, The Color Purple (2023), and Wonka, and in all their primary marketing campaigns){kind=link}
Growing up in Toronto, Mean Girls (2004) was very much a part of my childhood. I’m pretty sure most high schools, if not middle schools, played the movie at some point. The latest film is not the first time it’s been adapted since then. In fact, the new film is an adaptation of the stage musical version of the 2004 film, which first premiered in 2017. Each adaptation reflects the cultural shifts of the present it’s released in, mainly jokes that “flew” in the original or the musical, don’t now, and have been exercised and revamped, and how characters are bullied is more targeted for the present. These kinds of changes will not always be popular with fans of the source materials because sometimes it does mean the erasing of previously memorable lines (don’t worry too much, the film still tries to make fetch happen and Glen Coco still gets candy canes), but if an adaptation is going to happen it does need to be reflective of the world it currently lives in. Though, New Jersey over Toronto, the betrayal!
I watched the marketing campaigns Mean Girls (2024), The Color Purple (2023), and Wonka, and in all their primary marketing campaigns they did not overly reveal that they were musicals. I don’t know why this seems to be becoming a trend, to trick people into coming to a musical, because audiences don’t like being tricked, you don’t win them over that way. And I think they’ve gotten this idea that audiences dislike musicals… but I don’t think that’s true. I TA’d a Film and Music course last year, and when we discussed what film most of our students were doing for their final paper, it was La La Land. Before the release of Barbie, they released clips of “I’m Just Ken” as one of their things to entice people to buy tickets, leaning into the musical aspect of the film, so I don’t know why these full-blown musicals we afraid to do so. In both cases, there was some backlash from people being shocked they were at a musical. Because while I think most people do love a musical, people that don’t can be spoilers for a whole audience. There was a viral incident from the opening weekend of Mean Girls of groaning during a musical number, which mind you was the third number in the movie, and putting aside the bad form of filming the theatre, by the third number they’ve grown to anticipate it. That was someone waiting for the reaction, for the bad behavior, which again, would not have happened if it was marketed as a musical because that person would’ve stayed home instead of feeling tricked into seeing something they didn’t sign up for.
Like Rachel McAdams before her Reneé Rapp devours the role of Regina George. It seems like she wants to focus on her music, and good for her, but I hope she continues to act, it would be a shame to miss out on her theatrical talents. And to be the stand-out in the crowd of talent that includes Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) who I’m always thrilled to see (or hear) on my screen is high praise.
I enjoyed the film, even if I think some things in the adaptation were a little shoehorned to hold onto bits of the original. Like the burn book. They had to include a line to explain why they created a physical book, proving that its very existence as a physical and not a digital medium is anachronistic to the current timeline. To me explaining it away, just drew more attention to it, and I think I would’ve probably would have been less likely to notice if they didn’t draw attention to it. Time will tell if this adaptation makes fetch happen, but the musical itself was a success in its own right so this one could be too, and it is already on route to recoup its budget in two weekends, which is promising.
Mean Girls (2024) is currently in theatres; Mean Girls (2004) check your streaming rentals or your DVD shelf.
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