Almost too gay to function…
“In 2004 we made the original Mean Girls. Over the years I’ve realized that these characters and this story have had a much longer shelf life than anyone anticipated.”
-Tina Fey in Plastic is Forever Featurette (2024 Movie)
Twenty years after the release of Tina Fey’s wickedly funny satire of female adolescence, Mean Girls has returned to the big screen to retell the “cautionary tale” of Cady Heron and The Plastics, except this time it’s a musical. As a fan of Mean Girls and musicals, I thought this might appeal to me. Alas, it did not.
Full disclosure: Mean Girls (2004) is a movie I hold dear. I was six years old when it came out and I’ve probably seen it over twenty-five times. It’s a sacred text to me and many people in my age group. It is the definitive high school comedy of the early aughts and has since become a contemporary classic.
“Twenty years later, it’s just as poppin’ as it was when it came out.”
“It’s so iconic and so timeless.”
“It’s become such a part of all of our lives.”
“Everyone knows the trio in pink.”
-The Cast of Mean Girls (2024) on Mean Girls (2004) in Plastic is Forever Featurette (2024 Movie)
Mean Girls (2024) feels like the cinematic equivalent of a half-competent community theatre production. It knows the words, reguitating iconic lines from the 2004 film without any of the original’s iconic qualities. It hits its marks, drifting through a pre-rehearsed, painfully familiar plot.
The musical numbers add nothing except twenty minutes to the film’s runtime. Its cast is competent but cannot hold a candle to its non-musical predecessors. It’s a hollow trip down memory lane that seems to forget its identity along the way. The original’s razor-sharp dialogue and cutting satire have been sanded down, blunted by comedic cowardice and drowned in a deluge of theater kid energy.
“It’s not a remake. It’s, like, a rediscovery?”
Co-director Arturo Perez Jr. in Mean Girls Featurette - Director (2024)
Watching Mean Girls (2024), I couldn't help but think of Psycho.
In 1998, director Gus Van Sant directed a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). It is, for the most part, a shot-for-shot reproduction of Hitchcock’s original. Black and white films are for losers, or so went the conventional wisdom. The only way to carry on the legacy of Hitchcock’s 1960 shocker was to remake it in color.
In the attempt to recreate Psycho in color, more was lost than was gained. Gone was the novelty of Hitchcock’s cinematic craftsmanship. Iconic scenes that shocked audiences in 1960 (e.g. the infamous “shower scene”) had become a fixture in the cultural zeitgeist. There was nothing new about Psycho (1998). It was an unnecessary emulation of a far better film — inferior, but inferior in color!
As you may have guessed, Van Sant’s “remake” of Psycho was a critical and commercial failure.
Evaluating this remake of Mean Girls begs similar questions: what is added or removed? What is gained and what is lost?
“The original was so well done, but we wanted to go deeper into the journey of the characters, and musicality just allows you to do that.”
-Co-director Samantha Jayne in Mean Girls Featurette - Director (2024)
Director Samantha Jayne clearly understands the affective potential of musicals. However, none of the musical numbers explore the character’s interiority in interesting and meaningful ways. Take, for example, the moment Gretchen Wieners cracks:
Within 97 seconds of economical storytelling, the original film shows the moment that finally breaks Gretchen: “Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.”
Then, Gretchen vents her anger via her iconic essay in English class: “Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed by his big feet?!”, which gives way to a tearful talk in the ladies’ room where Gretchen finally spills the tea on Regina.
Mean Girls (2024) adds a 97-second song, “What’s Wrong With Me?” to reveal that Regina’s abuse affects Gretchen’s self-esteem, a fact that was never in question. So what’s the point of indulging Gretchen singing to herself in Regina’s closet?
Some viewers may appreciate the musical interlude. Some may be touched by the song’s earnestness. As for me, I find it cloying and woefully dissonant with the original film’s brilliant comedic tone and cadence. You may like the musical additions. However, you’ll be hard-pressed to convince me they bring more depth to the characters.
Another function of musical numbers is to illustrate the passage of time. When utilized correctly, they propel the story forward. Rather than advance the story, Mean Girls (2024) musical numbers confound the narrative’s pacing and progression.
Once Cady arrives at North Shore High School, the film shifts into neutral, coasting on the audience’s affinity for the original story, now bloated with feel-good music about loving yourself. If anything, the music numbers detract from the impact of the film’s emotional downbeats.
In the original, Janis confronts Cady after Cady skips Janis’ art show to throw a party for the cool crowd. It’s a great scene. The camera follows the car around the cul-de-sac as Janis speaks from the sunroof:
Lizzy Caplan channels Janis’ rage in a vitriolic rebuke of her former friend, ending with, “You’re a mean girl, Cady. You’re a bitch!”
The lines and their delivery knock the wind out of Cady’s sails. It is a moment of confrontation that severs the bonds of their friendship due to a major shift in Cady’s character.
But what if this moment were undermined followed by Janis singing “I’d Rather Be Me,” an anthem as trite as its title would suggest?
So raise your right finger
And solemnly swear
Whatever they say about me
I don't care
-Janis (2024) in “I’d Rather Be Me,” seemingly unphased by the film’s events
Rather than letting Cady soak in this moment of shame and rejection, Janis’ song lurches forward in a musical montage about being yourself. The Janis Ian I know (Lizzy Caplan) would never spout such feel-good bullshit. The Janis Ian I know is mean, and she knows it. So when the Janis Ian I know tells Cady, “You’re a mean girl. You’re a bitch!” her words have weight.
Twenty years ago, Mean Girls was a movie about girls being mean. In 2024, the girls have been defanged. Some things never change. For example, Trang Pak is still a grotsky little byotch. However, the language and lessons of Mean Girls (2024) have been sugar-coated and watered down.
Ms. Norbury’s speech to the women of eleventh grade that, “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores,” has been watered down to “As women, we need to support each other” and “calling someone ugly doesn’t make you more pretty.”
The Plastic’s Burn Book, previously filled with hateful entries such as “Janis Ian - dyke,” now read “Janis is a pyro-lez.” The venom of the original entry is replaced by “pyro-lez,” a sillier term that abridges the homophobia that led to Janis being ostracized.
This fatal failure is most evident in Regina George. The OG Regina George’s (Rachel McAdams) first words are meaner than everything 2024’s Regina (Reneé Rapp) says combined:
“Jason, you do not come to a party at my house with Gretchen and then scam on some poor innocent girl right in front of us three days later. She's not interested. Do you want to have sex with him?
[Cady says No]
Then it’s settled, so you can go shave your back now.”
-Regina George circa 2004
“Why is he by our table?”
“You know I can hear you, right?”
“Can you hear me now? [whispers] Bye.”
-Regina George circa 2024
In a movie about how young women treat each other, the language used is of paramount importance. Writing in the Burn Book that “this girl is the nastiest skank bitch I've ever met. Do not trust her. She is a fugly slut,” is substantively different than writing, “Regina is a fugly cow.”
One entry is not nice, the other is downright mean. In Mean Girls, meanness matters for both comedic and thematic reasons.
In case you don’t remember how mean Regina George can, and should, be:
Mean Girls (2024) bills itself as “not your mother’s Mean Girls,” and that’s correct. Mom’s was meaner, as the title demanded. Luckily, the original Mean Girls will always exist, and it remains as enjoyable now as ever. I rewatched it to make sure.
I cannot recommend Mean Girls (2024) to die-hard fans of the original. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
Mean Girls (2024) feels like a two-hour, very-special episode of Glee. Unrepentant theater kids rejoice, everyone else should steer clear.
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Until next week, stay fetch film freaks!