Paramount Used ‘Mean Girls’ for Evil

Yesterday was October 3, a day sacred to the followers of the gospel known as Mean Girls. The 2004 film starring Rachel McAdams, Lindsay Lohan, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried changed the world for many teen girls. It was a comedic dive into the dynamics many of us were familiar with in high school. Three popular girls dictate fashion and coolness for the entire school until everyone realizes it is all a giant waste of time.

In the almost 20 years (how is that possible?!) it’s been out, fans continue to quote and meme the film. They even made a musical stage show version of the movie. One scene features dreamy Aaron Samuels asking Cady (Lohan) what day it was. Cady replies with “October 3rd” and so that is the day we celebrate this wonderful film. Sure, it’s silly, but we deserve nice things. On this holy of days, Paramount tried to be fetch cool and get in on the Mean Girls fun, only they used it for evil.

Keep Mean Girls out of your schemes

On Paramount’s TikTok account, the movie appeared, in its entirety, for free. Instead of streaming it in one video, it was broken up into 23 short videos. Maybe it was all in the name of fun, but I don’t trust large corporations to have our best interests at heart, and neither do Hollywood writers. It seems interesting to make such a move when the writers’ strike only ended a few days ago. Some of the biggest issues those writers were concerned about in their contracts were residuals from sales and streaming services.

However, movies streamed on social media weren’t necessarily part of that, especially when the movie was divided into such small videos between 1 and 10 minutes in length. Writers and actors will not get residuals from people watching movies or shows on social media.

This could be a marketing technique to get people interested in a new show or movie, especially with limited marketing capabilities, though that seems unlikely and this whole thing appears shady. You can’t tell me that Mean Girls, on October 3 of all days, needs any kind of promoting. Stop trying to get around paying people their due.

(via Time, featured image: Paramount)