Mean Girls musical: Will a modern take on the cult classic win over Gen Z?

Twenty years on from the release of Mean Girls, the much-quoted cult classic is coming back to cinemas in musical form.

Tina Fey's "new twist" on her 2004 hit is a screen adaptation of the Mean Girls musical (whose Broadway run was cut short due to the pandemic), and is released on 17 January.

Fans have been analysing the first trailer - released last week - in minute detail, with some questioning why it features no hint the new film is a musical (Paramount Pictures has since released a further shorter clip with a sprinkling of song).

The opening titles make an overt play for Gen Z fans, telling viewers "this is not your mother's Mean Girls". Perhaps unsurprisingly, this move has proved divisive with the millennials who watched the original film as tweens and teens.

After all, Mean Girls may be back for a new generation, but it never really went away. Social media is still awash with quotes about making "fetch" happen, wearing pink on Wednesdays and telling people "you can't sit with us".

From Ariana Grande's 2019 'thank u, next' parody music video, which featured several of the film's original stars, to a Walmart advert released just this month starring three out of four of the principal cast, the original movie remains woven into the fabric of contemporary pop culture.

But while people continue to watch Mean Girls in 2023 - and it still manages to attract new fans - it is widely viewed as a time capsule of the noughties high school experience. To a 2023 viewer, this is the period piece that made household names of Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried.

The new trailer, meanwhile, is soundtracked by Olivia Rodrigo, and features Coach Carr (who famously cautioned students not to have sex as they will "get pregnant and die") using TikTok.

Indicators that the new film is set in 2024, not 2004, have shocked some fans.

"I thought the Mean Girls musical movie would be a period piece set in the early 2000s," writes one Twitter user. "It feels wrong to set it [in the] present day."

One fan suggests the concept wouldn't work in 2024 "because of how much society has changed".

Another calls the original film a "distinctly millennial story" and says bringing it into the modern day feels "forced".

"I fear the contemporary Mean Girls redux will only end in disaster given how firmly rooted the original was in early 2000s culture," warns one 22-year-old woman.

Movie posters for the new film feature the strapline "plastic is forever", while Tina Fey and Tim Meadows are set to reprise their original roles as teachers at North Shore High. But a lot has changed since the "Plastics" (the bullying trio portrayed by McAdams, Seyfried and Lacey Chabert) ruled the school in 2004.

Diet culture, slut-shaming and female stereotypes are not just one-liners but intrinsic plot points for the 2004 film. Protagonist Cady Heron's big sabotage of queen bee Regina George involves making her gain weight by giving her nutrition bars designed to help malnourished people.

The noughties were filled with storylines like this which would now likely attract accusations of sexism and fatphobia. Take 2001 rom-com Shallow Hal, for example, in which Jack Black's lead is shown falling in love with plus-size woman Rosie (Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit) only after being hypnotised into seeing inner beauty.

While the Mean Girls Broadway show was technically set in 2018 (and incorporates the social media of that time into its telling), its plot, characters and aesthetic remain true to the noughties classic.

Being thin, disengaged with academia and having a hot boyfriend are portrayed as the best ways to be liked (or feared) both in the 2004 film and the later musical. But more recent high school stories have started to look at the age-old concept of teenage cliques from fresh angles.

In the 2023 series of Netflix's drama Sex Education, the popular group is a progressive gang of socially-aware students who turn the tropes of Mean Girls on their head. Teen Vogue describes the "coven" at Cavendish College as "a fresh Gen Z trope that we see all around us but often struggle to make sense of: The politically aware bully".

Similarly, in 2022 comedy film Senior Year, Rebel Wilson's character wakes from a 20-year coma to find the rules of high school have drastically changed. Her competition for queen bee is now a self-described "authentic, socially conscious, body positive, environmentally aware and economically compassionate" influencer.

While fans have expressed excitement at having something new in the Mean Girls canon, and many have praised the casting of 23-year-old Reneé Rapp (who starred in the Broadway musical), others have said it's time to let the franchise be.

"Mean Girls belongs to the aughts," wrote one fan, who asked: "Would there be a burn book in 2023?"