Mean Girls is officially 15 years old.
It's been a decade and a half since Cady, Regina, Karen and Gretchen entered our lives and to mark the occasion, Digital Spy's sister site Cosmopolitan UK spoke to members of the cast as well as the film's director, Mark Waters, about what it was like to be behind the camera of such an iconic teen film.
As 15 years have gone by, Waters was asked if anything would be different if the film was released now, instead of in 2004. Aside from animal print and slip skirts replacing ra-ra skirts and crop tops, of course.
"Certainly," Mark told Cosmopolitan UK. "There's a lot in the movie that is very 'un-PC'. I would think there would be more micro-managing over things you should or should not be portraying with teenage girls doing to each other and the way they relate to boys.
"It's hard for me to delve into what would or would not be considered too 'un-PC', but we made light-hearted jokes about the gym coach having affairs with the students with lines like: 'Step away from the underage girls'.
"You can’t really make that joke, it's very transgressive. We did it in a light-hearted no big deal way, but it is a pretty big deal."
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Another aspect that would have evolved as time has gone on is the use of smartphones and social media. Obviously now, in 2019, that's a huge part of being a teenager. In 2004, phones and social media as we know it were just becoming a thing.
"If you've seen the Broadway musical, there's a massive component of social media and devices that didn't exist then, it really wasn't an issue," Mark explained.
"We had cell phones, but the whole era of texting and social media didn't exist. The way that teen bullying goes on these days is over devices as opposed to physically from person to person anymore.
"Even those ideas of having the four-way phone calling seems incredible quaint these days with people talking on their landline."
Just imagine if we didn't have this moment:
Related: Gossip Girl star Blake Lively was very nearly in Mean Girls
Jan Caruana, who played Emma Gerber in the film, also reflected on what would happen if Mean Girls got the reboot treatment.
"Let's face it high school is a full nightmare and I can't imagine going now with social media. The burn book would be like on Snapchat or whatever," she told Cosmopolitan UK.
"Instead of just dealing with it by saying 'this book sucks' and tearing it up, it would be way more widespread because it would be out there forever."
Hmm. With that in mind, we might re-watch while giving thanks that the film pre-dated Instagram Stories.
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Olivia Blair is Entertainment Editor (Luxury) at Hearst UK, working across ELLE, Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. Olivia covers all things entertainment and has interviewed the likes of Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Michaela Coel and Ryan Gosling over the years.
