This song cut from the 2024 Mean Girls movie could’ve saved Cady’s arc
Like many theatrical adaptations of stage musicals, Mean Girls(2024) doesn’t include all the songs from the Broadway version. After all, the musical has a two-and-a-half-hour run time, which wouldn’t translate well into a breezy, snappy film. Directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. had to make some cuts.
Some of the movie’s trims work out. Many of the cut songs are reprises, or numbers that heavily feature protagonist Cady Heron — but Angourie Rice, who plays Cady in the 2024 movie, doesn’t have the voice for those songs. (Case in point: Jaquel Spivey as Damian takes over her soaring, belt-heavy part in “Apex Predator.”) Some of the more fun songs have been cut down — like “Meet the Plastics.” In the movie, it’s just an intro for head mean girl Regina George (Reneé Rapp). But the original version features a unique intro for each member of her clique, which helps solidify their distinct, hilarious personalities. Few of those parings have any real impact on the plot, though.
Except for one critical moment.
In the Broadway musical, Damian leads a song called “Stop,” where he calls Cady out for turning into Regina. He’s trying to get Cady to pump the brakes on the mega-bitch personality she’s started to take on, as her project to infiltrate the Plastics by pretending to become one of them stops being pretend. It’s a fun song for Damian (and seeing Spivey take on the tap dancing would’ve been a great moment in the movie), but it also provides some key context for Cady’s character development.
The new Mean Girls doesn’t really do enough to hammer home Cady’s heel-turn into the new Regina. That’s a key part of the original movie, where Lindsay Lohan’s voice-over helps sell Cady’s increasing obsession with Regina and taking up her lifestyle. In Mean Girls (2024), the change is startlingly abrupt. Immediately following Regina’s very public fall (physical and metaphorical) at the winter talent show, Cady becomes the center of attention on social media. The next scene
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