Get in loser we’re watching “Mean Girls.”
The movie “Mean Girls (2004),” written and released by Tina Fey on Apr. 30, 2004, is a cultural phenomenon with widespread critical acclaim. Now having two adaptations along with the original movie. “Mean Girls” is a coming-of-age movie focusing on Cady Heron, a sixteen-year-old girl navigating high school cliques who has just moved to Illinois and starts public high school after being homeschooled for her whole life in Africa. She meets Janis Ian and Damian Hubbard who encourage her to infiltrate and later sabotage “The Plastics,” a popular clique of queen bees consisting of Karen Smith, Gretchen Wieners and led by Regina George. Throughout the movie, we see Cady become just as conniving as Regina, lying and manipulating her family and friends before realizing she really did turn “plastic” so she apologizes to everyone she hurt.
The film was a national sensation grossing $24.4 million in the U.S. Fey’s screenplay of “Mean Girls” was based on a self-help book called Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The book focuses on female high school cliques, school bullying and the damaging effects they have on teenagers. Fey took concepts from this book and her own high school experience to develop the film’s central message of female empowerment and how women, especially high school teens, should protect and defend each other instead of backstabbing and talking behind their backs.
Nine years after the movie release, in 2013, Fey announced that the first adaptation, a stage musical, of “Mean Girls,” was in the works. The musical first premiered at the National Theater in Washington D.C. on Oct. 31, 2017 and ran until Dec. 3, 2017. It made its Broadway debut at the August Wilson Theater on Apr. 8, 2018.
In Jan. 2020 Fey announced the second and most recent adaptation of “Mean Girls,” a film revamp of the stage musical. This adaptation had its theatrical release this year on Jan. 12.
I first watched the stage musical at the Pantages Theatre on Jan. 4, 2023, in Hollywood with my mom and family friends. It was a surprise, they made me guess what musical it was on the way to the theater. Before we drove to LA from San Jose I kept asking my mom what musical we were going to see and she would not tell me. Then, the night of the musical we were driving and had a lot of time because there was a lot of traffic so they gave me hints like it came out in the early 2000’s, pink is the main color but I still couldn’t get it. Eventually, they told me after we parked and started walking to the theater. When I found out, it wasn’t a huge deal to me as “Mean Girls” wasn’t a big staple of my childhood but I was still excited to see a musical. Looking back, I’m really glad I saw it because it just put the original to the forefront of my mind and made me really love the movie and characters.
I sat on the upper balcony while watching the show which was pretty high up so I couldn’t fully see the actors’ facial expressions but I could see the blocking and dancing just fine and the audio was great. It’s one of my favorite and funniest musicals I’ve seen to date. This is mostly due to the phenomenal catchy songs that I can never get out of my head, the hilarious jokes felt like things I might hear in real life.
In this run, I liked how the casting team picked a very culturally diverse cast, not just limiting the characters to actors of white cultural backgrounds like in the original movie. I feel like having a cast with diversity allows more people to relate to the characters and feel represented in the media. In this adaptation, Regina had a beautiful strong voice which made me love her portrayal of the character. She played the character very similar to Rachel McAdams, and it was cool for me to see Regina’s confidence and queen bee energy in person.
Shortly after I saw the musical I rewatched the original movie, when I got home from vacation. I honestly cannot remember when I first watched “Mean Girls.” I have always liked the movie but it was never my favorite movie until I saw the stage musical for the first time and decided to rewatch the original. I’ve always been a musical lover, my mom has been taking me to see productions at CMTSJ (Children’s Musical Theater San Jose) for as long as I can remember. She’s always instilled a love of musicals in me; it has always been our thing. So being able to see a story I had already liked on stage with funny lines, amazing songs with stunning choreography made me love the original and become part of the fandom.
The musical compressed all of Janis, Damian and Cady’s revenge plan against Regina into one song, Revenge Party, one of my favorite songs from the musical. Though the revenge plot is suppressed into one five-minute song it still captures what the movie did and because it’s more of a montage in the original movie I understand how this was probably the best way to add this to the plot.
I watched the new 2024 musical version on Feb. 23.
