(For Day 21 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem with repetition of a specific color. I incorporated some anaphora from Day 14 and began each line with that meanest of colors – pink!)
Pink is what is expected of you.
Pink is the color of choice,
Pink as the blush of a rosebud,
Pink as a feminine voice,
Pink as a Barbie doll’s dreamhouse,
Pink as two greaser-bet slips,
Pink as the rarest of diamonds,
Pink as two feverish lips,
Pink as a cherry tree blooming,
Pink as a raspberry’s juice,
Pink as a Himalayan salt mine,
Pink as flamingos set loose,
Pink as a conch on the seashore,
Pink as an albino eye,
Pink as an Amazon dolphin,
Pink as an eventide sky,
But only on Wednesdays.
_________________________
MPA rating: PG-13
I only watched the original Mean Girls recently, so it feels like even less of a turnaround for there to already be a remake 20 years after the first. Yet, as much as the marketing weirdly tried to hide the fact that the remake was a musical, it is in fact an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway hit. What they all have in common is Tina Fey behind the script, infusing humor into the tale of Cady Heron (here played by Angourie Rice) as she goes from outsider new kid to a member of the notorious mean-girl clique the Plastics, led by imperious Regina George (Reneé Rapp, reprising her stage role).
I consider Mean Girls the last great high school movie before the onset of smartphone culture, where popularity and infamy were born from in-person interactions rather than mass Internet engagement. So in a way, I can see how the story could use an update for modern teens. And of course, they had to make other cultural tweaks, like more diverse casting and having Cady’s friend Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) be an out lesbian rather than just rumored to be.
I do really like the original film (it is on my LIST), but I have quite a soft spot for the musical (one of the most fun stage shows I’ve seen), so I was excited to see this musical version on the big screen. Well, it’s a mixed bag. The plot has hardly changed from prior incarnations, but fans of the musical will definitely spot some gaps. For one, while I’m not musically qualified to identify what’s changed, the music style often sounds… different somehow, more acoustic and less punchy, taking the teeth out of what was my favorite song “Apex Predator.” Then there are the odd creative choices to swap out perfectly good songs for lesser others, like Cady’s intro or the tune for the Mathlete championship near the end.
The song omissions range from heartbreaking, like the much-missed “Fearless,” to understandable, like the thematically relevant but dramatically extraneous “Stop,” leaving Damian (Jaquel Spivey) without a big solo number. Yet the film finds its cinematic spectacle with its chosen showstoppers, particularly the rollicking “Revenge Party,” Regina’s sultry “World Burn,” and Janis’s anthemic “I’d Rather Be Me.”
So I’m torn on this new version of Mean Girls. With its song changes and cruder, less funny dialogue, it’s a step down from both the original and the stage musical, but it also brings its fair share of fun. I particularly liked a few callbacks to the first film, like a certain cameo near the end and the twist on Fey and Tim Meadows reprising their roles as Ms. Norbury and the school’s principal, respectively. All the actors do a fine job too, though Cravalho and Rapp are certainly stronger singers than Rice. It’s unlikely to become as iconic as the original Mean Girls, but this musical update fits comfortably in its cultural wake.
Best line: (Ms. Norbury, taking Cady’s revelation from the original) “’Cause one thing I know for sure, guys. Calling someone ugly is not gonna make you better-looking. Calling someone else stupid does not make you any smarter. And we as women have to be able to trust and support each other.”
Rank: List Runner-Up
© 2024 S.G. Liput
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