So Fetch

November 20, 2023
“Get in, loser. We’re going back to 2004,” writes entertainment journalist Armstrong (When Women Invented Television) in this fun look at the making and legacy of the high school comedy Mean Girls. She describes how Tina Fey, then head writer at Saturday Night Live, was drawn to the “nasty and violent” behavior of the high schoolers described in Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes, a 2002 exposé of “how girls leverage gossip, social pressure, and friendship... to bully others,” and loosely adapted the book for her first screenplay. Plentiful behind-the-scenes anecdotes offer intriguing tidbits about creative paths not taken (star Lindsay Lohan wanted the role of villain Regina George before studio executives got cold feet about the actor playing against type) and highlight the film’s talented ensemble, as when Armstrong describes how Rajiv Surendra, who played “rapping Mathlete Kevin G.,” pushed himself to lean into the raunchiness of his character’s talent show rap. Armstrong also examines how ubiquitous memes quoting the movie have extended its legacy, and she details the making of the Broadway musical adaptation. Armstrong’s account of the shooting of Mean Girls emulates the breezy enjoyability of the film while offering thoughtful commentary on how “taking young women’s problems seriously while also being very funny” proved central to the film’s appeal. Fans will be riveted. Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore & Co.

January 12, 2024
Mean Girls, the 2004 high-school comedy written by Tina Fey, was an unexpected smash hit. Everyone involved thought it would do decently at the box office, but who expected it to become a cultural phenomenon? That its characters and dialogue would be not only remembered but also quoted and even emulated decades later? Nobody saw that coming. It was, as Armstrong explains, one of those rare circumstances when all the right things came together at the right time: a brilliant cast, including rising stars Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Amanda Seyfried; a script that was funny but also perceptive and dramatic; a director, Mark Waters, who had just done the very successful teen comedy Freaky Friday; and an audience that had, as it turned out, been waiting for exactly this kind of movie. And let's not forget the still-new-ish internet, which let fans talk to each other about the movie, circulate images and quotes, and create memes that still exist. Armstrong tells the story of the movie's production in the kind of detail that fans of ""making-of"" books really appreciate, but does much more than that: She explores the impact of the movie, the way it became part of the culture and the way its success affected its young cast (most prominently Lohan). For fans of the original movie, this is an absolute must-read.

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