A remake of “Mean Girls” has arrived 20 years after the original. Marketing was geared toward Gen Z, but the movie can still be enjoyed by millennials.
As it turns out, millennials can sit with the new “Mean Girls.”
A musical take on the beloved 2004 movie officially arrived in theaters on Friday, passing the North Shore High’s spring-fling crown to a new generation of Plastics. Reneé Rapp takes over as queen bee Regina George, while Angourie Rice stars as newbie Cady Heron.
The movie largely treads familiar territory but updates aspects of the story for a modern audience. But contrary to the marketing that made millennials feel ancient, the new “Mean Girls” isn’t trying to push its thirtysomething viewers in front of a bus. There’s really nothing generation-specific about it. Targeting the reboot solely at Gen Z was one of the movie’s biggest missteps pre-release
The new “Mean Girls” is a blend of the 2004 film we all know and love and the Broadway musical that opened in 2018 — although you wouldn’t know that last part if you only saw the trailer.
But surprising audiences with a bunch of songs isn’t the worst thing about the movie’s marketing. The trailer called millennials old to their faces in a bold, pink-lettered declaration: “This isn’t your mother’s ‘Mean Girls.'”
The assumption that the movie was for Gen Z was both insulting and alienating to fans of the original, many of whom are in their late 20s and 30s and not parents.
