Mean Girls

It's always sad when someone you admire for their art, releases something new that is so failing in every aspect of their last work that you start to question everything. This is how I felt watching Tina Fey's 2024 version of Mean Girls

Mean Girls (2004) worked because Regina George was actually cruel. The risk Mean Girls steps into is a misogynistic making fun of teenage girls, but Mean Girls (2004) escapes this by taking the cruelty girls can put on each other seriously.

When Reneé Rapp sings "You're Like in Love with Me," I don't think she's actually calling me gay (derogatory) and making me hopelessly defend that any anger or cruelty I might feel towards her isn't actually hidden erotic obsession, I think she's just singing a song that's an ad for a movie. I don't think she's calling out that the attention people give her isn't actually her fault, I think she's just performing a song, and people are meant to think she's good at it, not to fume and seethe or find her iconic in her play on cruelty, in defending morally questionable actions on the ground, "oh my God, you're like obsessed with me?" and getting away with it, because poeple are a little obsessed with her. Doja Cat, or Ariana, or any other artist would maybe get away with it, but not soft faced, never hurt anyone in her life-Reneé Rapp. None of this is happening. So the performance is, instead, so empty that it's painful. No one is a hater of Reneé Rapp, except maybe 13 year olds with fairy emojis on tiktok, but she feels like a person who appeals even to those. She doesn't have any haters to mock.

The movie feels like it wants to ride the Barbie train, with it's hyperfeminine y2k secret-musical aesthetic, but the secret about Barbie is that it's actually a cruel movie, or at least a movie that makes fun of the cruel-less-society and the cruel society fo Barbie at the same time.

People like cruelty. A commmon complaint in the new Animal Crossing game has been that the neighbours you live with aren't cruel enough anymore. We're stuffed with positivity. In my opinion, it's not really that different than the fact that people want media that is sad, scary, or any other negative emotions.

Ironically - to conservatives - the last place for sublimated but harsch cruelty outside of their own media bubbles, seems to be the drag-community. Drag queens are cruel in a way only a gay best friend can be. To quote drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova, I'd rather have you steal my furniture than put mascara on. I'd rather you have a hard core crack cocaine addiction. If I catch you in pantihose? FBI is getting involved. No matter if it's, or even ... getting involved somehow by death staring Trixie Mattel when she say's "I feel like a man," it's always just fun.

Conservative Cruelty

Someone who does have haters to mock, is former/potential american president Donald Trump. A lot of comedians have commented that they miss Trump, especially his online precense, considering he was a master of mean girl-ery. The list is long of great bangers. Wishing the haters and losers a happy 9/11, "I've never seen a skinny person drink diet coke," not not saying that Kim Jong-Un is short and fat in relation to international discussions, saying John McCain isn't a war hero because he "likes people who weren’t captured,” saying the killed leader of ISIS "cried like a dog." For a conniseur of absurd cruelty, it's a joy ride. The problem arises when our greatest mean girl is our most influencial politician, that doesn't turn off the cruelty, the absurdity, ever.

Another incredible contemporary mean girl, is american commentator Candace Owens. In her 2024 video Lil Nas X MOCKS Jesus in New Single, she spends the first nearly five minutes, not talking about Lil Nas X, Jesus, or any new single, but digging up her personal feud with Cardi B, saying quote "I just want to jog your memory because it's relevant today" (it's not), calling Cardi B not sexy, saying even her most ardent fans doesn't claim she's sexy, and end with the amazing statement:

more an update now of course and I'm saying this honestly with sadness in my heart is that cardi B's husband who had already cheated on her cheated on her more and again and again and they are now separated so haha kice making your husband a sandwich not putting your goods on the internet and this is where her life has led her I hope genuinely that cardi makes different decisions in the future uh because it's not funny to hear her so upset she her voice was breaking recently talking about the breakdown of of her marriage but of course this is the thing in Hollywood it seems to be a race to the bottom and they're no longer getting the reactions that they once got because people know what they're doing in the absence of talent you're just trying to give us sex

This is so peak mean girl behaviour that it's amazing. The faux sympathy for Cardi B's failing marriage, the attempt to hide the joy while focusing on the details of how the husband cheated "again and again," and on how Cardi's voice was breaking talking about the marriage, the semi-genuine attempt to pretend that this is about morality in America, and not personal resentment towards Cardi B, the classic christian girl "I'm not gossiping actually this is concerns all of us," all with Owen's nasal, toneless voice. I could consume it for hours.

The problem though, is that for the Trumps and the Owens and their fans, they're not the butt of the joke, their cruelty is 100% genuine; the cruelty is the point. Getting to be cruel is the point, and especially in regard to this christian-dirtbag-right, there seems to be little point, at all, except getting to be cruel.

So what we've done, in practice, is remove all media that makes fun of cruelty, and what is left is weenies and people who are actually cruel. As a civilised society, what we should do is play with cruelty like a cat plays with a dying bird, and when were done kill it, leave it, a little disgusted and go and eat better food in the kitchen.

Whoah imagine if a evil guy (who is not an image my own passion that I have to deal with through chivalry fantasies because of the contradiction in human sexuality between animalistic passion and anxiety-riddled concioussnes of my actions and their consequences) kidnapped a woman and tied her down with ropes and then sort of undressed her and thought about all the sadistic things he wanted to do to her?? And then I showed up bcs I'm chased and cool and respect women and had to save the day?? Wouldn't that be messed up

Summary

So I too miss cruel Regina George, I miss not being overrun by a happiness I am not experiencing in my game shows, video games, and media, I miss Peter Haber being asked by big black guys what a swedish pastry is called, I miss jokes that are intentionally chocking, but I don't want this cheap substitute of cruel politicians, cruel media-personalities, and a cruel society. I want cruelty to be an emotion that we can recognize and control and joke about, not one that must be taken so seriously that it's an either/or desicion between squandering it from public life or living it out unapologetically. And honestly, I think we're pretty capable of doing so.

So no, the new Mean Girls was not good, it was cringe, it was a flop, it wasn't even camp. I'm sure the excecutives will think it's because Oppenheimer wasn't released in the same week.∎