The Best Song From the New ‘Mean Girls’ Isn’t Even in the Movie
Can a gay girl get an "Amen"?
The recent Mean Girls movie has its ardent defenders (and just as many critics), but if there’s one thing audiences in both camps can agree on, it’s that the music is less than stellar.
The 2024 remake of the 2004 comedy classic puts a musical spin on Tina Fey’s high school comedy—taking songs written for the 2017 Broadway musical version of Mean Girls and transposing them into TikTok-friendly tracks for the new film. But while fans (especially those familiar with the Broadway show) are understandably unimpressed by Mean Girls’ musical offerings, there’s one song that rises above the rest—and it’s not even in the movie.
You’ll miss it entirely if you head for the exit the second the credits begin to roll, but Mean Girls 2024 features an original end credits song “Not My Fault” by Megan Thee Stallion and Renee Rapp. Though Broadway devotees will recognize all of the numbers from Mean Girls (barring Cady’s newly-rewritten opening number), “Not My Fault” is a Rapp and Stallion original—uniting Mean Girls’ leading lady (Rapp, who also plays Regina in the film) with rap princess/pop culture devotee Megan Thee Stallion to deliver a fun, flirty pop song that pays homage to the original film.
“Not My Fault” gets its title (and chorus) from a classic line in the original Mean Girls—the song opens with a soundbyte of Cady Haron (Lindsay Lohan) laying down the song’s thesis: “You know what? It’s not my fault you’re like in love with me or something!” Following the mini intro is a bubbly, slightly bitchy, always sexy bop that combines Megan’s signature bars and Rapp’s breathy vocals with a funk-infused track, delivering an unexpectedly delightful anthem.
Certainly, the ear worm of a hook and bass-heavy production of “Not My Fault” are already miles better the underwhelming instrumentations that make up the actual Mean Girls soundtrack. What really makes “Not My Fault” special, though, is how the track uses quotes from Mean Girls, taking what was originally meant to be a low blow alluding to Janis’ sexuality and turning it into a celebration of female queerness.
In the original film, When Cady tells Janis, “It’s not my fault you’re like in love with me or something!” it’s a cruel jab at her former friend, taking a secret Janis revealed in confidence (that Regina stopped being friends with her because she thought Janis was a lesbian) and wielding it against her. But in “Not My Fault,” Renee Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion (both queer women themselves) turn Cady’s cruelty into an ode to sapphic self-love, singing about how it’s not their fault that some unseen man is into them when they’re really only interested in stealing their girl.
Lyrics like “You came with her, but she might leave with me” and “(It’s not my fault) you’ve gotta pay for what I get for free” paint the picture of a confident, self-assured queer woman who’s well aware of just how drop dead gorgeous she is and isn’t afraid to wield that power to get what she wants. Especially when queer readings of the original Mean Girls have posited that Regina herself may have been queer (and her attacks on Cady and Janis a reflection of her own struggle with internalized homophobia), “Not My Fault” is a long-overdue acknowledgment of fans who have recognized Mean Girls as a queer story for years.
Even if you aren’t a Mean Girls fan, “Not My Fault” is still worth celebrating. Despite the fact that queer visibility is at an all-time high (Auli’i Cravalho’s Janis in the new film is canonically queer, and Auli’i identifies as bisexual), out and proud LGBTQ+ women are a drastically underrepresented force in the music industry. “Not My Fault” is a big, loud, pink declaration of female queerness, written and performed by two queer women. From the use of female pronouns for the song’s unseen love interest to tongue-in-cheek lyrics like “Can a gay girl get an amen,” “Not My Fault” drips with humor, ferocity, and unabashed queer joy—the perfect pop embodiment of Renee Rapp’s Regina George.
(featured image: Universal Music Group)
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