Some movies define a generation, entering into this elite group of culturally impactful media of its time, and in 2004, Mean Girls was one of those films. Like many people my age, I was obsessed with the movie growing up, quoting lines with my friends, laughing at memes, and constantly liking niche Facebook pages made as references to the film – that’s how you know it was a different time, Facebook was cool. It’s lasting impact on Millennials and older Gen Zers made it a cult classic so it was never a surprise the property became a Broadway musical in 2018. In the age of nostalgia marketing it isn’t even a shock that it got a remake in the form of its musical counterpart –but it is a surprise how charmless that remake is.
In the musical, there are some updates to the 2004 film that are actually quite good. Of course, Lizzy Caplan’s Janice Ian was iconic in the original film, but Auli’i Cravalho‘s take on the character manages to keep core parts of her intact while making smart changes to her. Let’s face it, the original Mean Girls is certainly a product of the time when it comes to its diversity and the musical’s choice to incorporate more actors of color was a great idea from the start –I mean, what high school is that white in 2004? Janice as a Native Hawaiian woman is a cool change and Auli’i Cravalho nails her sharp, spunky attitude. The update to making Janice a lesbian is extremely sound too. In the original film didn’t we all cringe a little at the awkwardness when she kisses Kevin Gnapoor at the Spring Fling?
The other major highlight of the musical is Reneé Rapp who delivers a spectacular performance of Regina George. The role is no stranger to Rapp, who played her in the Broadway musical, but Regina George commands a scene and one cannot truly capture her presence without having that je ne sais quoi. Rapp has it in spades and her scenes are easily the best parts of the movie, like the musical scenes for “World Burn” and “Someone Gets Hurt.”
My introduction to Renee was surprisingly not Broadway nor Sex Lives of College Girls where she played Leighton Murray, but her 2023 album, Snow Angel. On Snow Angel, her voice is almost bluesy in its smooth delivery of pop-rock tracks, but in Mean Girls, she hits a register and vocal stylings completely different –and its still great. Reneé Rapp is truly a force to be reckoned with, capturing Regina’s cold, calculating viciousness and confidence near-perfectly.
Jaquel Spivey also adds his own unique take on Damian Leigh (now Damian Hubbard) that feels very much in spirit with the essence of the character created by the 2004 film with Daniel Franzese and yet entirely his own. He does get many of his iconic scenes and lines, most importantly, “Four for you, Glen Coco, you go, Glen Coco!” But like Rapp and Cravalho, Spivey succeeds in spite of the content he has been given, not because of it.
Despite the high points Cravalho and Rapp bring to their characters, who are easily the best part of the film, the added scenes between them are extremely lacking. Mean Girls (2024) is strangely afraid of having the mean girls be mean and sometimes overcorrects its script to “modernize” it for the audience in unnecessary ways that actually hinder the film. Updating the 2004 script to not have lines like pointing out the cafeteria’s tables of “Asian nerds, cool Asians”, and “unfriendly Black hotties” are definitely good modern updates to correct the original script’s early 2000s sensibilities. But adding an in-depth backstory for why Janice and Regina hate each other and taking away some of the cattiest dialogue between the girls in the film does not have the same intended effect of being a smart, modern, upgrade.
Did we need to know that Regina and Janice’s falling out alluded to in the original film was actually because Janice came out to Regina and Regina used that in a game of spin the bottle to make a boy jealous, which caused Janice to set her backpack on fire? It’s not like the original film portrays Regina as the wounded party in that situation, with Regina calling Janice an “obsessed lesbian” since had the gall to ask her why she didn’t call her back when Regina would “blow her off to hang out” with her 8th-grade boyfriend, Kyle.
And, let’s be honest, does Regina George really strike anyone as the type who wouldn’t just call her an “obsessed lesbian” in the same situation even if she really was a lesbian? Does she strike anyone as the type who wouldn’t have called Janice a homophobic slur in her Burn Book at the time with or without knowing at the time she was a lesbian? It’s such an unnecessary change. Her Burn Book entry also reads “pyro lez” now to accommodate for this change.
Yes, the Mean Girls in the 2024 film are not that mean after all, and it manifests in weird ways. Karen Smith (now Karen Shetty) also fall victim to changes that negatively impact the product. First of all, Janice, Cady, and Damian don’t really “break” either of them. Gretchen doesn’t slowly crack to the point where she screams “We should totally just stab Caesar!” during her class presentation on Rome. “That’s why her hair is so big, it’s full of lies” is certainly still a sentiment Damian expresses about Gretchen, but Bebe Woods’ hair is never actually big. Gretchen has almost no character in the remake and I can’t help but think that time spent giving an unnecessary backstory for Janis and Regina couldn’t have been spent on doing anything with the other Plastics instead –or with Janice’s girlfriend. Yeah, Janis has a girlfriend now, but don’t expect to know anything about her. You just see her at Spring Fling and that’s that.
Did Gretchen’s father invent Toaster Strudel or something else that high school kids today would consider a staple breakfast food, which she uses to try and get herself out of trouble? Who knows!?! They don’t focus on Gretchen at all. When Gretchen is trying to manipulate Cady to fall into line with Regina’s desires early in the film, she tells her something along the lines of not “slut shaming,” which is a really laughable sentiment in a film that constantly slut shames Karen while adding to her sexualization in ways the original film never did.
The overcorrections in the script go so far that instead of writing “This girl is the nastiest skank bitch I’ve ever met. Do not trust her. She is a fugly slut!” in the Burn Book at the film’s apex, Regina just writes “she is a fugly cow.” It’s almost kid-friendly in its overcorrections, which takes away from some of the humor of how over-the-top and bizarre the girls were in the original. Is it really too much for high school girls to call each other bitches?
Karen’s role is also diminished greatly and only added to in ways that feel unnecessary if not negatively impacting her character. Amanda Seyfried’s Karen Smith had this wide-eyed innocence to her and even though her character unabashedly slept around, it was not her only trait. I feel bad for Avantika, who could have brought a similar essence to the role, but was given a script that mostly reduced her role to her sexual expression.
There’s no better example of this than the Halloween party scene. In the original, Karen wears a black mini dress and a mouse ear headband so when Gretchen asks, “What are you?” she points to her ears and replies, “I’m a mouse, duh.” In the remake, the “mouse” costume is similar, but Karen doesn’t have that air of innocence to her where you think she really believes she’s a mouse and it’s obvious –instead, she sings a song called “Sexy,” which is all about sex and being sexy –yeah, the title really doesn’t leave much to the imagination for the song. She doesn’t have her “ESPN” which allows “her boobs to tell the weather,” arguably Karen’s most iconic bit from the original movie nor does she really break. We don’t get scenes like when Regina, amidst her takedown, snaps at Karen and calls her stupid, which inspires Cady to reach out to her and tell her she isn’t stupid. There’s a soft vulnerability to that scene with Karen and Cady that could have been expanded on in a remake had they not made her primary trait “loves to sleep around.”
The fact that they barely break the Plastics feels like such a loss for a film that is all about taking down the Plastics and not just Regina. But even Regina’s takedown is lackluster. In the original, we at least see Cady and Damian go to the mall and get the foot cream they pass off as face wash to her and we see a little bit of every failed attempt to bring her down before they have to go back to the drawing board.
The intercuts with students and teachers telling the camera how cool Regina is despite their attempts at sabotage are another staple of the original film, now replaced with TikTok intercuts that are less impactful in content. The only real takedown we see with any depth prior to what ultimately works is where the film replaces the bit of them cutting holes in the chest of her t-shirt with Janice and company turning the sprinklers on while she’s on the football field and causing her mascara to run. We don’t even get to see all the attempts to get Regina caught with Shane Omen because Cady just tells Aaron immediately. There’s almost no drama or antics in the few takedown scenes there are. Having updated methodology for a new script’s version of how to break all three Plastics was such a missed opportunity because they hardly did anything with it.
Cady’s casting is just so plain to the point where there’s nothing really remarkable about her. But then again, that’s a description that fits the songs as well, which is an incredibly painful thing to say about a musical. If I think of what was the Mean Girls of the 80s it’s Heathers, which also got a musical update on Broadway and I certainly can’t say the same thing about Heathers‘ soundtrack. It’s such a shame that a movie brimming with camp, iconic lines, and vivacity is robbed of all those things in a remake that feels so bland. Not even the musical numbers could bring any camp or quotability to this script.
Aside from Regina, Janice, and Damian, the biggest highlight of the film is actually the Mathlete’s championship and it’s not because of Cady or the Mathletes. I’ll admit I smiled pretty big in my theater when I saw Lindsay Lohan on screen for her cameo as the Mathlete’s moderator. Like most child stars in this industry, she’s certainly had her ups and downs and her fair share of issues, but she’s also synonymous with Mean Girls and Cady Heron. Seeing such a crucial part of the original film in a small role that’s a cute little nod to the movie’s roots was a really great idea –almost like she was passing the torch to Angourie Rice’s Cady in that Mathlete competition.
It all also becomes one of the film’s lowest points, and it’s not because of anything Lindsay did. I think Linsday Lohan is one of those stars that’s become so synonymous with her issues and antics over the years that people have forgotten how massive a star she really was in the early 2000s. She was a big driving force to go see Mean Girls in 2004 and plenty of other movies. And as much trouble as Lindsay can be for herself, whether it be her kleptomania or her struggles with substances which led her to become spectacularly bad at showing up for work among other things, Lindsay Lohan was also a huge victim of early 2000s rampant and vicious misogyny. “Fire crotch” certainly wasn’t the only time Lohan made headlines for nothing more than misogyny, but it is one of the more egregious times.
Yes, the mean girls in the 2024 movie really aren’t that mean, but the script certainly is its meanest when it comes to real life women. If anyone doesn’t know the story it’s this: billionaire nepotism baby Brandon Davis called Lindsay “fire crotch” in 2006 to make fun of her with his equally catty rich nepotism baby friend, Paris Hilton. Davis would sing taunts about “fire crotch” –yeah its about gingers and pubic hair– and how no one wants to have sex with her and upload them online. Hilton would be in videos with him sometimes, giggling along and saying equally rude things about Lohan that feel more apt for a middle school recess.
If there were real life mean girls in the early 2000s, Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis certainly fit the bill and it seems mean spirited at best to use such a gross and personal gag that was aimed to torment Lohan as a gag in Mean Girls (2024). Whether you like her or not (and there’s plenty of reasons not to), Lohan made Mean Girls and greatly contributed to its success and to include hurtful, personal digs about her body as a gag for the new Mean Girls‘ Cady in-movie is incredibly distasteful.
You’re telling me Mean Girls (2024) is too afraid to have the fictional teenage girls call each other bitches and sluts and get told they’re wrong for it but they’re not too afraid to include weird body-shaming directed at real life women (let alone one who was the star of the movie they’re pulling from) as a joke in their movie? It’s like this movie doesn’t actually know how to be funny, let alone how to have the catty meanness of alleged mean girls be funny.
While it has its ups and downs, Mean Girls (2024) is ultimately a let down, failing to capture any of the charm, wit, or awareness of the original film. If you find yourself going to Mean Girls (2024), don’t be surprised when your favorite one-off lines or jokes aren’t in it, don’t expect much of the new content to be exciting and add to it in any meaningful ways, and don’t expect for the mean girls to ever be mean. Hell, don’t even expect the film to know what the message of the original was because it lacks self-awareness both in its humor and its script choices about individual characters. If Mean Girls was about how all the girls were mean to each other, including nameless characters –even Janice– the new script certainly didn’t get that memo.
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