The New Mean Girls Movie by Emma Schoonmaker
The new Mean Girls Movie came out last Friday, January 12, and I’m sure that everyone is excited or scared to see this re-make of the timeless comedy.
If you haven’t seen the original, it is all about a girl named Cady who moves to Illinois from South Africa. Cady has been homeschooled her whole life and is pretty unaware of all the innuendos and social cues that people take from the notorious group of girls, named The Plastics. These girls are selfish, fashion-focused, and care only about their reputations. The leader of the group is Regina George. She sees Cady and decides to swoop her into the exclusive group. Cady starts to get embarrassed and ashamed of the culture that she is accustomed to and tries to hide it. The rest of the movie is about Cady navigating her way through the ups and downs of her first year in high school in America, but mostly dealing with the mean girls.
There have been debates on whether the remake will be up to snuff because Tina Fey, the director, has made it a musical now. Some have said that you could never replicate the essence of the original, while others say that the new one is way better than the first. A point of view that has been trending is that the mean girls in this movie aren’t as mean as they are in the old one. One of the top critics from Rotten Tomatoes, Matthew Lickona, said, “The girls just aren’t as mean. The social hierarchies just aren’t as brutal. The betrayals and losses just aren’t as devastating.” Entertainment critic, Coleman Spilde, said, “Most of it is a word-for-word duplicate, one that has had its sharp bite shaved down to avoid the kind of thorny provocation that made the first film an instant classic.” It’s fascinating that people want to see others being tormented. An article from observer.com said, “Vapid, tasteless and monumentally stupid, the new and decidedly unnecessary version of Mean Girls proves Tina Fey is still not above trashing her talent to make money.” It seems that some people have some real beef with the movie and the director.
Regardless of what you have heard from other people, it is still worth a shot to at least go to see the movie to form your own opinion of the movie, instead of just going along with the crowd.
If you haven’t seen the original, it is all about a girl named Cady who moves to Illinois from South Africa. Cady has been homeschooled her whole life and is pretty unaware of all the innuendos and social cues that people take from the notorious group of girls, named The Plastics. These girls are selfish, fashion-focused, and care only about their reputations. The leader of the group is Regina George. She sees Cady and decides to swoop her into the exclusive group. Cady starts to get embarrassed and ashamed of the culture that she is accustomed to and tries to hide it. The rest of the movie is about Cady navigating her way through the ups and downs of her first year in high school in America, but mostly dealing with the mean girls.
There have been debates on whether the remake will be up to snuff because Tina Fey, the director, has made it a musical now. Some have said that you could never replicate the essence of the original, while others say that the new one is way better than the first. A point of view that has been trending is that the mean girls in this movie aren’t as mean as they are in the old one. One of the top critics from Rotten Tomatoes, Matthew Lickona, said, “The girls just aren’t as mean. The social hierarchies just aren’t as brutal. The betrayals and losses just aren’t as devastating.” Entertainment critic, Coleman Spilde, said, “Most of it is a word-for-word duplicate, one that has had its sharp bite shaved down to avoid the kind of thorny provocation that made the first film an instant classic.” It’s fascinating that people want to see others being tormented. An article from observer.com said, “Vapid, tasteless and monumentally stupid, the new and decidedly unnecessary version of Mean Girls proves Tina Fey is still not above trashing her talent to make money.” It seems that some people have some real beef with the movie and the director.
Regardless of what you have heard from other people, it is still worth a shot to at least go to see the movie to form your own opinion of the movie, instead of just going along with the crowd.