Mean Girls: A Mid Movie Musical Movie
Full disclosure - I fucking LOVE Mean Girls (2004).
There was a period in my life where I’m 90% positive I could recite it from scratch. It’s not just a nostalgia thing! I watched it for the first time in about a decade last October (October 3rd to be specific), and it still holds up! Yes, it’s p r o b l e m a t i c, but it’s still hilarious, the acting is perfect and it’s fun to look at!
Of course, it’s only natural that this mega-hit would get rebooted. There was the massive flop that was Mean Girls 2, a TV movie starring D-list Disney kids that lacked a single joke in the entire run, and there was the musical. After a successful Broadway run and several Tony nominations, it only makes sense that they made a movie.
The movie-musical-movie is fun. The musical segments are well-directed and dynamic, the songs are mostly fun, and Renee Rapp - who’s taken up the mantle of Regina George - is a complete star. She has a practically magnetic screen presence and adds a new (much gayer) perspective to the iconic character. Avantika as Karen is also fantastic, with phenomenally vacant eyes throughout. I truly believed that there was not a single thing going on back there (complimentary).
I had fun, I laughed out loud several times, and the cinema was hosting a Mean Girls Members Premiere Party, meaning that we got free candy-floss prosecco, gummy sweets and pink caramel popcorn (readers, I had a severe case of the zoomies). I have no regrets about wearing pink and showing up.
But, Mean Girls is tailor-made to our current nostalgia-obsessed generation. Hey, remember that outfit - it looks just like the outfits from 2004! Remember that line reading from 2004 - we’ve recreated that entirely! Remember Tina Fey - she’s back (and respectfully, she’s hotter than ever, Tina Fey what is your secret). And like many things purely riding on nostalgia, Mean Girls The Movie The Musical The Movie is lacking in any substance. The characters in the 2004 movie were so rich - every line, every costume, every little detail added to the rich fabric of their lives. In the latest reiteration, we barely get to know anyone. If someone, somehow, hadn’t seen the 2004 film, they’d have no idea what was going on with any of the characters. Gretchen in particular, who had a wonderful backstory as a toaster strudel heiress who was only allowed to wear studs, felt like a pale imitation. Her song “What’s wrong with me,” barely scratched the surface of her neurosis (and was forgettable to boot). As the characters are so thin (insert a Kalteen bar joke), the relationships don’t seem earned. You don’t feel like Janice and Damien are so close because they’ve been ostracised and othered for the past decade - they’re just friends because the script says so. The relationship between Cady and Regina is barely there. In the 2004 movie, Cady is striving for acceptance - when she becomes a Plastic, she becomes obsessed with the power. She flew too close to the sun, and her plastic parts melted. In the musical, she’s kind of just … there. There’s a solid scene where she delivers what appears to be the final blow to Regina, but it doesn’t have the same effect.
The musical also lacked the bite of the original. The Plastics weren’t just generic bullies - they were mean. In 2004, Regina George would gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss her way through high school, and make every girl feel like absolute garbage whilst smiling. In the song “Apex Predator,” we’re told that Regina George has masses of power, but we’re not shown it. Apart from a few mild comments and mean looks, she’s not really that mean. In 2004, Regina George thwarted innocent-casualty Taylor Wedell by telling her mum that she’s pregnant. In 2024, she … vaguely pushes her in a musical number. Cutting. With the new update, one would think that they’d update the bullying methods - surely Regina George with an internet connection is wreaking all kinds of havoc in the world. It’s not even a new concept, I’m fairly certain I got cyber-bullied 20 years ago! Sadly, apart from a few faux TikToks, technology barely factors in the film.
The 2004 film understood that teenage girls are skilled in a very specific type of torture. They’re both fragile and brutal, and that’s what makes them absolutely terrifying. In 2004, Tina Fey had something new to say about the dynamics of teenage hierarchy. Two decades later, the only revelation is that Renee Rapp is talented.
(And yet she doesn't rap once.)