Connection: The Kite Runner

Upon first glance, the book The Kite Runner and the movie Mean Girls have little in common. But once you take a chance to analyze character motive and social dynamics, you will see that the two works share some striking similarities.

Both the movie and the book share a character that is the story's bully. In The Kite Runner that bully is the blond-haired, blue-eyed Assef and in Mean Girls the bully is the blond-haired, blue-eyed Regina George. Both represent perfection in the eyes of others, and have double personalities. When faced with adults they act perfectly demure; they are respectful and mature, while radiating confidence. Many adults ignore the eeriness of their ostensible perfection. This mask they put on allows both Regina and Assef to dominate their peers with the support of the adults in control. Adults hope some of their confidence and maturity will rub off on the other kids, while the kids themselves pray they don't cross paths with these monsters. Regina and Assef rule by fear; they harp on insecurities and crush the smallest forms of rebellion. In Regina's case, she uses the threat of social ruin to quiet her subjects, while Assef on the other hand uses his brass knuckles. Although one threat is emotional and the other physical, the result is the same. No one dares to cross paths with either of these children, allowing them to rule supreme and do as they please.

The character Cady from Mean Girls is embodied by the character Amir in The Kite Runner. Cady is initially friends with Regina in an effort to ruin her total control over their high school, but in the end she becomes obsessed with acceptance and popularity. She alienates her true friends in place of fake, conniving, girls whose only interest is in popularity. Cady also begins to force herself into a specific mold to win over the school's heart throb Aaron Samuels. In doing so she fails calculus, throw a house party, and begins drinking just to try and spend more time with Aaron. When she discovers the "burn book", a place where her new friends record gossip, lies, and insults about other girls in the school, she gets caught up and even adds some rumors to it herself. Similarly, Amir leaves his only true friend, Hassan, in search of acceptance from his father. He allows Hassan to be raped, take the blame of theft, and be ridiculed constantly all in order to appease his father. Amir's obsession with trying to fit into his father's narrow mold, ruins everything good and pure in his life. Both Cady and Amir are so focused on acceptance, that they turn a blind eye to atrocities such as rape and the "burn book" and push away their true friends.

Although the stories are set in different countries, cultures, and time periods the social dynamics remain the same; class tension and bullies still plague everyday existence. This connection illustrates the continuities in human nature. We will always compete, and there will always be some sort of division amongst us. Be it as petty as high school cliques, or as profound as racial divisions, the human brain's tendency to "chunk" information will cause us to categorize people till the end of eternity.