Sophia Bird | Writer
January 18, 2024
The release of Mean Girls (2024) was something that no Mean Girls fan was looking forward to. While it was announced in 2020, many fans, including senior Madeline Branch, thought that “there’s no need for the musical that’s already based on a movie to be made into another movie.” Even though the plotline of the story remained the same, there were little details that made the original a much better watch experience.
To start, the character’s personalities and outfits were out of line. When we are first introduced to Karen (who is supposed to be the “stupid” plastic), she goes to drink milk and accidentally puts the straw up her nose rather than in her mouth. Junior Mckenna Farley argued that “nobody is that stupid and that it’s way overdone.”
Something else that drastically changed their characters was their outfits. While, yes, times are changing along with fashion, there was a better way to incorporate modern fashion into the movie. In the original movie, we can see Cady’s outfits slowly changing to mimic those of the plastics’ as she slowly starts to develop their mindset and personality. By the end of the movie, she looks like she fits right in with them, which is not something seen at all in the new one. Another important character defined through her clothing was Janis. Her style was very late 90s grunge/emo, and in the 2024 movie, they turned her borderline basic, with the most “out there” outfit being blue jeans with fishnets under and a Def Leppard t-shirt. Outfits in a movie can symbolize so much and in the new movie, we are just robbed of them.
Even the most iconic scene, the most iconic character had an outfit choice that didn’t do Regina George justice at all. In the original movie, Regina is seen scattering pages of the Burn Book all around the school in a black off-the-shoulder long-sleeve with blue flared jeans, a patterned pink belt to match her patterned pink purse, and white sneakers. The cinematography shots of her standing there with her hands crossed and a satisfying smirk on her face in this outfit as she watches chaos descend shows she thinks she’s won and it puts her in a position of power. In the new movie, she just leaves the book somewhere waiting for someone to find it while she’s in her hoodie and sweatpants, which is very much a letdown.
Overall, the movie wasn’t a total waste of time because it was entertaining on its own, but compared to the original movie, it just can’t compete. If you’re interested in the series at all, I would say it’s worth a shot.
Leave a Reply