Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by a student journalist. The movie Mean Girls is an iconic well-known movie about a girl Cady Heron going to school for the first time at Northshore high school after previously being homeschooled her whole life and becoming friends with the most popular girls in school.
The original movie came out in 2004 and was directed by Mark Waters. Rachel McAdams played Regina George and Lindsay Lohan played Cady Heron. It features Cady trying to get revenge on the popular group of Northshore high “the plastics” but more specifically on their leader of the group Regina George. Cady also tries to get Regina’s friends Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith, the other two members of the plastics, to turn against Regina and ruin her reputation in the process. Recently a new Mean Girls movie came out that is based on the Broadway musical. It stars Reneé Rap as Regina, and also features a lot of the original mean girl actors. The new movie is slightly longer, but nothing beats the original.
When I heard there was a new Mean Girls movie coming out, I really did not expect much out of it since it is based on the Broadway musical. I was expecting them to at least keep the main scenes and main ideas in the new movie. I did not go into seeing it with fully negative expectations, but I did not have too much hope for it either. The new movie being based on a Broadway musical just does not show the real meaning behind the Mean Girl’s movie. The movie was never meant to be a musical, it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot or the point of the movie. It was quite off putting while watching it. They just break out singing randomly throughout the entire movie.
With all the random singing it can get quite confusing for the audience. Especially how they make Regina a scary character and then they start singing and it comes off as happy and nice. If anything, it doesn’t make sense or go together at all. It being a musical totally takes away the point of them being “mean” girls which is the whole reason of the movie in the first place. The singing does not emphasize the “mean’ vibe as the acting does.
With the acting, you can tell the movie’s mood and what is really going on in the scenes and the point there trying to give off with all the drama and the girls being mean. With the singing, it can confuse the audience on if the movie is about mean girls and what is happening in the scenes and the movie in general. The original Mean Girl’s movie shows the audience that they can work things out, even the specific issues in high school that they might have in common with the characters in the movie. I think it is great that they resolve the issue even though the movie is about girls being fake friends. It can affect the audience’s thinking or opinions about situations that they might have gone through or are going through. Which also leads me to another reason why I think the movie was such a big hit for teen girls. According to Paramount 75% of the viewers were females and 50% were under the age of 18.
The movie shows how girls can be backstabbers, talk about each other badly and in general not be faithful friends to one another. It brings real problems in high school to the audience’s attention and discusses topics not everyone likes to talk about. So, it can be very helpful for girls in high school struggling with the same issues.
It is also entertaining in a lot of ways, for instance, it keeps the audience’s attention to see what happens next with all the drama going on in the movie. I was quite surprised at how they approached Regina’s character and made her a completely different type of mean girl. Sure, the original was a mean girl, but the new one is more scary mean than a basic mean. They make her a villain that everyone fears and in the original people looked up to her they wanted to be like her, now they are just scared of her.
The new movie does not show Regina as a regular mean girl quite at all they make her character very scary with intense scenes. I think it is a different approach to her character, she is still mean but on a whole other level. For instance, in her entrance scene, it was just focused on her with intense music and in a black leather outfit, I got literal chills from that scene and not in a good way. One defining part of the original is the cast.
The actors gave the audience a feeling of reality when they were on screen. Since they brought back quite a few of the original actors like Tina Fey who plays Ms. Norbruy and Tim Meadows who plays principal Duvall I think they should have brought back the original mean girls too. What’s the point of bringing back some of the original actors from the original mean girls if they are not going to bring back all the stars of the movie? They only brought back one of the main stars, which was Lindsay Lohan, and she was not even a main character in the new movie, she was just in the end as the mathletes competition host.
It is disrespectful and just does not make any sense. Since there is a new mean girls, all of the original actors deserve to play in it for how iconic they were in the original. The new actors do not emphasize the meaning of the movie as much as the originals did. If they would have tried to get the original actors and could not, then they should not have gone through with new Mean Girl’s movie. Not that the new actors did a horrible acting job, it is just that the originals did it best and deserved roles in the new movie more than the new actors did. One of the reasons why I loved the original so much was the girl’s wardrobe in it.
Pink was their color they were known for wearing such girly cute outfits. So, I was quite confused why in Regina’s entrance scene she was wearing a black leather outfit. Their outfits were way more of a grudge look in the new movie compared to the very girly look in the original. I think the grudge look fits how scary of a character they made the new Regina George, but it is not how she should be. The same goes for her car in the new one she drove a red jeep, so not something Regina would ever drive. Originally, she drove a silver convertible which is way more fitting to her character. In the original Regina had a very elegant “R” silver necklace it was an especially important part of her style along with the hoop earrings she always wore. In the new movie she has a gold and pearl necklace that’s almost like a chain, it is not even remotely close to the original and in my opinion a hideous necklace. I think the original Regina would be disappointed and mortified in the choice of fashion and jewelry in this new movie. The movie wasn’t all the way horrible though I like how they incorporated Gen Z in it. They had social media stars in some scenes like Chris Olsen and Emily Moreno and even Megan Thee Stallion a Popular American Rapper.
The party Cady had was way more realistic and fun and resembled parties now days. It was because of how different the music was and there were significantly way more people. You could tell it was based on a different time and generation from a lot of different characteristics. One example is the scene where Regina is on the field being recognized as homecoming royalty. Something most high school students get to experience in the United States. One thing I appreciated was the new costumes they had for the Halloween party. They were not as basic as they were in the original and added some of the burn book was a very important scene because it showed how mad she was and how she really wanted the information in the burn book to get out to everyone at the school. It was unrealistic of her leaving it on the ground. Especially because the janitor could have just thrown it away.
The song change for the talent show was not needed. The new song was not even a well-known song at all. It was so irrelevant it does not even have a name, guessing from the lyrics I’d say it is called “rock around the pole”. The original song “Jingle Bell Rock” fits the dance and costumes perfectly and it is a Christmas favorite. Something that could have been a great hit is the Mean Girls Black Friday Walmart ad, if it had been a movie. It would have been so much better than the new movie. It has three of the main mean girls Gretchen, Cady, and Karen. The girls are all grown up. Gretchen has a daughter, Karen is a meteorologist and Cady is the principal of the school. Towards the end of the ad the three girls sit together to watch the winter talent show. It shows the girls bond a lot in the end of that commercial I think If it would be made into a movie it could show us how strong the girl’s bond has got over time.
It would be showing the original means girls together and how much their daughters represent them. Overall, I would definitely recommend the original more than the new one, the new one is not a complete waste of time but just does not compare to the originals in a lot of different ways. Besides that, no matter how bad or good the new movie is we will still always wear pink on Wednesday.
