Friend or Foe: A content analysis of female friendships.

Jessica Marcinko
Sociology 4309
Qualitative Research Methods
Final Project: Unobtrusive Method/Content Analysis
Dr. Rachel Romero

INTRODUCTION

Females interact or treat each other in a way that is very foreign to most. Females
themselves spend time trying to understand their friendships. Children as young as thirteen start
to learn and pick up the trends. Many study to understand female friendships and the side effects
it can leave behind. Also this portrays to how teen movies or chick flicks can specifically play on
female friendships. Over several years these movies have taken over box offices and released
once a year. Many still quote some of these movies today. Research on female friendships
especially reviews the issues of status, aggression, gender, feminism and sexuality. It is important
to understand how these movies view female friendships and the message it sends to the
audience. The influences can have the power to create negativity towards other females. Causing
much aggression towards each other. The following paper will describe the main concepts in this
research. How do teen films portray female friendships?

LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review for my research proposal on How teen movies portray female
friendships. I reviewed six peer reviewed articles on female friendships. The focus of the
literature review was to gain a better understanding of females relationships and how they are
portrayed in the media. Articles on my particular subject were limited and I found a lot of
quantitative research articles on this subject. This research mainly focuses on feminist, sexuality,
boys, aggression, and cooperative behavior.

A major theme that many researchers have come to understand is aggression and how it
relates to female friendships. The main types of aggression that they study is relational
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aggression and social aggression. Relational aggression is term recently discovered by

psychologists (Currie, Kelly, and Pomerantz 2007).They describe this type of aggression as acts
that are damaging to others through harm or a threat to harm another (Currie, Kelly, and
Pomerantz 2007). Relational aggression is hurtful and can be very detrimental to a relationship
or friendship (Coyne, Gentile, Linder, and Nelson 2012). There have been studies done on the
ties between media and types of aggression. On past research it has been shown that watching
TV shows that portray gender has an effect on how people portray gender in the real world as
well as how they treat each other. The media has a view of influencing a mass audience
regardless if it is correct or not (Behm-Morawitz and Mastro 2008). Recently Coyne, Gentile,
Linder, and Nelson did a content analyses that indicate Relational aggression is also portrayed
frequently on television and is likely to be portrayed as justified, rewarded, and used by
attractive characters (2012).
Additionally, a growing body of research indicates that viewing relational aggression is
associated with higher levels of relational aggression among viewers (Currie et al 2007). By the
end of their studies they discovered several things. Mostly women that viewed relational
aggression clip were more likely to repeat the behavior (Coyne et al, 2012). Elizabeth BehmMorawitz and Dana Mastro did a very similar study on relational aggression but also wanted to
see if females were more likely to be rewarded for their aggressive behavior (2008). After
performing t-test they found that females are more likely to significantly participant and be
rewarded for socially aggressive behavior. This indicates that films are more likely to cast the
stereotype of the mean girl. Not only that but men took away a lot more negative
understanding of female friendships and could possibly form negative feeling towards women
(Behm-Morawitz and Mastro 2008).
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Research on female friendships raises a major theme feminism. Feminism has been
around for years. How can one discuss females and not bring up feminism? When discussing
feminism in female friendships the researchers discuss the different feminism teenage girls bring
to the table. Also, how chick flicks/teen movies are far from being feminist (Thompson 2007). As
discussed earlier female friendships seem to show a lot of social aggression not only in the
movies but also in real life. Some feminist do find that violence is natural to womens
relationships. However, feminism requires a special bond between each other (Gordon 2007).
Which can cause much of a conflict in films. According to Natalia Thompson, Hollywood
seems to release chick flicks to increase box office sales, rather than to actually address issues
faced by real woman (2007). Though the films with the damsel in distress do an amazing job
of bringing in the dough. They do nothing for feminism! Yes, the target is a female audience and
the main character is a female (Thompson 2007). Though these films do nothing to empower
other females and could actually leave the film relating more to relational aggression. These
films teach girls how to compete with one another. Instead they should be teaching girls how to
lift one another up.
Additionally, females without realizing it form emphasized femininity. They adjust their
appearance to their specific gender in media (Currie et al 2007). Females dress and look a certain
way to be acceptable to society. Everyone wants to be the popular girl and in the study by
Currie, Kelly, and Pomerantz the participants describe the popular girl looking like a movie star.
Mostly they are white, blonde, long hair, and normally dress in the most stylish clothes. Most
women dress to fit this image in hopes to be considered part of the cool crowd (Currie et al
2007). Which just influences emphasizes femininity even more because this is the image that
movies put out as the popular girl. Not only that but without realizing it men dictate how women
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dress. The more status someone has with men and the more attention they receive from men the
higher chances of becoming part of the cool crowd. Which then women start dressing as other
classmates put it slutty and became more forward with men (Currie et al 2007).
Although, there are a lot of negative themes from films and female friendships they do
have some good qualities. A study done by Behm-Morawitz and Mastro did show females did
practice relational aggression more and were rewarded for it. They also showed that the socially
cooperative behaviors outnumbered the socially aggressive behaviors in the films and could
maybe counter act the negative effects of social aggression in the films (Behm-Morawitz and
Mastro). Some teen films or TV shows do try to make them more feminist and focus on the
female friendships the good and the bad. Alison Winch discussed the TV show Sex and The City.
How we should celebrate this show it touches on the female friendships and conflicts but the
women never fight over men (2012). Winch stated that Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)
finished an episode stating Sometimes it takes a friend to make a picture perfect. But a pictureperfect friendship, well, thats just in books (Winch 2012). Chick flicks or teen movies do relay
a positive message between females. They can show a more important emotional and good side
of female friendships.
Many feminist wonder why dont more chick flicks have more of a meaning or hit key
topics like the wage gap or sexual abuse (Thompson 2007). They definitely cover aggression and
several kinds of it, relational, social or indirect. Unfortunately females suffer from this behavior
whether it is on screen or off. These films show that the popular girls are rewarded for their
relational aggressive behavior and stereotypically all these women are tall, skinny, and with long
blonde hair. Pretty much look like a supermodel just walked of the page and realistically nobody
looks like not even supermodels themselves. It shows females if they want to be a part of the in
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crowd they have to act and look a certain way. Not only that but these films support males
having some kind of say over women without them truly understanding it. A female dresses or
acts a certain way to get male attention causing her to be labeled as a slut. Which most other
females would not want to continue a friendship with someone like that. Though these films do
have a lot of negative views of female friendships they also have some positives. The
cooperative social behaviors occur more than the aggressive ones. It also teaches you about a
bond that one can receive through female friendships and though you may fight like cats and
dogs that bond cannot be broken.

DATA AND METHODS

This study applies unobtrusive method to analyze How teen movies portray female
friendships. I conducted analysis of seven teen movies released in the past twenty years. For
the purpose of this study, I only examined movies that were considered teen movies and were
rated PG and PG 13. Trying to target the age group between 12 and 17. Because I was interested
in females portrayed in teen films, as well as their friendships, and the issues that they faced in
these movies. Content analysis was the most suitable methodology for my research question:
How teen movies portray female friendships.
The teen movies I choose to observe include are Clueless, Bring It On, 10 Things I Hate
About You, Shes All That, Mean Girls, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and The Duff. These
movies range in dates the oldest one being released in 1995 Clueless and the newest being
released in 2015 The Duff. Most of these movies are well known and are still quoted today. They
were also just not shown in the United States but in other countries as well.

These movies were chosen because they were some of the most popular teen movies the
year they were released. Not only that but most people have heard or know a little something
about each movie. I felt like these movies were so well known that they could have had an
impact on society. Today people still quote You Go Glen Coco or As if. They are all very
similar in how long the movie last about an hour and half to two. Each movie has about the
same plot and themes. They all have jealous, catty, competitive girls who are all in high school.
They have the friendships that turn into sisterhoods. They all show girls going crazy over boys,
sometimes the same boys but they all have a love interest. They all feature some kind of party
and drinking. The typical things some think happen in high school.
I observed the seven movies in no particular order. However, I did watch Mean Girls first
because it was one of the most popular ones and I wanted to get a tone of what the other movies
could be like. I used the same approach for each movie. Studying how they treat each other, their
language and tone towards one another, and the situations girls faced in their friendships. After
analyzing and collecting data I started the coding process. Once I coded the data using focused
coding. I grouped them into smaller themes and descriptive codes. To help bring all the similar
concepts together.
It is important to take note on the limitations with this study. First, I only viewed movies
that were big hits in the United States. Though these films were shown in other countries we do
not know how popular they were any other countries and if they even apply to other people in the
world. Lastly, no other methods were used like an in-depth interviews or focus groups to help
analyze females experiences with friendships. Regardless of these boundaries, content analysis
was adequate enough to answer my research question.

DATA ANALYSIS
The purpose of this study was to explore, How teen films portray female relationships.
In order to do this, I observed seven teen movies ranging through the years. The movies
examined were : Mean Girls, The Duff, Bring It On, Clueless, 10 Things I hate About You,
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and Shes All That. The oldest movie being Clueless being
released in 1995 and the newest The Duff being released in 2015 and everything else in between.
An analysis of these teen movies will help us understand how these movies portray females and
the different dynamins in their friendships. These results answer my research question, How
teen films portray female friendships.
After collecting data and doing an analysis, three major themes recurred. (1) Women
were shown to be very jealous of one another. (2) Most women are shown to be very catty or
mean towards each other. Sometimes it can be to the point where they become aggressive or
violent towards one another. (3) Women are also shown be extremely supportive of one another.
Throughout this paper I will discuss these themes and show teen movies through a sociological
view.

Me Jealous? No way shes just ugly!

Theme 1: The majority of women are shown to be very jealous of each other, and mostly
over items like boys, status, and looks.
The main finding of my study is that women are portrayed to be very jealous of one
another and mostly over superficial items like boys, looks, and status. Based on my content
analysis these films portray women that are close friends become jealous and end up getting into
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a fight or turn against one another. Normally this is caused when both friends like the same boy.
In the movie Clueless Cher played by Alicia Silverstone becomes jealous when she discovers
that Tai played by Brittany Murphy is falling for Chers step brother and she does not take too
kindly to this news. Mostly because Cher figures out that she has a thing for her step brother as
well. Causing her to be jealous of Tai and them having a blowout fight. I normally witnessed this
behavior in most of the movies observed. With the exception of the Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants. They did not seem to have a jealously issue between each other as friends but with other
people.
Another way that females are shown be jealous of one another is over looks. The films
really puts emphasize on looks and how much they matter to females. It also shows that looks
can have an effect on their friendship as well. For example in the film Mean Girls the girls
known as the plastics which include Karen played by Amanda Seyfried, Gretchen played by
Lacey Chabert, and Regina played by Rachel McAdams all had certain rules about their looks
and what they can wear. Cady played by Lindsey Lohan had to follow all these rules if she
wanted to have lunch with them. One of the most famous rules was We only wear pink on
Wednesdays.
Not only do these films emphasize looks but a certain type of look. In every movie
observed there was always one girl that fits the spitting image of emphasized femininity.
Meaning she is beautiful, slender, and normally Caucasian or extremely light skinned. In some of
the movies I watched it was the main character like Clueless, Bring it On, and 10 Things I Hate
About You (Currie et al 2012). Then if it is not the main character normally it is the antagonist
that fits emphasized femininity. Which than the main character normally changes her appearance
to fit in with the new crowd like Shes All That Laney Boggs played by Rachel Leigh Cook was
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just an average looking girl. Some would have called her an artist nerd or an outcast because she
did not fit the style of emphasized femininity. As soon as Zack Siler played by Freddie Prince Jr.
fixed her up, applied a little makeup and put her into a strappy dress. Then she is recognized as
beautiful. Of course that is when other girls became jealous of her like Taylor Vaughn played by
Jodi Lyn OKeefe. Not only that but Laney was with Taylors ex-boyfriend which added to the
jealously fire.
Status is another key factor in the films that make females very jealous of each other.
Everyone wants to strive for the Queen Bee spot. If another girl feels threatened that a friend
could steal her crown they become jealous of each other. In the film Mean Girls towards the end
Regina feels that Cady has taken her spot as Queen Bee. Cady as a party and doesnt invite
Regina. Not only as she lost her crown but is now an outcast. Regina becomes very angry and
jealous towards Cady. She then plans her own revenge to take back her spot. Which leads me to
the second theme. These acts of jealously lead to catty, mean behavior towards other females.

Best Friends or Frenemies

Theme 2: Most women are shown to be very catty or mean towards one another.
Sometimes it can be to the point where they become aggressive or violent.
Though these movies do portray females in a cooperative manner they also show them in
a very catty and mean way. It portrays them as backstabbing and revengeful females. Over silly
superficial items like boys. This behavior is normally started after being jealous of someone or
they felt betrayed. I feel in real life most women would become passive aggressive towards
another female if they felt betrayed instead of making them gain weight like in Mean Girls.
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When Cady gave Regina Caltine bars saying they would help her lose weight but actually they
are meant to make you gain weight. Sociologists also term this as indirect aggression. Which
means starting a rumor about someone else or talking behind their back. Pretty much catty
behavior behind someones back, that they are unaware of(Currie et al 2012). This action
happens a lot in the films. In the movie 10 Things I Hate About You Kat played by Julia Stiles is
rude and outspoken character. Many call her a bitch to her face and behind. They also start many
different rumors about her that are not true. Also in Mean Girls The Plastics have a burn book
where they all write horrible things about the other girls and start a rumor about a teacher selling
drugs.
Another form of mean behavior that is portrayed in the films is relational aggression.
Which can be damaging to others through harm or a threat to harm another (Currie, Kelly, and
Pomerantz 2007). This type of aggression is the most extreme and harmful to a relationship
(Coyne, Gentile, Linder, and Nelson 2007). Unfortunately, there were many acts of this behavior
in the films. Now not all of them happen between females, some are between males and females.
However, the movies that display this behavior the most was Mean Girls and The Duff. They do
several things to attack each other or sometimes even become violent towards one another. The
film The Duff a girl named Madison played by Bella Thorne releases a video of Bianca played
by Mae Whitman. The video was of Bianca acting like crazy and goofy in a store about a boy.
Madison named it Duff love which stands for designated, ugly, fat, friend. The video had several
mean comments and others would say mean comments to Bianca directly. Not only that but
when the video was released two random girls saw it. When they saw it they sympathized with
Bianca and would hate if it was them if anyone saw it. They then decide to have the video go
viral and message it to everyone.
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Besides relational and indirect aggression they portray females to be mean or catty to
gain status or power. Which can teach these females an aggressive way to become Queen Bee. In
Shes All That Laney Boggs finds out someone nominated her to be prom queen. When is
happened Taylor found out and was not happy she had competition. She would glare at Laney
and say nasty comments towards to bring down her ego. Another example would in 10 Things I
Hate About You Bianca and her friend are both pretty popular and the cute popular boys want to
date them. Bianca starts talking to the most popular boy in school Joey played by Andrew
Keegan. They are all at a party and Joey ask Bianca if she wants to go to an after party she said
she could not but her friend took him up on the offer and left Bianca there to find her own ride.
The fact that all these movies show this type of behavior is concerning. There have been
studies done that link media and types of aggression. In the peer reviewed articles there was a
studying done that females who watched relational aggression were more likely to repeat this
behavior and the same if they watched something with relational aggression and violence they
were also likely to repeat this behavior (Coyne et al, 2012). However, these films do show a lot
of negative behavior they also show positive behavior. Which the nicer and cooperative
behaviors appear more in the films then the negative and aggressive scenes (Behm-Morawitz and
Mastro 2008).

My Sister form another Mister

Theme 3: Women are shown to be very supportive of one another. Most even form an
unbreakable bond.

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In all seven movies I watched I observed the behavior of supportive women towards one
another. The movie that had the most examples of this behavior is the Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants. All four of the main characters had been best friends since they were born. They stood by
each other for every life event whether it was bad or good. They could trust and confide in one
another. For example when Bridget played by Blake Lively lost her mother all three of the other
girls were right behind her at the funeral, also along with their mothers. This movies does a great
job of showing the unbreakable bond girls form with each other. Although, a lot of these movies
show aggressive and jealous behavior that goes on between women. It shows a lot more
cooperative behavior between the women than negative behavior (Behm-Morawitz and Mastro
2008). Another example of supportive behavior would be in the opening of Sisterhood of the
Traveling Pants. Carmen is doing a voice over of scenes of them as little doing things together.
Camren stated that was our relationship give and take, but mostly give.
Another, way these films show the women being supportive of one another is even they
break into a verbal fight or lase out at each other. They are still friends and make up in the end
because the girls formed this sisterhood. This happens in five of the seven movies. Some were
more extreme than others but in the end they all made up and talked it through. This action
happened more towards the end of the movie. One of my favorite examples of this behavior was
in 10 Things I Hate About You. Kat and her sister Bianca played by Larisa Oleynik do not
always see eye to eye. Bianca feels her sister is always sabotaging her high school social life but
really Kat is just trying to look out for her. They of course exchange not so friendly words or
actions towards each other. However, by the end of the movies they talked it out and are closer
than ever. In the article We Can Have it All they quote Carrie played by Sarah Jessica Parker

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form the TV show Sex in the City. She said in an episode Sometimes it takes a friend to make a
picture perfect. But a picture-perfect friendship, well, thats just in books (Winch 2012).
Despite having a bond with friends that is cannot be broken and forming a sisterhood.
How the movies portray women reaching this bond is over superficial items like clothes, boys,
parties, etc. They have them bonding over gossiping and doing makeup. In Mean Girls they were
always giving each other make overs. The same situation in Clueless Cher makes Tai her new
project. She stated I love giving people make overs and during that time thats how Tai and Cher
bonded and became friends. Another example would be in the Sisterhood of the Traveling pants
would the girls go shopping and find jeans that all fit them perfect. They feel these jeans are
magic and pass them around to each other all summer. Though this movie does get into deep
emotions and real life events more than the other movies.
CONCLUSION
This study is designed to examine How teen movies portray female friendships. The
analysis of seven movies released throughout the past twenty years discovered three major
themes. These films are maintained by using dialogue and images directly from the movies.
One theme is that the majority of women are shown to be very jealous of each other, and
mostly over items like boys, status, and looks. Pretty much in every movie there was point where
female friends would become jealous of each other. Maybe one was getting more attention than
the other or jealous they were intruding on their man. They always seemed more jealous of the
female that fit the idea of emphasized femininity.
The second theme most women are shown to be very catty or mean towards one another.
Sometimes it can be to the point where they become aggressive or violent. This behavior was
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shown in every movie. They all showed different types of catty behavior but the main ones were
relational and indirect aggression. There were only a couple movies that the behavior would turn
violent or threaten violence.
The Third theme women are shown to be very supportive of one another. Most even form
an unbreakable bond. This theme was very apparent in all the movies as well. They supported
each other no matter and what. At times they would fight but they always made up. However,
these an unbreakable bonds were formed through superficial items like boys, clothes, parties etc.
Now, some of the movies did bond over superficial items but they also went a little deeper and
had they bonded over family issues as well.
The fact is women are catty, mean, and jealous of each other. Yes, we love to gab about
clothes and the hottest parties. But there is more to women than these items. Little girls grow up
facing very real things every day. Their parents going through a divorce or the loss of a
grandparent. All seven movies did show very catty and mean behavior which is concerning
because it can promote aggressive behavior in the real world. Little girls could pick up this
behavior and decide they need to act this way to be popular or for people to notice them. These
films teach females how to compete with each other. Many feminists find that the movies
promote this behavior.(Thompson 2007). Besides the negative behavior and aggression they do
promote how to support other women. Though it is not over the most meaningful items, it is a
good start in a positive direction for female friendships.

Bibliography

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Currie, Dawn. H, Kelly, Deirdre. M and Pomerantz, Shauna. (2007). The Power to Squash
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Gordon, Suzy.2007. Female Friendships, Idealisation and the Need For Violence in Crush.
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