2004 vs. 2024 Mean Girls: Why the Classic Still Holds the Crown

          It was “a highly anticipated release followed by disappointment.” This statement perfectly describes the sentiment many feel when referencing Mean Girls, the 2024 musical remake of the 2004 quintessential teenage drama with the same name. 

          The original movie follows Cady Heron, a teenage girl who grew up in Kenya, who moves to a new high school and is fairly clueless. She first becomes friends with two socially awkward and introverted students, Janice and Damian, while falling in love with Aaron Samuels, her dream man. Suddenly, she meets the Plastics, a group of three girls, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen, who are the “popular” girls of the school. They are catty, infamous, and drama-obsessed: “teen royalty,” as Damian puts it. Cady befriends these girls as a challenge from Janice to infiltrate the Plastics, yet she slowly evolves into one of them as she plots their demise. A sleepover favorite and an iconic teen movie, the original Mean Girls movie was unsurprisingly translated into a musical and showcased on dazzling Broadway stages in 2017. After its success, the Mean Girls musical was turned into a musical-film. However, these new renditions of both the original Mean Girls and the musical have not been received well, as certain key changes between the two versions make the original movie significantly more enjoyable than the new musical-movie.

          “On Wednesdays, we wear pink!” is an iconic line from the original Mean Girls movie. An epitome of Plastic life is the strict fashion rules the Plastics must obey to remain “in” their group. The original Mean Girls movie is filled to the brim with timeless wardrobe choices that both reflect the personalities of the girls and display the inspiration of their dictator, Regina George. The outfits featured in the original Mean Girls are not flashy, yet ultra-feminine and aspirational. The clothes aren’t typical pieces that a teen would wear to school; after all, we see Gretchen sport many Burberry pieces and Regina with a Louis Vuitton Murakami Cherry Blossom handbag, and we cannot forget the pumps the girls strut around in. The Plastics are not regular teenagers, and the old movie dresses them in a specific way to prove this point.
The new Mean Girls takes a different approach to styling the girls, and the outfits are not nearly as effective. The stylists chose to style the actors in tacky, outdated trends. Their outfits do not hold the same cultural power as the original because they do not have any semblance of longevity. The pieces themselves do not convey anything about the characters, either. The Plastics are supposed to be akin to dolls—the embodiment of a stereotypical teen. The clothing lacks the girly touch of the original, thus stopping the stereotypical feminine air from  shining  through. The stylists also utilize a plethora of baggy fits. Although looser clothing choices can wield great power in costuming, more form-fitting clothing  would have been more accurate in this instance as in the original Mean Girls, the well-tailored trousers and skirts reflect the care and wealth the Plastics put into their wardrobes. Lastly, Cady does not wear pink when she takes over the Plastics. As an essential difference to the original Mean Girls movie, Cady choses to sport blue. Perhaps differentiating Cady and Regina was the costume designer’s goal, but the choice fails to recognize what Cady has become: the new Regina.

          The new Mean Girls is set in the current day, 20 years ahead of the original. Unfortunately, this modernization sticks out for all of the wrong reasons. The new Mean Girls contains visuals of the characters’ TikTok and Snapchat screens. Although these references reflect an aspect of current teenage communication, the use of social media seems to be  an excuse to cover up poor transitions in the movie’s script. The new Mean Girls is modernized in a disingenuous way, forcing social media into scenes that do not necessarily require its presence.

          Similar to the clothing featured in the original Mean Girls, the plot itself is enjoyable due to its timeless nature. Moments from the film can be applied to almost any situation because the cultural context of the time period is not key. The new movie forces the 2020s into its plot, causing the story to become less universal. Although the modernization of the script was likely an attempt at a movie that resonates with kids of the modern days, it actually makes the experience of the Plastics even more unrelatable.

          Moreover, the new Mean Girls movie poorly removes and reformats certain moments. The movie changed certain scenes, quotes, and characters, making the characters less likable and humorous. In the theater, the small  changes in iconic lines were disappointing. For example, the lunch scene was heavily adjusted from both the original Mean Girls and the musical, resulting  in a rushed and significantly less memorable segment. Although the scene might hold up on its own, it appears weak when compared to the pivotal dining scene in the original Mean Girls. Another scene that was changed to the detriment of the new movie was the bus scene, where Regina ends up being taken down by a large school bus. Picture this: Regina, enraged and hurt by comments that Janice made, runs into the street while simultaneously spewing out insults at Cady, who is chasing after her, before getting hit by a bus. The timing is comedic and the segment is extremely out of the blue, adding to how memorable it is. The little conversation between Regina and Cady is what highlights the scene because of the ironic lack of power Regina now has over her life. In the new Mean Girls movie, this moment is overshadowed by a self-love song sung by Janice, where the bus-hitting is simply in the background. You do not hear any of what is said merely seeing the aftermath of the incident. Diving into Janice’s character is an interesting choice that could be well-executed; however, minimizing such an influential scene is not the most effective way to do so.

          The movie also makes a change for us to see a different side of Regina, a more humane side.
In some ways, seeing Regina’s problems in a more in-depth fashion could prove valuable to a movie with a different goal; nonetheless, Regina is not meant to be a likable person. She is intended to be the embodiment of meanness, an outwardly  “perfect” girl who is unnecessarily hurtful for her own personal gain. In the original Mean Girls, viewers’ lack of sympathy for Regina distracts them from the horrors that Cady commits to Regina because it is harder to not support the demise of such a textbook bully. In the original movie, the ending is dramatic and powerful because viewers are shocked that the Cady they have become so deeply connected with is also a mean girl. By showing that Regina has feelings too, the new version makes it more difficult for viewers to trust Cady, diminishing the effect of this ultimate twist.

          The final mistake the new film made was altering its songs from the original ones performed in the musical. An important song to point out is “Meet The Plastics.” As one of the most memorable and famous songs from the musical, it perfectly balances Janice and Damian as they introduce the Plastics to Cady, with each mean girl showing off their respective personalities through a solo. The song is vocally challenging, dynamic, and interesting, and it has been a favorite of mine ever since I was lucky enough to witness my friends perform it in seventh grade. I was disappointed by the new movie’s choice to cut Gretchen and Karen’s solos; not only did these solos make the song interesting, but they gave us a little more insight into Gretchen and Karen as human beings. The new song was therefore less engaging, and I felt less invested in the characters due to the lack of those solos. When I went to the theater, the crowd’s reaction to seeing Lindsay Lohan, Cady’s original actress, pop up in the Mathletes scene of the new Mean Girls was a testament to the power of nostalgia. Viewers young and old whispered to their neighbors (or audibly screamed) in excitement to see the icon. If the new Mean Girls had used nostalgia to their advantage, they could have excited fans of all ages to see their favorite songs on screen.

          The new Mean Girls movie did have some laudable aspects as it was gutsy to take a beloved movie and transform it into a musical, and then take both and synthesize them into a movie-musical. Yet, the original was undeniably more engaging and tasteful, both artistically and plot-wise.