By Pulse Webmaster McKenna Schroeder
Mean Girls is a classic teen movie loved by many. The film follows teenager Cady Heron as she moves from Africa to Illinois, and officially starts her social life. Cady had never been to a real high school before, as she’d been homeschooled her whole life, her first day hadn’t started off strong though. She met fellow classmates Janis Ian and Damien Leigh, and the two give Cady an overview of the school, including a very in-depth and descriptive description of the wildly liked (except for Janis and Damien, of course) clique, The Plastics. Cady quickly learns that high school was not how she expected it to be. As she joins The Plastics, she learns why they earned that name, and how she will as well.
However, that wasn’t the last we would see of The Plastics. In April of 2018, Mean Girls took on Broadway with the Mean Girls Musical. Much like the original film, the musical follows Cady as she discovers the cliques of high school. Actors such as Barrett Wilbert Weed as Janis, and Taylor Louderman as Regina, take the stage as these iconic characters we all know and love. Singing and dancing about The Plastics, a party with revenge, and being stupid with love, the Mean Girls Musical takes on a unique way to retell Mean Girls on Broadway.
The Mean Girls Musical didn’t just stay on Broadway though. In December of 2022, it was announced that the Mean Girls Musical would take over theaters. In 2020, before COVID-19 shut down the world, Renee Rapp was cast as Regina George in the Broadway Mean Girls Musical. However, she only got to play Regina live for less than three months before the world went into quarantine. Rapp got to reprise her role as Regina however, when she was cast in the movie musical. Other cast members include Angourie Rice, known for her role as Betty in Spider-man Far From Home, as Cady Heron, Auli’i Cravalho as Janis Ian, known for playing Moana in the animated Disney movie, and Christopher Briney as Aaron Samuels, known for his role as Conrad Fisher in the Amazon Prime show, The Summer I Turned Pretty.
The Mean Girls musical movie got a whopping 71% on Rotten Tomatoes and is currently the #1 movie in the world. Though the majority of people would argue the movie was bad. Lots of reviews state that the movie was “cringey” and too “Gen-z.” Videos comparing the Broadway musical to the movie musical have been going viral on TikTok. The most popular videos include the comparison of the song, “Stupid With Love.” Fans of the Broadway show claim that the Broadway version of the song has more energy than the movie version. Other critics were upset that the movie was musical. They claim that it wasn’t advertised as a musical in the trailers, and many were disappointed when they entered the theaters. Although the music WAS advertised as a musical. This movie is also constantly compared to the 2004 film, which is understandable, however, there will be differences, because it’s 2024 and times have changed.
If you don’t mind musicals and don’t mind the differences between the original movie compared to this one, I think you would enjoy this fun and entertaining film.