2010s. The interactions were examined to determine whether black girls on TV sitcoms were depicted as more conflictual than their white counterparts, whether the content of the portrayals of black girls differed from white girls based on racialized gender stereotypes related to female anger and aggression, whether these depictions changed over three eras of television ranging from the 1980s-2010s, and finally, whether birth order and relationship to the girl (family vs. non family) determined whether relationship context influenced conflict. The findings revealed that by race and across time black girls are less conflictual than their white counterparts. This contradicts the acceptance of solely black girls as representations of the violent and aggressive “bad girl.” / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Recent criminological scholarship characterizes media attention to aggressive girls, or “mean girls,” as a moral panic, which is correlated with the creation of increasingly punitive antibullying policies in North America. Content analysis was used to uncover how news attention to youth aggression around the time of Reena Virk’s murder contributed to this moral panic in Toronto newspapers. Results indicate that Virk’s murder helped change the frequency and nature of news coverage of girls’ bullying. Reporting on girls’ bullying significantly increased and the dominant news frame falsely presented girls’ bullying as a major and rising problem in schools. The news coverage coincided with the development of more punitive Canadian youth policies. Recommendations for future research, theoretical development, and media practice are provided. / UOIT

The media is littered with various portrayals of aggression. This aggression has been shown to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and subsequent behaviors of its viewers (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). Relational aggression is a newer concern for researchers and has become more prevalent in recent research. Relational aggression is prevalent in the lives of adolescents. Using social cognitive theory (Bandura 2002), information processing theory (Huesmann, 1988), and the general aggression model (Anderson & Bushman, 2002) to justify how adolescents might be developing these relationally aggressive behaviors, this study seeks to expand the literature by evaluating the portrayals of relational aggression in popular teen movies; a genre primarily watched by adolescents. This thesis is a content analysis of the top 30 grossing teen movies for the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s for a total of 90 movies. The study examines three types of relational aggression—direct, indirect, and nonverbal. The following variables were coded for each act of relational aggression: initiator and victim age, gender, sociometrics, attractiveness, SES, and role, their relationship to each other, the context, humor, and consequence of the act of relational aggression. Analysis revealed that relational aggression is extremely prevalent (94.4%) in teen movies. Direct relational aggression is more prevalent in teen movies than both indirect and nonverbal relational aggression. Results indicate that females are portrayed as the primary initiators of relational aggression in teen films. Initiators and victims of relational aggression are primarily portrayed as characters of average attractiveness, average popularity, and as having middle class incomes. Acts of relational aggression are portrayed as not justified and not humorous. However, acts of relational aggression were portrayed as rewarded. No significant differences across decade were found for amount of relational aggression shown or for what type of relational aggression was portrayed. Results showed there were more male aggressors in the 1980s than expected and more female aggressors in the 2000s than expected.

Uppsatsen undersöker hur sexualisering av kvinnliga karaktärer tydliggörs i tonårsfilmer, mer specifikt filmerna Mean Girls och Clueless. Studien analyserar filmernas kvinnliga karaktärer utifrån fyra huvudkategorier av sexualisering; kläder, utseende, beteende och omgivning. I uppsatsen undersöks även hur sexualiseringen förändras i takt med att de kvinnliga karaktärerna genomgår en karaktärsutveckling. Studien utgår från teoretisk kunskap om bland annat femme fatale, den manliga blicken och stereotyper för att uppnå slutresultatet. Resultatet visar att sexualiseringen dels ligger i hur karaktären klär sig, med exponerande plagg där hud och former betonas. Dels även i hur den kvinnliga karaktären beter sig, hur hon är självkritisk och anpassar sig efter mäns önskan. Utseendet sexualiseras genom tydliga krav på bland annat en smal kroppstyp och omgivningen kommer undan med att behandla de kvinnliga karaktärerna som lustobjekt. Karaktärerna blir mer sexualiserade efter att de genomgått en utveckling och blivit populära, detta eftersom karaktärerna tillåter sig själva att bli sexualiserade för mäns uppmärksamhet och för att upprätthålla populariteten.

This dissertation examines narratives about female bullying and aggression through mediated images of "mean girls." Through textual analysis of popular media featuring mean girls (television shows such as Gossip Girl and films like Mean Girls), as well as national news coverage of the case of Phoebe Prince, who reportedly committed suicide after being bullied by girls from her school, this feminist examination questions how the image of the mean girl is raced and classed. This dissertation values an interdisciplinary approach to research that works to make sense of the forces that produce bodies as gendered, raced, and classed. One of the central concerns of this project is explore images of mean girls in order to highlight the ideas that construct female aggression as deviant. In popular culture, the mean girl is constructed as a popular girl who protects and cultivates the power associated with her elite status in duplicitous and cruel ways. Specifically, mean girls are framed as using indirect aggression, which is defined as a form of social manipulation. This covert form of aggression, also referred to as "relational" or "social" aggression, includes a series of actions aimed at destroying other girls' relationships, causing their victims to feel marginalized. The bullying tactics associated with indirect aggression include gossiping, social exclusion, stealing friends, not talking to someone, and threatening to withdraw friendship. The leader of the clique is the Queen Bee who is able to use boundary maintenance to exclude other girls from her friendship groups. In media texts, while the Queen Bee is always White, the Mean Girl discourse does not ignore girls of color. Instead, girls of color are acknowledged as having the potential to be mean, but, more often, they are shown to exemplify the characteristics of normative White femininity (they are nice and prioritize heterosexual relationships) and to escape the lure of popularity. Indeed, whereas media texts continually center Whiteness as a necessary component of the mean girl image, nice girls are constructed as White, Latina, and Black. The constructions of the girls of color often rely on stereotyped behaviors (i.e., Black girls' direct talk and Latina girls' commitment to nuclear family structures); at the same time, these essentialized characteristics are revered and incorporated into the nice girl tropes. The Queen Bee is always upper-class, while the Wannabe (the girl who desires to be in the clique) is middle-class. When attempting to usurp the Queen Bee's power, the Wannabe breaks with normative cultural versions of White, middle-class passive femininity in ways that are framed as problematic. Although the Wannabe rises above her class, in so doing, she also transcends her "authentic" goodness. As a result, middle-classness is recentered and ascribed as part of the nice girl's authentic image. The Mean Girl discourse defines girls' success on a continuum. A popular girl stays at the top of the social hierarchy by being mean. The nice girl finds individual success by removing herself from elite social circles. As a result, privilege is not defined inherently as the problem, but girls' excessive abuse and access to privilege is.