Mean Girls (2004) is one of my favorite movies ever made. It is funny and heart warming and turns teen movie tropes on their head. It has it's flaws, reflecting the homophobia (specifically lesbiphobia) of the time it was made, a general lack of representation, weird race humor, and some ablist slurs. But it's a good movie, and there is a clear moral stance toward kindness. Most importantly - it is FUNNY.
The new Mean Girls reboot is not good. I loved watching it, don't get me wrong. They took one of my favorite movies, kept all my favorite lines, and added lesbians, and solved the diversity problems. But they also removed all the tension.
I think movies need immoral characters. There needs to be conflict to tell a story. In Mean Girls that character is Regina initially, and as the story goes on you realize Janis and Cady are too. This story is about mean girls, and how they end up hurting each other and themselves.
Lets talk about Regina first. Her teeth were removed. I only need one example. In the both versions, Regina's friend Gretchen is pining over Jason, a guy she briefly dated, but is now on a date with Taylor Wedell. In the 2024 version, Regina growls in dance during a song about her being the 'apex preditor'. The song tells us she looks out for her friends and you don't want to be on her bad side. In the 2004 version, Regina calls Taylor Wedell's mom as Planned Parenthood with "results". This shows us so much more than the 2024 song could ever tell us. It shows us she is creatively cruel, that she blames the woman, not the guy, and that she is looking out for her people at the expense of others. And it takes less time. And it's FUNNY. Regina is a bad person. She uses the R-slur, and calls people lesbians as an insult. She lies and manipulates. But it is all framed as bad. You don't want to be Regina. The movie even shows you, through Cady, what happens when you try and become her. It shows you how devastating and unsatisfying her life is, even when she is on top. In the new one, Regina doesn't do anything problematic. It's implied, but besides the Burn Book at the end, we never see how devious she can be. Because that would be problematic. She needs to be redeemable, and she can't be a bad role model. She isn't a full character anymore. I'm obviously not saying they should have kept in the homophobia and the slurs, or replaced them with something irredeemable, but in order for me to believe the conflict, she has to be MEAN.
Now Janis. Its 2024, and she's gay now. In the 2004 version, Regina ruined her life by calling her a lesbian. Which honestly, as someone who was in school, and (accurately) called a lesbian in the same era as the 2004 version, made sense. Being gay made many kids in my era a predator by default. But it's 2024 now, and its ok to be gay, and Janis IS gay. So, how did they change it so that Regina still made Janis an outcast for the plot. Well. They don't really change it. It's implied that Regina outted her, but never said outright. And in order for Regina to ruin her life, she needs to have something she is ashamed of, and New Janis isn't ashamed. She's headstrong, she's confident, she's proud. Sure - Auli'i Cravalho does a great job pretending to be embarrassed during the scene after the Halloween party, but what is that character embarrassed about?
And Cady? She's kinda nothing now. To be fair, watching back the old version, she kinda always was. She's the self-insert you could see yourself falling into. Her role is to fall into the orbit of Janis, then Regina, then the Mathletes, before finding herself. But there isn't really enough meat on the bone of those 3 categories to play with in the 2024 version. I would say Angourie Rice didn't do as well as Lindsay Lohan (not a dis, just huge shoes to fill) but honestly, I don't even think she had enough to work with to even try.
Now lets talk about Tina Fey. We are all allowed one problematic fav, I chose Tina Fey. She's had her fair share of controversy (see 'lampshading'), but I could always rely on her for one thing: expanding the joke. She does this in the original Mean Girls well, but when it comes to the new movie, the punches are pulled. There are a few lines she expands on ('Fetch' being from an 'old movie') but for the most part, fan service lines are repeated faithfully, and without a new joke or even a new take. It's frankly disappointing.
Even the costume choice follow this pattern of faithful replication without thought. In pivotal plot moments, the characters, in 2024, who are canonically stylish and attentive to detail, are wearing an outfit 20 years out of date, and not fitting of the changes made to the characters personality.
Look. I am a fan, and this is fan service, so I like it. I love Renee Rapp and Auli'i Cravalho in this. But there is nothing here to love that I didn't already get from the 2004 version. The 2024 version is a stripped-down shell of the 2004 version. Stripped of any character elements that would cause conflict, this movie replaces depth with songs. Its fine. But I'll be watching the 2004 version every year for the rest of my life. I don't think I will think of the 2024 version in a years time.
I guess titanic just isn't for me
When I was a kid, maybe 5th or 6th grade, a Titanic exhibit came to a city near my small town. The teachers at my school lobbied hard and were able to take us all there as a field trip. That's how I learned about the Titanic, my teachers being all excited, “but first we have to talk about the tragedy”. It wasn't for me. I'm kind of a dork, but it just wasn't my shit. The era seemed trite, the engineering feat of it all was a little over my head, the engineering of the modern equipment to go see it made me feel claustrophobic, and the tragedy of it all was just too much for my baby-depression brain to focus on without melting down.
So I also never saw the movie. None of the Titanic stuff was really interesting to me, and I have never been one for a 'rom' unless it is served with a slice of 'com'.
Until now. I watched Titanic, and I guess it's just not for me.
Let's start with what I liked to get it out of the way.
On to to the shit that was not for me, or down-right dumb.
First of all. Too long. By the time I got to the end, I felt myself saying, “oh shit, we have to resolve this plot line too.”
Second the love story. My watch experience was significantly hampered by the fact that I do not find either of these conventional hotties attractive. Maybe that's the style of the era (1997) talking, or the fact that they are emulating a era with rigid gender adherence, but I was not into it. Outside of that, I didn't really buy it. I wanted a moment where Leo found out Kate Winslet wasn't actually rich and decided to be with her anyway. He kinda felt like a gold digger to me. Even as he turns away from stealing the necklace, to me it reads that he is waiting for a bigger payday by marrying up. I wanted a moment where Rose liked more than the fantasy of Jack and the fetishization of being poor and free. I also felt like the majority of their relationship was Leo yelling “Rose, over here” and “Rose, go there” while the boat was sinking, and that's not hot. I understand that the movie is about the love story AND the boat sinking, and the run time was to serve both of them, but it ended up kinda muddling them both, to me.
Third, I don't believe the treasure hunter and his motives. His whole character is “I want diamond,” and then Rose shows up, and he's invested in her story, and totally loses the only character trait he had. He never asks questions about “ok, but when did you last see the diamond?”.
Four, I'm not an engineering dork. I don't care about James Cameron's little dork expedition to the wreck. Other than that little submersible implosion, I've kinda always seen this sort of thing as a hobby-horse for the rich, which with a major theme of the movie being, “look at these dumb rich people” really reframes the theme too “rich people should be allowed to do whatever they want. Rich people are not the problem, etiquette is.” Which. Boo. I also do not give a fuck how the boat sank. That one character who's whole job was to explain the engineering to us was so boring and he had so much screen time. Oh my god this movie is so LONG.
Five, why did Rose keep the necklace? The coding at the end of the movie makes me think it was supposed to be a symbol of Jack, but the whole rest of the movie it is a symbol of her bondage to the elite social circle she is a part of. The drawing scene is a fuck you to her captor, she wears the necklace to show it does not control her. But then the second she hits the shore, she's like “cute memory”? Maybe I am a stupid bitch, but she should have sold that shit to make her poor person life in America more comfy. I get that the narrative needed the McGuffin to survive to the end of old Rose's arc, but it just didn't work for me.
Anyway, in conclusion, The Full Monty was cheated at the 1997 Oscars. It is clearly a better film with a more interesting cast of characters, stronger themes, and even a better love story. And they did it all in 91 minutes.