‘Mean Girls’ Is a Musical … Right?

With a movie called Mean Girls hitting theaters in 2024, 20 years after an iconic film of the same name, you may be wondering: What’s different about this one and, regardless of how the trailers make it look, is it a musical?

If you had told me back in 2004 that Mean Girls was destined to make one of the fetchest cultural impacts in cinematic history, I likely wouldn’t have understood the question, since I was six years old at the time, which works all the same since I probably would have raised an eyebrow regardless.

But the year is now 2024, and with a brand new Mean Girls film all locked and loaded for a theatrical release, it’s as futile as ever to ignore the lasting impression made by Tina Fey’s screenplay and the Plastics that made it soar.

With that in mind, it’s time for a loaded question: Is Mean Girls a musical?

Is Mean Girls a musical?

The answer to this question depends entirely on which Mean Girls you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the upcoming film hitting theaters on January 12, 2024, then yes, Mean Girls is a musical, as is the Broadway musical Mean Girls, which the upcoming film is based on.

That Broadway musical, meanwhile, is based on the Mark Waters-directed 2004 landmark teen comedy Mean Girls, which is not a musical. That movie is, in turn, based on Rosalind Wiseman’s novel Queen Bees and Wannabes (which, unless I’m really out of the loop on how far audiobook technology has come, I’m sure is not a musical).

To summarize, the 2024 Mean Girls is a musical based on a stage musical, which is based on a film that isn’t a musical, which is based on a book that is definitely not a musical. In other words, no one does undiluted Darwinism quite like Mean Girls, be it the ever-evolving state of its adaptations or the fact that they’re always set in the ruthless, hierarchal badlands of an American high school.

(featured image: Paramount Pictures)