I like the new Mean Girls and also it is Bad.
// This criticism was originally posted to my neocities.
Mean Girls (2004) is one of my favorite movies ever made. It is funny and heart warming and turns teen movie tropes on their head. It has it's flaws, reflecting the homophobia (specifically lesbiphobia) of the time it was made, a general lack of representation, weird race humor, and some ablest slurs. But it's a good movie, and there is a clear moral stance toward kindness. Most importantly - it is FUNNY.
The new Mean Girls reboot is not good. I loved watching it, don't get me wrong. They took one of my favorite movies, kept all my favorite lines, and added lesbians, and solved the diversity problems. But they also removed all the tension.
I think movies need immoral characters. There needs to be conflict to tell a story. In Mean Girls that character is Regina initially, and as the story goes on you realize Janis and Cady are too. This story is about mean girls, and how they end up hurting each other and themselves.
Lets talk about Regina first. Her teeth were removed. I only need one example. In the both versions, Regina's friend Gretchen is pining over Jason, a guy she briefly dated, but is now on a date with Taylor Wedell. In the 2024 version, Regina growls in dance during a song about her being the 'apex preditor'. The song tells us she looks out for her friends and you don't want to be on her bad side. In the 2004 version, Regina calls Taylor Wedell's mom as Planned Parenthood with "results". This shows us so much more than the 2024 song could ever tell us. It shows us she is creatively cruel, that she blames the woman, not the guy, and that she is looking out for her people at the expense of others. And it takes less time. And it's FUNNY. Regina is a bad person. She uses the R-slur, and calls people lesbians as an insult. She lies and manipulates. But it is all framed as bad. You don't want to be Regina. The movie even shows you, through Cady, what happens when you try and become her. It shows you how devastating and unsatisfying her life is, even when she is on top. In the new one, Regina doesn't do anything problematic. It's implied, but besides the Burn Book at the end, we never see how devious she can be. Because that would be problematic. She needs to be redeemable, and she can't be a bad role model. She isn't a full character anymore. I'm obviously not saying they should have kept in the homophobia and the slurs, or replaced them with something irredeemable, but in order for me to believe the conflict, she has to be MEAN.
Now Janis. Its 2024, and she's gay now. In the 2004 version, Regina ruined her life by calling her a lesbian. Which honestly, as someone who was in school, and (accurately) called a lesbian in the same era as the 2004 version, made sense. Being gay made many kids in my era a predator by default. But it's 2024 now, and its ok to be gay, and Janis IS gay. So, how did they change it so that Regina still made Janis an outcast for the plot? Well. They don't really change it. It's implied that Regina outted her, but never said outright. And in order for Regina to ruin her life, she needs to have something she is ashamed of, and New Janis isn't ashamed. She's headstrong, she's confident, she's proud. Sure - Auli'i Cravalho does a great job pretending to be embarrassed during the scene after the Halloween party, but what is that character embarrassed about?
And Cady? She's kinda nothing now. To be fair, watching back the old version, she kinda always was. She's the self-insert you could see yourself falling into. Her role is to fall into the orbit of Janis, then Regina, then the Mathletes, before finding herself. But there isn't really enough meat on the bone of those 3 categories to play with in the 2024 version. I would say Angourie Rice didn't do as well as Lindsay Lohan (not a dis, just huge shoes to fill) but honestly, I don't even think she had enough to work with to even try.
Now lets talk about Tina Fey. We are all allowed one problematic fav, I chose Tina Fey. She's had her fair share of controversy (see 'lampshading'), but I could always rely on her for one thing: expanding the joke. She does this in the original Mean Girls well, but when it comes to the new movie, the punches are pulled. There are a few lines she expands on ('Fetch' being from an 'old movie') but for the most part, fan service lines are repeated faithfully, and without a new joke or even a new take. It's frankly disappointing.
Even the costume choice follow this pattern of faithful replication without thought. In pivotal plot moments, the characters, in 2024, who are canonically stylish and attentive to detail, are wearing an outfit 20 years out of date, and not fitting of the changes made to the characters personality.
Look. I am a fan, and this is fan service, so I like it. I love Renee Rapp and Auli'i Cravalho in this. But there is nothing here to love that I didn't already get from the 2004 version. The 2024 version is a stripped-down shell of the 2004 version. Stripped of any character elements that would cause conflict, this movie replaces depth with songs. Its fine. But I'll be watching the 2004 version every year for the rest of my life. I don't think I will think of the 2024 version in a years time.