Teenage Angst Characters - Research

In the teenage angst genre the main characters are usually a group of friends around school/college. However as well as the main characters there is usually another group of people in the film known as the 'popular group'. In the trailer for Mean Girls we are introduced to the different types of groups of people around the school by a voice over of one of the characters. One of the groups is known as the 'plastics', this is a group of popular girls that come across as being really nice first but then they begin to turn on the new girl and try to mess things up for her.

Another stereotypical character that is used in the teenage angst genre is a main male or female character that all of the boys or girl depending on the gender of the main character are after. In the case of Mean Girls their is a battle between the two main female characters Cady and Regina, they both really like a popular boy in the school called Aaron. This causes them to argue, fight and set each other up throughout the film. This is a stereotypical feature of the teenage angst genre and also an issue that the audience will be able to relate to which makes it exciting for them to watch as they do not know who will eventually win over Aaron.

This is the group known as the plastics from the film Mean Girls. From watching the trailer we get the idea that these characters are going to be dominant over the new girl until she begins to fight back. When creating my own film I decided that I was going to stick to the convention of using a group known as the popular group, this is because I felt that using characters like this fitted in with my storyline very well and also it helped with the plot of the story which is about lots of girls around a school all liking one boy.

This is the character Aaron from the film mean girls, he is the popular boy around the school that Cady and Regina fight for. It is stereotypical for the main male character to be a white American actor, the stereotypical features of a popular boy in the teenage angst genre are good looking, sporty, muscly, confident and arrogant. Again this is another convention that I have decided to stick with when planning and filming my own teenage angst film, however because my film is a British made film my main male actor is British rather than American, but it still follows the convention of the character being sporty, confident and arrogant during the film.