The Credits: The movie based on the musical based on the 2004 movie Mean Girls is here, with Angourie Rice taking Lindsey Lohan’s place as Cady, the homeschooled teenager plunged into the catty horror of American public high school social politics. Written by Tina Fey and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., in this musical Gen Z update, everyone has smartphones now, but the movie stays true to the original’s most beloved beats.
6 comments:
I've heard very controversial opinions on the new Mean Girls movie costumes. I was expecting the worst when I went to watch it this past weekend; however, it wasn't absolutely horrible. I still wouldn't say it was great, though. It was very clear that the person who designed this was not a part of Gen Z. I felt as though the costumes were good, except for Regina’s. I felt as though Regina’s costumes felt cheap and catered to micro trends. I don't think this reflects the character as she is a trendsetter and has lots of money. It almost appeared as though she got the clothes off SHIEN, which I feel would be the character's worst nightmare. I would love to have seen her dressed in designer clothing and/or more sophisticated fabrics with similar silhouettes. I appreciated how Cady’s plastic color was blue and how slowly the color palette changed from pink to blue as the power shifted from Regina to Cady.
I haven’t seen the Mean Girls musical movie remake in full yet, but from the trailers and promotional photos was quite disappointed in the costuming at first class. This article helped me understand why that may be the case more completely. Broecker’s intention to dress the plastics in high low for their day wear instead of all designer is one I agree with as a recent high school student, however ultimately felt unsuccessful. The outfits felt overdone with the trends; while yes, the plastics would wear trends that wouldn’t be head to toe in year-old trends, it felt try-hard of sorts. One element of the costuming I did appreciate was the changing of Regina’s Halloween costume. A confident woman like Regina wouldn’t wear a Playboy Bunny outfit unless pulling an “Elle Woods” and was ironically dressed up as Gloria Steinem Playboy Bunny. The golden vulture outfit is much more fitting. Another aspect I enjoyed was Damien’s outfits. While not described fully in the article, they felt natural and not like costumes. In the future, I hope to see the movie and have a better understanding of what Broecker’s goals were.
As someone who grew up on the cult classic 2004 mean girls and who is unfortunately intimate familiar with the score of the musical due to a 4 year long show choir career I am both fascinated and fearful due to the release of the new movie. I am however happy that costumer Tom Broecker decided to go with a gen z aesthetic instead of the classic Y2K look. I have yet to see the new Mean Girls film but have watched and read multiple style analyses on the 2004 movie costumes and how they show the transformation of many of the characters, with the most obvious transformations being Cady and Regina. With the 20 year trend cycle dictating modern styles Y2K is coming back into style. I am happy that directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. decided to embrace the changes that Gen Z has brought to the Y2K style in this newly released film. As much as this movie is a movie that is based on a musical that is based on a movie the costuming is very much in a world of its own which is something I appreciate.
It was very interesting to read the background of all the costumes in this movie. I personally have only seen the promotions and the trailers but I have heard quite a bit about it. I did hear from friends that a lot of the costume choices were interesting. Some of them liked a lot of the costumes but had pretty clear opinions on the Plastics outfits. A lot of them thought that it did not do justice to the original movie, and based on what I have seen I would be inclined to agree. However after reading the article and understanding a little more of what the designer was going for I have a better appreciation for what they achieved. I think that the designer did a good job modernizing the costumes, however I think it is hard for people to appreciate it because everyone has a very clear picture of how the Plastics should look and the movie challenged that.
I think I also talked about this movie in my news comments last week, and my opinion on the movie still has not changed. Personally I HATED the new Mean Girls movie. I have such strong opinions on how terrible this movie was. However, I think the one good thing about this movie was the costumes and even the costumes did not FULLY represent what a high school student would wear in today's world. Avantika Vandanapu, who played Karen Shetty, had a REALLY good pink outfit. I loved the little tie top with the pink jean skirt. I’ve 1000% seen girls at my school wear outfits very similar, hell I’ve worn outfits that are pretty similar. I find it really funny that they used “Tiktok endorsed fashion” because it definitely shows that they defaulted to a social media platform for outfit inspiration. But, I did also really like Damian’s costume choices. They for sure could have been better, but I think they did a decent job with what they put him in.
The mean girls movie is frankly awful. It does not need to exist and they did a horrible job at it. That being said, I always love to read about how designers go about designing costumes. I think it’s really funny that they used tiktok for research. I don’t know why I find this so funny. If you’re designing for gen z it’s the perfect place to go. That being said, it still feels weird. I think the most unrealistic thing is that Janice has the energy to do a full face of intense makeup every day for school. It was interesting to read about the research process. Because I am gen z and I intrinsically know gen z fashion it allowed me to take a detached look at the design research process as a whole. I can look at the type of research I think works and the type of research I think doesn’t.
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