8.16.24 - Thoughts on the Old Mean Girls
So I recently watched the Old Mean Girls movie on the plane and had some observations. I am one of those weirdos who actually watched the New Mean Girls first (I think I watched the OG Mean Girls when I was younger but hardly remember it) so I think I had an interesting perspective on it.
1. High Schoolers look different
I’m not the first to make this observation, but millennial-era depictions of High Schoolers are markedly different than later years, and earlier years.
If I think of a movie like Ferris Bueller, for instance, the high schoolers do look like high schoolers to me. I think the John Hughes movies have a nice blend of people who look a little too old and a little too young.
If you think about like, The Breakfast Club, Anthony Michael Hall looked like a kid, so did Molly Ringwald, and they would both look like kids in an American high school today. Whoever played Bender looked a little old, but most high schools have a dude like that.
But then you get the early 2000s and depictions of High Schoolers just look older. In a lot of cases, this is because they are played by twenty somethings. But that’s the case often today and 20 something still look pretty young. I’m thinking of like, Tom Holland or Timothy Chalomet.
Renee Rapp convincingly played a high schoolers in the new Mean Girls in my eyes, but she’s my age. Same with Angouries Rice and the rest of them. To me, they all look pretty age appropriate.
But then I look at 2004 Mean Girls and I code the high schoolers, at least the core plastics actresses as a bit older——except for Lindsey Lohan. They’re all beautiful, healthy looking people, but they look older to me. Not older as in, like old, but more mature is I guess the way to put it. So I looked into it.
Rachel McAdams was a little older age Renee Rapp is when she played Regina George. But really, I don’t think that explains it. Gretchen Weiner’s actress also looks older to me, but she was only 16. Amanda Seyfried looks like a high schooler to me.
Here’s my theory. First, there’s that V-Sauce explanation that when you look at pictures of older people when they were younger, they look older because the styles we associate that style and way of carrying yourself with older people. Certain hair and makeup conventions that were youthful at the time look “millennial” to me now——meaning I associate it with like 30 somethings.
But there’s something else about their faces . . . . I can’t help but suspect that girls especially carried less baby fat in 2004 than they do today, and baby fat is what makes people look like babies. All of the New Mean Girls cast just has softer faces, less prominent jaw lines.
I guess this is probably because of the skinny-obsession of the early 2000s, whereas the late 2010s there was a lot more emphasis on curvy figures. Maybe teens also drink more water than they did 20 years ago. But that’s my global explanation, other than the V-Sauce explanation, for why they look older. People just have slightly higher BF% now and carry a bit more baby fat on their faces.
I have no opinions on this. I am simply making this observation because the world needs it. As a Gen-Z, I definitely find the New Mean Girls cast to be closer to my idea of attractive, but only by a teeny tiny bit.
This has me thinking about neoteny in general. People just look younger longer now. I think of my friends and I, all mid 20s, and I still think we look like boys. We have boyish features. We still dress boyish. Tom Holland looks likes a boy. Maybe it’s an illusion and we look aged to people younger than us. Like how when I see some 35 year old man with a beard in denim and a beanie, I think it seems very very millennial, but he might think he looks young.
Will my white shoes, black jeans, and assortment of baggy tees look corny one day? Will something about Gen Z physiology look dated in the future? Will people think we were all puffy faced idiots? Will the clean girl makeup conventions of girls my age be as dead a give away of age as over the top eyeliner and a messy bun? Almost certainly.
At 25 I am increasingly aware of my mortality.
2. The movie is playfully not PC in a way that you don’t see much anymore
Unlike the last observation, I have to say I’m more opinionated on this. I think playful bigotry in mainstream media reflects a healthy society——it meant that things felt less high stakes.
The scene with the asian girls using the n-word was funny because, well we all know ABGs do be saying it. The low hanging fruit of white girl from Africa jokes were predictable, but still pretty funny. Regina George saying “I’m not retarded” was funny especially because it betrays the movie’s age a bit. The corny Indian mathlete kid who would only date women of color. So familiar, and too perfect. Gretchen being depicted as an over the top Jewish American Princess was funny—again because most of us know someone LIKE that.
Race was present and joked about throughout the movie in a way that was lighthearted, honest, and fun. On the one hand, I think that the present media landscape is better in that minorities have more starring roles. It was a bit jarring honestly that all the leads were white, and all the minorities were side characters. But it would be nice to bring back a bit of the playfulness from this era.
One thing I will say is that I do think the fat jokes seemed too mean spirited, by today’s standards, and it’s not something I necessarily want to see more in media. Not sure why I feel different about it—maybe because they never made me laugh, they just felt mean.
I guess the difference is, with fat people we’re just making fun of the way they look, nothing else at all. The little racial jokes are funny observations about cultural patterns—like if I watched this with my asian friend I think I could turn over and rib them when over the asian clique jokes and I think they would chuckle. If I watched it with a fat friend I would honestly just feel bad. It’s not like I could look at them and be like hey, that’s you!
So maybe movies can afford to be a bit more playful on race, but I think we should leave fat phobia behind. That’s one area I think culture has genuinely progressed for the better.
3. I miss the film look
What also reveals this film’s age is the film look. Now reserved for mega dramas like, fucking Oppenheimer, film was the medium for fucking everything back then. And it looks so much better.
Look, I’m not one of those annoying hipsters (at least I don’t think so) on the film v digital debate and think that digital has its place, and looks good in a lot of movies. I’m thinking of like, Blade Runner 2049. I can’t make any complaints on the cinemography there.
But film just looks warmer, more alive——and it’s not just nostalgia. I know it’s not nostalgia because I’m literally not that old, and I noticed the transition to digital happening when I was like, eight or nine? I remembered seeing the transition from cel to digital animation when I was very young and always preferring the cel animation style. I was seven! I wasn’t old enough nor did I know anything about the technology to have some external/cultural/nostalgia factor shaping this preference——it was purely aesthetic.
I noticed the same thing happening on sitcoms I watched in the 2000s and 2010s, which usually had some change in camera midway through. I knew what I preferred.
The old Mean Girls movie has a great picture quality and we should bring it back for more small scale comedies.
4. Are we making movies like this anymore?
What the hell happened to the high school comedy or drama?
We had a ton of them in the 80s. A bunch in the 2000s. Superbad. Mean Girls. Easy A. The last big big one I can think of was maybe Project X? Spectacular Now is part of the Genre but it’s really more of a drama than a Judd Apatow style comedy.
I guess it’s normal for things to go away. All is lost to the sands of time. I’m just curious, what the hell has it been replaced by? What do high schoolers watch these days, as far as media about high school?
I know my little cousin watches Gilmore Girls, but that’s really a period piece now, like Mean Girls. Doesn’t really reflect their day to day with smartphones and whatnot. I’m aware of a show named Euphoria but everything I’ve heard about it seems like Porn (which is strange because the data shows that that kids have less sex now, not more). I know there’s Stranger Things, which is great, but that’s again, period piece.
My greatest fear is that the lifestyle of modern teens doesn’t really lend itself to depiction in media. Is modern teenage life just not interesting? Has the smartphone, safetyism, the rise of anxiety orders and decline of risk-taking behaviors destroyed the stereotypical “teenage experience?” Even the new Mean Girls is sort of a blast form the past, its premised on an early 2000s teen bullying culture which I don’t think really exists anymore.
I think I’m just getting fucking old. I hope things are fine. But just different.
knxnts