in defense of mean girls...

[@All-ze9cl]

honestly for movie musicals like this, i don't care if they aren't that great. As long as its fun, campy, and cheesy, I'm gonna love it. Plus the cast is just incredible

[@meredithnovaco]

Honestly I feel the same way 😭 but there’s a lot of people out there who don’t!

[@All-ze9cl]

@@meredithnovaco yeah, which is a shame. I think the world would be a better place if everyone took things less seriously and let themselves enjoy something for once without nitpicking every part of it. it makes a lot of the things I do much better when I look at it that way.

[@hilariparsons9937]

Same like it was so fun and campy! I laughed, I was entertained, like it's not that deep

[@aalllllllexx]

People keep saying "nobody asked for this" but the only reason that it got a theatrical release instead of the original direct to streaming was because of how much demand and buzz it got when announced

[@methecat776]

i’m 18 and this was one of the best usages of social media in movies i’ve ver seen like it wasn’t over-done, it was pretty accurate, it was used creatively and it actually moved the songs and story forward. especially in how it’s used to update the commentary on how ppl and women are treated by others as soon as they do one thing wrong, and how the internet just flips on ppl on a dime as soon as it’s not cool to like them anymore.

[@Kappinna]

Another thing about Karen's song's TikTok transition that i really enjoyed: If you pay attention to the people who are doing the challenge with her, you realize it's not random people, but characters of the movie. You can actually find Regina's mom there trying to do Karen's challenge too. I found that very clever imo!

[@31VideoNerd13]

Honestly the musical is one of my faves, I feel like it’s so fun and camp that I’m willing to overlook the imperfections haha. Maybe I’m alone in that but I’m a mean girls musical defender forever. And I feel like the movie did a great job of capturing that energy! Sexy and Someone Gets Hurt specifically were both really well choreographed and shot, I can def imagine myself watching this version more than just once or twice.

[@meredithnovaco]

I meannnn that’s the most important thing right?? We can talk analysis all we want but how a piece resonates with each individual is sooooo important. I like a lot of stuff that is widely considered “bad”, and I did really like this movie, I would watch it again for SURE

[@JRobert1402]

As a musical stan im a little frustrated at Big Film™ for not marketing films as musicals because i love random singing and dancing

[@meredithnovaco]

Honestly I wish every movie got a musical adaptation like this one, I prefer them so much to normal movies

[@JRobert1402]

​@@meredithnovaco If I had my way every single movie ever would be a musical

[@cassielcruzchavolla809]

I agree , I've seen a similar sentiment shown in fandoms of franchises that are currently targeting a younger demographic (I.e. Monster High & Percy Jackson) . It's disappointing to see people not understanding that they are not targeting them anymore.

[@meredithnovaco]

Yeah especially when these creators have power over convincing people to go see things or not, it’s sad to see so many people caught up in their own view of it

[@annalissac]

Great take! I took my two teens to watch the movie, and we all loved it so much we had to watch it twice! While my daughter liked the social media aspect and related to the characters' insecurities, my son enjoyed the musical numbers, particularly the song arrangements and choreography. As a film nerd, I loved the direction, camerawork and performances. As a mom, I appreciated the story's message. The movie definitely has a lot to offer!

[@itsyagirljessssss]

First off - hair and makeup on point! And yeah I was actually pleasantly surprised by the movie because I wasn't expecting to be a big fan or want to see it more than once since I didn't like the stage musical much but I actually liked it. Did it have issues - yeahhhhh. Will I watch it again - most definitely.

[@astuffedalpaca5365]

I’m gen z and don’t use tiktok but my millennial cousin actually recognized the tiktoker cameos and thought it was smart

[@dolfuny]

I will never understand how people judge media targeted at kids so weirdly. Like I was once a teenage girl and it is absolutely awful how media targeted at teenage girls is attacked from all sides (something that is not as true for media targeted at boys imo). Like for my generation I think that is part of what caused the "not like other girls" bs. Like as a kid I was constantly told that all the things meant for girls was bad and made me bad if I liked them so I often times never even gave media targeted at me a chance, I'm also a lesbian so I thought being boy crazy was weird. Thankfully I grew out of my "not like other girls" phase late middle school early high school but I just can't imagine myself turning around and shaming kids and especially young women today for what they like after being on the other end of that. Like media targeted at kids deserves to be criticized because kids also deserve good media but criticisms need to be in good faith and take into account the target audience

[@HardFreckles]

To be honest I had no desire to see it before, but you may have persuaded me to give it a chance

[@StarrySeal]

The Color Purple also was weird about marketing and I was like. that's gotta be the musical because they show a bit of dancing and mouthing that looks like singing. but it kinda sucks that musicals aren't making themselves more obvious in marketing. There's a grey area where the Hunger Games movie was, because it had a significant amount of singing that was plot relevant. So I don't know if films have to like... state they're a musical but it's also like. For the Color Purple at least.. why are you hiding your award winning music?!?!?

[@meredithnovaco]

Hunger games is soooo interesting honestly because what is the line that makes it a musical?? Does the musical have to be integrated in a way where the characters don’t know they’re singing? What does that do with shows like school of rock? But the Color Purple is for SURE a musical and should for sure be marketed as such!!

[@LunaLeigh]

Honestly so glad I stumbled upon your channel from you last video- new fave youtuber!! I loooove hearing your thoughts!!!

[@meredithnovaco]

Thank you so much!!! ❤️❤️ I’m glad you like my videos!

[@symonemiah7962]

0:51 distracted by how good your makeup is!!!!♥️♥️♥️♥️

[@symonemiah7962]

this is a joke I’m always tuned in when a women is talking

[@meredithnovaco]

drinking game: take a sip every time I say 'strange'

[@xXsharpiescarsXx]

There is literally a music note in the A, (in the title font “mean girls”) genuinely don’t see how people were confused on it being a musical lol.

[@love-o-meter]

I’m not sure I understand why people (particularly the posts I’ve seen on twitter) didnt know Wonka and Mean Girls were musical movies because there were multiple indications and instances for both the movies in the trailers/teasers and promotions that these movies were gonna be musicals.

[@meredithnovaco]

Same, they didn’t explicitly show a character singing but you can see so many dance numbers!! Maybe from this they’ll learn they have to use one of the songs from the movie and show characters singing it, I could go either way tbh on if they made it obvious enough

[@o.m9514]

OH MY GOODNESS!!! I thought so as well!!!

[@o.m9514]

I recognised that it was a musical from the trailers.

[@Liesl69-12]

I love how smart and respectful this was. I've seen so many people just bash on the movie because they personally didn't like it and not acknowledge how the movie wasn't for them. Like in their mind because they didn't like it that means it was a bad movie. There are valid criticisms to the movie, like there is for all media, but instead of focusing on those and have interesting conversation about the movie people just hate on it. It's so important to have media that makes people feel seen and fans of the original mean girls should be happy that younger people get to something like they did. Haters act as if they were forced to watch the movie and care way too much about people's opinions.

[@JuliaDelbel]

The stage show actually managed to recoup its investment, which many Broadway shows don't. So it did okay overall.

[@CoreenMontagna]

I got to see the live musical on tour, and I had a good time.

[@meredithnovaco]

It’s fun for sure!! I enjoyed the bootleg I watched!! It’s mostly the music I wasn’t a fan of but it’s all subjective!!

[@kaibishop6183]

Okay okay. Now we need a video of why “Dear Evan Hansen” is the worst musical ever.

[@caraschwegman5462]

I’m 18 so I grew up with the original movie but I also loved the new one and I feel like they modernized it well.

[@hilariparsons9937]

Thank you for articulating everything I've been wanting to say about this movie and the critiques around it

[@MelHyde]

I actually really liked this movie. It isn't perfect by any means, but it's fun, easy to watch, Renee and Auli'i slayed, and it was fun seeing it updated to modern times. Fun movie overall imo lol

[@jess3452]

I love your analysis and perspective on this! And I think if you wanted to elevate your content a little bit more you could include more clips as references, again this is great already i just thought id mention it because i feel like your channel has the potential to blow up! Cant wait to see the next video :)

[@beksan1]

Hi! New subbie here. Found you because of your last video and I gotta tell you you are so fun to watch! I watched the one for The Hunger Games twice! 😂even though it’s 2 hours long🙈. Looking forward to your in depth Twilight analysis like for The Hunger Games!

[@meredithnovaco]

Thank you so much!!! 🥰🥰 happy you’re here!!

[@o.m9514]

I LOVED the music!!!

[@annaxoats6479]

i really liked it. it was campy, flashy and fun. i had some issues with it - mainly stupid with love :( but the rock version at the end was sick. renee rapp killed it, and the rest of the cast was amazing too. i think the way they updated the message of the movie was good, and i can see it really resonating with my younger siblings in middle school.

[@meredithnovaco]

Yeah stupid with love was the biggest issue for me too!! The background for it was an odd choice against the rest of the musical, if they wanted it to be more acoustic they could’ve just gone more acoustic with the instruments instead of the acapella voice background thingy imo

[@vicentemariani8730]

⁠@@meredithnovacoI liked stupid with Love in the movie

[@vicentemariani8730]

@@meredithnovacoI disagree

[@youmadornahhh]

More Mean Girls positivity, yes.

[@ashhhlgh]

My biggest disappointment of the new movie is that for me it was an accessible way to watch the musical, but they cut a lot of the songs from it. So I guess I understand in a way why it wasn’t marketed as a musical, because it’s not a direct copy of the musical, nor the 2004 movie. They were really trying to mitigate the disappointment. And unfortunately annoyed both musical and non-musical fans. Janis and Damian were stellar in this new version though.

[@nahurd]

Great points here, I totally agree. I would not say it’s the best movie I’ve ever seen but I laughed a lot and had a lot of fun watching it but I’m also a big movie musical fan. I also do wish they got a better singer for Cady, really odd choice.

[@andireadsbooks]

I was also six when the original came to theaters, somehow I managed to convince my poor mother we should go anyways.. all I remember is her being absolutely shocked

[@o.m9514]

I didn’t like that Janice was not blamed for what she did in THIS film. I had assumed that they would use this opportunity to portray her villainy.

[@Mr__Dr]

She doesn’t even go here!

[@ericakat6322]

Id never seen the musical but youre so right that none of the songs are very "Mean Girls" like, i thought the sound bite "this is modern feminism talking" was from Legally Blonde (another musical ive never seen)

[@annalunelli13]

I totally agree with what you said about Janis, like we as a society (lol) have come far enough to understand and produce a lot of content around the fact that Janis was also a mean girl, and that her enacting her revenge by all but ruining Regina's life is just as wrong as what Regina did to her, and she not only managed to alienate Regina from her power and friends and social status, but she literally (I mean Cady too, but it was Janis's idea) fucked up someone's body/weight, like what she did could cause Regina to have body image issues or even an ED for the rest of her life, and it's just brushed off as if it was nothing. Terrible message for kids: give people EDs if they bully you, it's funny! But I will say, I've always seen I'd Rather Be Me as like, Janis's Someone Gets Hurt. Because whenever I hear that somg or sceen the scene in the stage production, it feels to me as Janis trying to manipulate people, it doesn't feel like an honest song to me, even the way Barrett sang 'acted nice when she nit nice' feels mocking, and then she says she wouldn't do things that she clearly did, WE ALL SAW HER DOING THOSE THINGS!!!! That was my own interpretation and I've been living in denial for years 😂 But the movie robbed me of that interpretation because Auli'i's wonderful performance just made Janis way more 'honest' (although a hypocrite) and way way cooler than she's ever been. I got so excited to see that number and I was enjoying it so much I forgot Janis had ever done anything bad, I was just fawning like 'shes the coolest, look at her gooo, you tell them Janis!!!'

[@chicknbaconranchmelt]

I saw Mean Girls over the weekend and while I largely agree with your points, I do have some issues with it. I think using TikTok was definitely more relevant now and I understand why they did it, but I also think it severely dates the movie when the original mean girls is pretty timeless. I LOVED the use of TikTok in Sexy, but for most of the other cases it just felt kind of overdone. I think it would've been much better cinematography to have most of the Tiktok scenes be a bit shorter and show people actually watching the videos on their phones instead of just putting them straight onto the screen. Or at least doing it more like the very beginning where it went from a video to the actual scene in that smooth transition. I also felt like they changed the pacing of the scenes a lot and the Christmas dance scene didn't work half as well as it did in the original. Regina simply refusing to practice because she has a big ego isn't as impactful as her exerting her power over Gretchen last minute by making her and Cady switch places and THAT causing her downfall. One is pushing her power too far and facing the consequences while the other is just being cocky

[@cassielcruzchavolla809]

Idk I don't think the original is "timeless." it has a lot of slurs and racist jokes as well as being really wrapped up in the 00s diet culture. I think it's very much a product of its time, which is ok and almost inevitable if you want to make something relatable.

[@chicknbaconranchmelt]

@@cassielcruzchavolla809 yeah that's true, but I don't think those date it as much as the rampant use of social media does in the new one. Unfortunately slurs and diet culture remain a big issue in our society so that's definitely not unique to the 00s

[@cassielcruzchavolla809]

@chicknbaconranchmelt well, yeah, but presenting it under a "comedic" lense does. Idk I feel like social media won't be as obsolete as y'all seem to think in the future. It'll probably just evolve and become even more prevalent . I just don't think that it not "aging well" is a concern anyways most things are not "timeless" and that's OK. I generally just think that is a weird critique, plus I definitely don't think the og mean girls would work nowadays.

[@chicknbaconranchmelt]

@@cassielcruzchavolla809 I get what you're saying. To clarify I was mainly talking about tiktok specifically not all social media but you could be right that it won't become obsolete for a while. The issue of the movie being dated isn't my biggest problem by any means. I will say that I did genuinely enjoy the movie and I'll probably watch it again (especially because I missed someone gets hurt 😔) I just had quite a few critiques

[@cassielcruzchavolla809]

@chicknbaconranchmelt yeah I get it. I agreed with your other critiques. I just found calling the original movie "timeless" a bit off.

[@LNL-HesterFrida]

I totally agree, I’m a high schooler, and watching this movie felt nice. There was a little bit of the feeling of a parent trying to “get” this generation with the online stuff, like the weird shot of Cady, but it was overall very fun. I just think they needed a different actress for Cady, because she didn’t bring that standout broadway energy, and her singing did kinda pale compared to Renee. But my mom even enjoyed the movie, she just didn’t like Cady. She wasn’t strong enough in her role, and it’s so disappointing.

[@rayanneflorence1830]

What are your thoughts on heathers the musical because personally I’m obsessed with heathers the musical but I never liked mean girls the musical. I agreed with everything you said about the songs.

[@ferashdaib7674]

I am a 35-year-old guy so when I heard that they were going to make a Mean Girls movie. I really expected to be fit for modern audiences but the things that put me off now when I heard it is a musical. I am not a fan of musical movies and a lot of people are not either, so people feel deceived when saw the movie and hate everything about it even the good things

[@MomLAU]

@5:52 _What_ "it up"? How do you spell that? "Juj"? Hey, I'm 60 years old and not up on all the current slang.

[@phrodite]

great video!

[@meredithnovaco]

Thank you!! 🥰

[@victoriaraigo]

In my opinion, the original movie was enjoyable for both adults and teenagers. I am 32 and I watched with my mom and she loved it, her friends liked it, etc. This movie definitely targeted young people over the older people who wanted to love it for nostalgia reasons - maybe there was a missed opportunity to do both 🤷🏼‍♀️ (they tried and failed, imho) I also think that the music is just not very good, and there was only so much heavy lifting Renee Rapp and the rest of the cast could do to lift it up

[@kell3081]

Covid killed it on broadway, but it just opened on the West end with a great cast!

[@KillDjay]

I thought it was mid. Even though I have a lot of Genz friends and I acknowledge I’m not the demographic and I love Renee Rap. I think Janet’s character is more unclear and misguided, Cadys actual arc into mean girl is basically non existent and we won’t even talk about her vocals. Hiring a cute guy as Aaron Samuel’s and then cutting his music because he didn’t wanna sing. All very bad decisions. That being said, I think this movie is mid not bad. Ultimately the saving grace is two things. I actually love the plastics. The literal mean girls slay. Renee and Avantika slay and while they gave her literally nothing to do Bebe did good as well. The second saving grace was Damien singing the icarly theme song in French. I’d give it like a C+.

[@hehemaher3768]

Your saying this is what teenagers of my age would like, but you clearly have no clue what people my age like

[@o.m9514]

I don’t like that Kadie was manipulated but nobody acknowledged it.

[@josf9616]

Thank you for bringing up Cady... I agree that she's a good actor for the role but girl CANNOT sing

[@Iceagebbg]

I just can’t get over “stupid with love” it’s atrocious

[@vicentemariani8730]

Her( Angourie Rice) voice was good actually you guys are just hating

[@violetception]

i was by no means in love with the broadway soundtrack, though i am still disappointed by the movie's decisions to change instrumentation so drastically. iirc, the creatives themselves said they were intentionally trying to give the songs more of a pop arrangement (probably to connect to a larger audience than just musical fans, which in theory is a smart idea), but i think the noticeable lack of lush instrumentation and... low energy vocal direction (for cady specifically) ultimately were detrimental to the impact of the songs. it took the wind out of their sails, so to speak, with (most of) the songs never really reaching a peak in energy and achieving the emotional catharsis that you want by the end of a big number. the mellowness of the songs made them less memorable imo, and also contributed to the pervasive sense of the film being more subdued than the punchy, biting humor of the original. and i still had a blast watching it!! (though we really need to talk about that gopro shot of cady in revenge party. wtf was that.)

[@merbear98]

🥰🥰✨

[@TheSpiceMoth]

I was excited but musical asapect put me off tbh

[@cheziechezo5607]

man I'm 17, when i watched this movie in January, it had me shaking in my seat trying not to hop up and down with happiness, obviously has its flaws but I'm tired of all the negativity around this movie, i kept getting recommended videos dumping on this movie and i found your one singual postive video 🥲. like everyone compares it to the broadway show and how that's so much better, why is everyone suddenly the musicial's biggest fan?

[@meredithnovaco]

Dang this made me so sad to read!! I’m sorry everyone’s been dunking on it!! People just don’t know how to separate something that’s not made for them from something that’s actually bad 🙃 and I agree it’s so weird how for years everyone thought the bway one was eh, then the movie one comes out and now the bway one was amazing and they shouldn’t have changed anything?? It’s so weird!! I’m sorry everyone was dumping on it!!