The world of film has become saturated with remakes and sequels. With filmmakers regressing to successful stories, choosing to tell these stories with either new actors or employing a more modern tone to the film. In the past decade, there have been many of these, with one of the biggest examples being Jumanji. In 2024, a new Mean Girls will be released.
This new film comes twenty years after the first one hit our screens. It uses both new actors and a modern tone. Two actors from the first film will appear in the new film- Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprising their roles. However, every other thing is different, new actors and new lingo. In an interesting game of remakes, this new Mean Girls is based on the Mean Girls musical, which is based on the 2004 Mean Girls which in turn is partly based on the 2002 book by Rosalind Wiseman, Queen Bees and Wannabes.
Is a New Mean Girls Story Necessary?
The 2004 Means Girls is a coming-of-age story. It follows the life of Cady Heron and her attempts at adjusting to a new school. Especially after being homeschooled all her life while living in a different continent with her parents. Cady deals with learning who she is while struggling with acceptance from the school in general and with people she hopes to be friends with. The story culminates in a tragic disaster and by the end everyone learns their lesson. The truth is that a story like this is timeless. It is a story that is as old as time and will always have a reiteration in real life.
This is why it begs the question of the necessity of a remake. The upcoming 2024 Mean Girls is already a remake of an adaptation based on an adaptation. It comes from a long line of one original-now overtold story. We have seen this before in many ways dating as far back as old fairytales. Girl meets world, world is mean, girl becomes like world, then girl learns to become a better person, the world becomes a better place. The saying goes, that there is nothing new under the sun, but does it refer to the retelling of the same story many times until it starts to feel like an overflogged?
Examining the Relevance of Mean Girls in Today’s Society
It can be argued that there is no need for a new version of Mean Girls. The original story remains as fresh as it was when it was first released in April 2004. However, even though the world has evolved there are still aspects of the human condition that have remained the same and will for a long time. Hierarchal structures still exist, even in high schools. Kids still have the propensity to display levels of mean behaviour that rival what adults can do.
A modern take on Mean Girls would offer insight into what bullying can look like today. It can inform the behaviour and actions of kids who are in Cady’s situation and show the best course of action to take in such situations. Mean Girls is not just about high school and navigating that part of one’s life. It is about relationships, and how they can either make or mar you. Showing how the best intentions can be seemingly selfish and easily hurt others. Presenting this for younger audiences to understand and learn, especially those who grew up in the light of social media, will never be a bad idea.
Can The New Mean Girls Offer Nostalgia and Fresh Perspectives
The first Mean Girls film was released 19 years ago. This makes it a film that is laden with nostalgia for the people who saw it when they were teenagers and are much older now. Mean Girls will bear the task of catering to this nostalgia, which would drive a certain demographic to the cinemas while having the ability to pull and hold the attention of the younger target audience.
The necessity of a new Mean Girls film can only be determined after it has hit cinemas. The film is supposedly not a direct remake of the 2004 version and it is also a musical, so it would be thrilling to see what it has to offer audiences when it is released on 12 January 2024. To see how it differs from the older film and learn its new twists. After all, the film’s trailer promises “This isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls”. The hope is that it does a great job of paying homage to its predecessor while catering to the needs of a younger audience.
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