Also, Plato first divided power into three, the executive power, legislative and judicial, so it makes sense it's always a trio as a reflection of our power dynamics.
@@QUARTERMASTEREMI6 Azula and Ty Lee, yes. But Mai was never the 'Blind Follower'. Her strong individuality, level of self-respect and loyalty to Zuko over Azula dismantled the Trio. Her ability to follow Azula only on her own terms makes her the anti-Gretchen Weiner of sorts.
3is a magical number, it's solid. To be divided equally one side must sacrifice for the other two. It's a three man unit operating as one and working independently for the unit's goal
Heroic trios are just as common. In many adventure or fantasy novels or media there is a trio of protagonists; The three musketeers, powerpuff girls, Harry, Ron and Hermione, are the most popular example of this. One is the brawn, one is the brain (usually the leader but not always), and one is the heart. It even applies to love triangles.
I don't know about applying the brain-brawn-heart part to love triangles though. I haven't seen many designated "Smart Guy" type characters in love triangles (using "Smart Guy" gender neutrally)
Triangle theory of love includes three points, one of each alone a pairing of two and the combination of three, known as consummate love, consisting of intimacy, passion, and commitment.
I don't get why we haven't had any video about 'Desperate housewifes' yet. The show fits this channel soooo much. All the main four characters are representatives of some sort of trope: Susan (The hopeless romantic), Gabrielle (The sex bomb), Lynette (The working woman) and Bree (The ideal home). Besides, it would be very interesting to do a video about suburban America, and how has it been portrayed through times, as in 'American Beauty', 'Suburgatory', 'Blue velvet', and, of course, the Witeria Lane, from 'Real Housewifes'.
@@princessangel821 no, that's the Freudian Trio: each character represents the Id, Ego, or Superego. There's a lot of different kinds of trios. Melody is on to it, Draco and his henchmen act like Mean Girls rather than like your typical male high school bullies. Draco is also not your average powerful man, he's not physically strong and too pretty to be intimidating. His family are demanding that he take and maintain power at the age of *eleven*, even though he is aware that he is not well equipped to do so. Hence he uses many of the same strategies that women typically employ. And like the typical Mean Girl, he's only parrotting the power dynamics that he sees around him: his mother and her two sisters.
I wanted to comment on how the 3 in Mean Girls interacted with food. In front of others, they didn't eat much. We could argue that it was disordered but that's irrelevant. When you're projecting a godly or ethereal image, you don't eat like everyone else. Your figure should never change and if it does, it does so to mystify people, not repulse them. That's why I think it was brilliant that Cady sabotages Regina's weight loss plan, because, as messed up as this is, once you've gained weight in "not the right places", you're just like everybody else, you are no longer godly because it is human.
@@sabinagarcia6309 It was "Jawbreaker", but the line was about the "beauty is never tarnished" trope, i.e in this case: if people see us eating, they would correctly assume that we have to shit and fart as well. That is not becoming to our beauty, so we cannot allow people to see us eating.
The only true "Mean Girl" was Regina, but even she gets redeemed by the end. Gretchen is driven by her insecurity, which pressures her to act "Mean" for the sake for popularity and approval, and Karen is too sweet and dumb to even pretend to be nasty.
I don't even think Karen was being dumb, she might have just been acting dumb to get along with the other two. Using her sweet nature and pretty privilege to stay on top whilst overlooking the others' meanness.
I truly believe Regina only approached Karen to join the group becuase she would have the title of Queen B due to her beauty. She needed to keep her competition close and make sure Karen was seen as below her. Hence, the bringing in of Cady. It's quite the strategy.
@@priyankavaidya8797 there's no 4 person friend group in sex ed. And eric, otis, mavie and aimee dont count as they're just 2 duos connected only through maeve
People love to hate the Kardashians, but I firmly believe they’re a product of our culture, not the other way around. They wouldn’t be selling their lifestyle if were weren’t buying it. I don’t count myself as a fan per se, but at the end of the day we’re all Anne Hathaway in a cerulean sweater.
In most mean girl trios, you have the nice but dumb one (Karen, Brittany, Heather Mac), the Mean Diva (Regina, Santana and Heather Chandler) and the one who is a mixture of nice and mean, but who tends to be the butt of all jokes (Gretchen, Quinn and Heather Duke.)
I can't believe people were actually mad at Otis for not saying I love you back. What was he supposed to do lie? If you prefer a lie over the truth that sounds like *you* problem.
Yeah I love these videos but there always seem to be a pretty toxic or abusive line about relationships thrown here and there so casually it's kind of jarring
@@rasmusforchhammer9557 in the same section where the thesis of the section is that mean girls are mean as a response to the choicesand actions of the people and environmemt around them, all of which are presenter as being the person's/system's fault
@@nendu4316 He's a teenager that was caught way off guard by the mean girl saying that she loved him after only really dating him for a few weeks at most. Only a month earlier she was embarrassed to be seen with him in public now she loves him? Yeah...that's nice. 😂
At one point I hope the OBSESSION society has with teenagers moves on. There are mean girls in college, in the working world, in neighborhood communities like PTA or country clubs, mommy blogs, etc..... I cannot stand how often teens are the spotlight as if life & people totally shift as they get older. Many of these women were mean and self absorbed teens and became self absorbed women, oftentimes seen more in wealthier neighborhoods. Lots of these girls are taught their ways from their MOMS - and it's for a reason. The social heirarchies of high school also reflect society at large. Why is that almost alwaysssss ignored? Women of all types also exist outside of high school but are never explored as deeply as people look into teenaged girls. It's honestly a little perverse, it's just a literal obsession with youth. I suppose women who aren't teens just aren't as interesting even if they have the same issues.
Definitely learned behaviour. When I was in school, one of my classmates wanted to be the Queen Bee, so she acted like the typical movie trope. At one point, she even made a terrible trio with two other girls when she wanted to enforce her rule over me, but it went away pretty quickly again - probably because they didn't understand how to use it as a power construct 🤔
@@shountypoo they weren’t mean girls. but i think they could still kinda play into this trope. like they’re supposed to be protagonists but they each have qualities of a “mean girl”. for example, phoebes naivety and innocence could be similar to karen being described as “dumb” in the movie mean girls.
The triple goddess, lilith energy; that represents the feminine personality all elements are needed, The madien, lover, mystic, huntress, crone, queen one more. However at some point hopefully women can appreciate all... you definitely have all with in..
There is also the thought of "natural geometry/sacred geometry" of the number three itself. Incidents of three occur regularly in nature; natural structures that consist of three main parts tend to be structurally sound and stable.
High-school divas came in threes BEFORE Mean Girls There were the Heathers (the 80s film decades before the musical). I think THEY were the first example of a queen bee having a right-hand and a left-hand girl (Until protagonist Verónica becomes the unofficial 4th Heather). Am I right?
"I prayed for the death of Heather Chandler many times and I felt bad every time I did it but I kept doing it anyway. Now I know you understood everything. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah." --Heather Duke
Yeah, but I think that Mean Girls have a bigger impact about the three mean girls even if they weren't the first ones in make it. Heathers is such a great movie, but it's sadly underrated in our generation along with Jawbreaker, meanwhile Mean Girls remain as an iconic movie and we still seeing memes and things about it all the time.
Even if someone has an understandable reason for doing something bad, that doesn't mean they're not "a bad person" ! A few times in this video, and others, you say something along the lines of "it may seems like X is a bad person, but then we find out they're driven by insecurity/other reason". This is a commonly held fallacy. Relatability doesn't count when determining whether someone is trustworthy and/or acting in good faith. If someone does manipulative and cruel things, that would make them accurately describable as a bad person. Doesn't matter why.
That kind of ties in with the reason why it made me uncomfortable that The Take said that the depiction of the Mean Girl trope represented society's collective fear of female power. Maybe we just don't like to see humans create little cliques based around conformity and social control? Why jump to the conclusion that the "fear" behind that valid disgust is really the fear of female power? In being so quick to jump to that conclusion, you're essentially re-victimizing women, because the motives of anyone who judges us are automatically questioned and thus these women can do no wrong. Especially if you start from the presupposition that women have to become these Queen Bees in order to "make it." Okay, so don't "make it," then. Fuck it. Or just strike out on your own or with a group of others with a similar vision and go create your own niche. Find your own measure of success. Or work on reforming the system from within if that's what calls to you. I'm not saying that we have to be portrayed as paragons of virtue at all times in the media. But neither should we be dancing around the fact that women are human and sometimes humans do bad things, some more than others. Women having power is not necessarily inherently feminist. Especially if they wield that power against other women who are already more oppressed than they are, and men who face more oppression than they do on different axises. We don't normally include high school outcasts in that category, but why wouldn't they be?
I don’t think that bad action=bad person. You can do bad things and still be a good person and contrary you can do good things and still be a bad person (if a murderer gives money to a homeless shelter, that would be a good action but it wouldn’t make him a good person)
It was what I was going to comment on. Justifying a cruel action doesn't make it disappear or make the person excusable itself. You are just perpetuating the oppressor-victim system not allowing the victim to escape the situation and (in most cases) the victim has it just as hard as the oppressor or worse. Moreover, this victim has to actually add the victimizer actions to their daily basis problems. This justification of cruelty needs to stop because it doesn't even help the oppressor to rehabilitate or escape the unjust system it will just reinforce the bias it has or the identification with their role. And eventually, later in life, it will either become a worse person or will find their end to a much crueller one becoming a victim themself.
@@-Radical.Ed- This. The Take, as shown in numerous videos, doesn't seem to give two shits about these character's numerous victims. They sound more and more like the villains in these movies. Viewing everyone else as disposable NPC's to be swept under the rug for the villain's amusement.
I feel like these kinds of characters should be acknowledged as complex, but even if they are "forced to be mean" that doesn't change the fact that they hurt the people around them. They can be empathized with, and should be! Especially with teenage girls, they are reflecting what they see in society and are really impressionable, not having grown into themselves yet. But they are still unkind and cruel and I can't help but bristle when people try and justify people's bad behavior bc they're "dealing with things."
Yes, I felt that the Take brushed way too easily over the fact that a sad story doesn’t excuse bullying these terrible trio’s do. Otherwise interesting video, but that felt too simple.
I love that idea. If MacBeth had just been curious about power rather than truly power-hungry. Both he and Cady disrupt the established power structure and supplant it, only to see their own relationships fall apart as that power corrupts and poisons them. Justice is only served when they are no longer the monarch at the end. Great observation!
Not "Mean Girls", but "Heathers" is, I'd say, a high school AU of "Macbeth", though not 1:1(eg. Veronica is Macbeth, Malcolm and Macduff in one, J.D. is Lady Macbeth, the witches, and to some extent, Macbeth himself in one...).
See I think the second in command is also the one that’s first in line to oust the queen, which is part of why I feel like that’s Heather Duke, not Heather MacNamara
Yeah that seemed like maybe a writing mix-up, surely they meant Duke. MacNamara is definitely the low-status third (although neither nice nor dumb like many)
I feel like Heather Duke is the enforcer because she's treated terribly by Chandler, and Heather Mcnamara is the pretty face because she's sweet, naive, and a well liked cheerleader at the school.
I think it's also a cultural thing. Here in the Netherlands it's always a duo of mean girls. I always found it typical that in the States there are trios.
The thing is with The Unholy Trinity on Glee made up of Quinn, Santana and Brittany is they start out as the stereotypical mean girls but then get development and become complex people. Quinn has to deal with a teen pregnancy and the fact she cheated on her boyfriend and the family and societal pressure to be the perfect pretty blonde girl and then in season 3 she cracks and essentially has a breakdown when she becomes a "skank" and has the pink hair and is hurting people and tries to ruin Shelby's life. She has pushed everyone away including Santana and Brittany. Santana is introduced as the typical mean girl. seductive and sassy but as we start developing her love story with Brittany and her coming out storyline we see that Santana has a lot of vulnerability and softness. Brittany is given the stereotype of being the dumb but pretty one but she has her own unique brand of wisdom that come out in the world and she teaches us to look at the world in a new way a lot of the time and she enriches the lives of those around her with her sense of whimsical optimism.
In high school, I was a part of a tight knit group of three. Myself, and my best friends who are identical twin sisters. One day our social studies class had everyone make a mean girls style map of the school and to label each of the cliches. Not a great idea but so it was. Where we hung out was labeled as, “the weird girls” “lesbians” “scary goth chicks” etc. one of my proudest moments. We are still close though we have since moved across the country form each other, they in NY and me in northern CA. In my mind we will always be the weird sisters 🥀 🥀 🥀
I kinda feel like clusters of three are very common in reality. I was also in the "weird girls" trio. We weren't all in one category--one was an artsy goth girl, one was a not goth artsy girl, and I was the science nerd. Our one common characteristic was that we'd played clarinet together in sixth and seventh grade.
If I had to place myself during Middle School...the geeks/nerdy group. Either too Skinny or too fat, not very good looking, no contact with girls, and just into games and anime . This was back in 2012 or so.
The make anti capitalist/extreme wealth is bad videos, but then turn around a do puff pieces on why we should ADMIRE the Kardashians. I generally love The Take but sometimes...
I never really watched the show like that, but from what I can remember they operated as a Hive mindset. They liked to bounce ideas off of each other and even though I think Ashley A was the “leader” she couldn’t really do much without the consensus of the others. It’s been a while though so I could be totally wrong.
I guess there is another combination, made by four women, which is alo very prevalent in culture. Such as Ashleys, from 'Recess', and the four main characters of 'Sex and the city', 'Desperate Housewifes' or 'Devious maids'. But, as the video says, this formation is more complex, with several relationships happening at the same time. Anyway, I think that, when four, there's always a 'main character', and the other three gravitate around her and give insight about some of the main character's traits. See Ashley A, Carrie, Sussan and Marisol, for each of the aforementioned shows.
Can you go more into why 4 people systems are dysfunctional? I intuitively understand why 2 people systems don't work - the 2 people will eventually compete with each other. Though more detail on 2 people systems would be useful too. But I really want more info on 4 people groups because I don't get it. Also if 4 people systems are more likely to be dysfunctional - can you explain how the popular group in Sex Education (Ruby, Aimee, Anwar, and Olivia) did work before Maeve came along.
I wonder if this why Neville do t become part of the regular group in Harry Potter. At the other hand, i feel the duo dinamic is very interesting too, maybe because I am watching Hunter x hunter, and the friendship of Gon and Kirua is awesome, their rivality made them stronger. In Harry Potter i feel Ron and Harry are their own group, Hermione it's more like a saint that it's to give support . When Harry have to hang exclusively with her at book 4 it was annoying for him and she have to put whit his bad humor, just to be paid with Harry picking Ron's side when she date Viktor (the narrator say that Harry knew she was right, but that he was not open to lose Ron again).
Sex Education continues to be one of the best shows written - especially for teens and young adults. If you haven't indulged yet - take my comment as a sign to start watching it now.
@@kawaiipanda4013 way better...Sex Education is MUCH more aware that these teenagers are KIDS. Do they handle adult themes? Absolutely. But not in the soapy, "where-the-hell-are-these-children's-parents" kinda way. It treats teenage problems with just the right note.
Actually, the Unholy Trinity is a bit out of the box because Quinn isn't the boss of them, and sometime Quinn and Santana are on the same level vocally and dominantly. But Brittany fits the 3rd girl stereotype, but funnier IMHO LOL
this doesnt really apply to quinn, santana and britanny tho. also the unholy trinity was not developed at all in story terms, they just got a few girlboss numbers. the fans were what made them into the iconic trio they are. the writers were more.focused in trying to develop everyones relationship with berry
Lol while u showed Chanel Oberlin, 5 and 3, and mentioned triads, I remembered that scene of her going: "Instead of strutting around campus in a beautiful diamond formation, we were forced to walk in a triad like a bunch of hobos!"
I feel like unholy trinity cared about each other the most out all the other trios. They did fight and betray each other but they always made up and when someone was sad they would comfort each other or they would stand up for each other
In the second "Equestria Girls" movie, there is a trio of villainous sirens(The Dazzlings), who would fit as well, though they aren't "rulers" per se, more like she-devils(they sow discord among the students of Canterlot High and tempt them to be more and more hateful toward each other). Interestingly, Sunset Shimmer in the first movie is a typical queen bee(she seems like a mixture of Regina and negative traits of Janis), but she doesn't have a girl posse, just two imbecile male flunkies.
It seems to be something natural. One thing that I have noticed in my own life is that often the ''alpha'' girl manipulates the other 2 into trying to get her to favor them over the other. The 2 would fight over the ''leaders'' affection. It's an easy way to keep sometime like a cult and also keep control over it at all times.
great video again! this made me interested in a video on the "popular/hot guy (who usually first dates the blond mean girl) but ends up with the main character" trope. i think it always sets up successful/popular girls to be mean and shallow, but successful/popular guys to be actually sweethearts, and also ultimately rests the main character's happy ending in male validation.
I was a part of a mean girl trio in high school. I mean, I was a real bitch. And I acted like it was okay to behave like I did because I was rich and pretty and that made me superior to others. Luckily I grew out of it.
A true reality tv Mean Girl is Shaunie O'neal from basketball wives. She is Regina George- beautiful, powerful, seemingly above it all but behind the scenes pulling all the strings, relying on her enforcers (previously Evelyn and Jenn and later Evelyn and Tammi) to carry out her dirty work and keep everyone else in line, rarely needing to show the world how nasty she can be. She lords her (former) man candy as a status symbol as no other cast members are tied to as high profile of a player, brings on girls for the sole purpose of bullying them and any one who opposes her regime is snuffed out for our entertainment. If she sees you as a threat she either makes an example out of you to keep the others in line (Brandy) or neutralizes the threat by bringing you into her fold (Malaysia). Then along came OG, who refused to bow down, refused to be bullied, and called her and her crew out on all their shit.
OMG yes! I've been saying all of these years that Va'Shaundya O'Nostrils is like the Regina George of reality T.V.She can't stand when another woman is rich,independent,married or is prettier than her and her minions make sure to keep the "collective" as exclusive as possible.Once Evilyn and Va'Shaundya don't like you,then it's curtains for you.
I don't find the stereotypical depiction of "popular kids" in movies to be true. When I was in high school, the popular girls weren't gorgeous, didn't wear high end designer clothing or dress for school like they're going clubbing, and their parents were generally more well off but not always- no one in that community were actual 1%. They looked like normal girls and dressed in the usual suburban mall version of trendiness. Usually they were people who'd lived in the community their whole lives and who'd attended school together since kindergarten and were members of school social clubs and the usual popular girl extracurricular activities. Most of their parents knew each other and were went to the same churches and were probably members of the Lions Club or whatever. They were conformists who enforced conformity, but usually by more subtle means than overt bullying. They weren't necessarily mean. They simply had formed a network of social connections that set them up as emblematic of what is a normal and aspirational in the community. They were expected to grow up to be real estate agents or managers or school board members, people who are on the way to taking over their parents' positions as community leaders. They were expected to make good grades but generally shunned creativity and their tastes and interests aligned with whatever was popular- in a word, they were basic. Not glamorous and not evil.
I love how Sex Education brought more depth to the Untouchables. Hopefully we get to see Anmar and Olivia flesh out more in the 4th Season, just like how they added a storyline for Ruby.
i was surprised heather duke wasnt in this, her and gretchen wanted to be leader and was always jealous of regina/heather c i thought she was gonna be the “second in command” while heather mcnamara was the nicest one out of them like brittany/karen
Karen is an airhead who can still be mean. Gretchen is a Blair Waldorf perfectionist. And Regina is a histrionic Queen Bee like Megan Fox’s character is in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Meanwhile Catie is a follower (for a bit), but secretly a nice, albeit naïve girl for obvious reasons. I would argue Janis was a bit of a mean girl too, but motivated by revenge.
My freshman year i moved to costa rica and I was friends with two girls i met at high school we called ourselves the power puff girls and we did everything together had wild adventures all year they used to be so cruel to me sometimes but at the same time told me how they loved me it was so weird we all stopped talking the year after
I disagree with you at 15:56. I don’t think that understanding or simply acknowledging the power structure makes you terrible. It’s what you do with that information. A lot of people understand it well whether they’re in “the in group” or “the out group.” Does that mean that they are terrible people? Just because they know that they live in a system that thrives on winners and losers? No of course not. It just seems like a very strange conclusion for such a well thought out video.
Huh, I always thought it was four. The alpha leader, the beta bi…second in command and future upsur, the token minority with a 50% chance of needing to be taken out of the sunken place, and the dumb but kind one. Or was that in films there’s usually three while in animated shows it was either or?
There are more trios in animation and quartets in live action series/films. Mostly because the heroine/protagonist in films like Heathers and Mean Girls becomes the fourth member.
@@hxpewxrld the fourth person is usually the Cady or Violet from Jawbreaker. The outsider. With the only exception being Kris from the clique because she was the delta.
Mean boys, the smart leader and 2 idiotic bumbling baddies. Seriously? Why boy bullies dynamic is just the brutish boss Jerk jock/pretty boy who barking order around and the rest is just brainless mooks with no personality at all. The most diverse bad boy group I can remember is gangreen gang from powerpuff girls.
It's a little unfair to say Karen is stupid. Maybe some of it was real, but a lot of it was obviously an act. If Cady had asked her questions in that voice, she would have sounded just as clueless.
Did you ever think that, considering how many people want to be their friends, it's very normal for popular kids to reject most of them. I mean, you can't be friends with everyone.
Wasn’t Heather Duke the second in command, not Heather MacMara? Heather MacMara was the cheerleader, right? So seemed like she was most well liked and probably the nicest, too.
When I was a teenager, there was a trio like that in our group. We were a massive group of almost 8 girls plus these 3. It was distributed the same way as announced here: 1 leader/queen, a second in command who made sure all of the leader's queries were fulfilled and the dumb-dumb who follows the rules blindly. A friend and I thought it was enough. She was too mean, flirting with the guys my other friends liked but were too shy to say anything about it, or too afraid of her or afraid of losing the status they got for hanging out with her. Talking shit about each of us behind our backs and even starting rumours for no reason. My friends were like, "well, it's just how she is...", but I was like, "em, no, this is a great group, and we don't deserve a 'friend' like that and I, personally, don't feel comfortable around her". So I teamed up with my bestie, and we started making her lose her shit by partying with people and never telling her, so she began to talk really badly about us again. We needed a starting point. When she was speaking like that about us, we enumerated what she's been doing to the rest of the girls. Since they were already annoyed about her bad mood and constant condescending tone, it was easy for them to tell her to stop hanging out with us. Kind of like, "you can't sit with us!" haha. As per her 2 other followers, they left with her out of "loyalty". Some people like to be followers forever.
I don't always have the time (or the interest) to actually watch these vids, and I don't usually agree with everything they say when I do. But I still scroll the comment sections for the vids because they are always so full of interesting and informative and thought-provoking (and sometimes hilariously so!) stuff that I stay subscribed anyway. Thanks, everyone commenting, for making it worth it!
pls make a video explaining the characters of pitch-perfect, the three protagonists of the film r so versatile, there's Aubrey who wants to control everything, there's Becca who has the u r not the boss of me attitude, and then there's Chloe who is also in charge but mostly lets Aubrey make decisions and is sweet to everyone including Becca who Aubrey hates
Male bullies surrounded by an army of sycophants is a widely seen trope also. Check out Flash Thompson in Spiderman, plus the villains in just about every 80s high school movie. This mirrors reality, kids. If you're a social leper, the horde will ripe you to shreds
How did you not mention Paris, Madeleine and Louise from Gilmore Girls?? It would’ve fit the video and this trope perfectly and Paris’ character is a perfect combination of the Alpha female and the smart girl/tough girl, she’s such a unique character that shows what happens when the queen b actually opens up to the fourth alternative girl (Rory), creates a special and actual friendship that makes the trio naturally break up, no toxicity and unties this trope
Paris is indeed a interesting character and her group it's a great take and reinvention of the mean trio. Paris is actually raw female power that doesn't like to have to play nice and submissive. She suffered trying to enter to the sorority, lead by a traditional mean girl; and she believed that having sex with her bf, aka breaking the "perfect female mold", was the reason the universe didn't let her go into Harvard (btw, the episode made it looks like that was really z important factor in Rory's case, wtf). The group broke in an healthy way, the other girls went party and Paris grow as an person, but being loyal to herself. Btw, eventually that help her to face the world, as the classic mean girl she understood how the real world works. Omg I love Paris
You should’ve mentioned The Craft! I would say before Sarah, the other three are so close to being a mean girl trio. Bonnie, Rochelle and Nancy are awful by the end
I'm curious of how trios of men in power work- Obviously we have examples of triple mean girl/ women authority in ancient mythologiesk, but there were male trifectas too. I.e. Zues, Poseidon, Hades etc, I want to see how male power politics plays with trifectas and in media, surely there's got to be examples there.
