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come-see-our-show · 1 year ago

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I saw an early screening of the Mean Girls movie last night, so here is a summary of my thoughts, comparing the movie musical to the Broadway musical, which I was lucky enough to see live in 2018!

Changed that I liked:

The usage of social media in the Broadway show made it very clear that it was written by adults who didn’t know much about Gen-Z. It was probably one of the worst parts of the show in my opinion. But Tina Fey must have done her research since 2018, because the way the movie uses TikTok, memes, vlogging, and FaceTime to push the story forward worked VERY well. I think there were some influencer cameos, but it didn’t feel they were included to show how “young and hip” they were, It actually added authenticity.

The diversity within the cast and changing last names to reflect the characters’ backgrounds (Karen Smith ➡️ Karen Shetty, Janis Sarkisian ➡️ Janis 'Imi'ike)

Cutting down “Meet the Plastics.” It’s a very exposition-heavy song and doesn’t need to be super long, even though the full version is quite catchy and fun.

All of the new jokes landed so well, probably because Tina Fey’s writing style is better suited for the screen as opposed to the stage.

This is more of a comparison of the musical vs. the original film, but a big change was The Plastics’ weaponized wokeness (which I talk about here).

The production design for most of the songs was very different. The stage musical has a lot of rock songs, which were changed to a pop sound for the movie. I personally prefer rock musicals, but it was a good way to give the movie a separate identity from its predecessor so it doesn’t risk becoming a carbon copy. It worked on some songs (“Someone Gets Hurt” and “World Burn”) but not on others (“A Cautionary Tale” and “Revenge Party”).

Cutting the joke about Regina’s ass being big. It was a very low-brow joke, which I’m not a fan of, and was just really immature. Thank God that was changed to her falling, which still shows her being embarrassed without her body being the joke.

Explicitly making Janis a lesbian! (It’s only implied in the stage show with “It’s not even true… I only have one butt”) And she goes to prom with a girl while Damien dances with a boy! ALSO THERE’S REJANIS LORE AND IT’S SO HEARTBREAKING I LOVE IT

megan thee stallion just… being there

Miss Norbury and Principal Duvall being a couple and owning a dog together!!!

As a low mezzo, I appreciated whoever decided to lower the key for “I’d Rather Be Me.” I felt very represented 🩷

Having Cady be raised in a single-parent household so it focuses in more on her relationship with her mom. Jenna Fischer was so motherly and sincere and brought a warmth to the movie. Their scene together near the end made me emotional (you’re never too old to ask your parent to stay with you until you fall asleep) (also this is my request to make jenna fischer my mom)

Changes that I didn’t like:

Cutting BOTH of Damian’s solos??? (SHE’S LEAVING!!!!!!!! JUST LIKE MY DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Cutting “More Is Better.” It wasn’t necessarily a memorable song, but it did give both Cady and Aaron more depth, both as separate characters and within their relationship.

While cutting some of the songs helped with pacing, cutting HALF of the score made me forget that it was a musical sometimes, which sucks because I really like musicals!!!

Other stuff:

The movie was marketed horribly. One of my friends didn’t even know it was gonna be a musical because there were no songs in the trailers 💀 (Also, this isn’t just a Mean Girls problem. The Color Purple also didn’t have any songs in the trailer. I didn’t even know Wonka was a musical until I saw it in theaters, so that was a bit of a shock.) If you’re producing a musical movie, maybe your focus groups should be musical fans, because that’s still a HUGE market.

Auliʻi Cravalho’s voice is STUNNING! She and Jaquel Spivey had great chemistry and their friendship felt so genuine!

The opening and ending transitions from the garage were everything to me

The EDITING

Angourie Rice is a great actor and fit Cady perfectly… except for her singing. Out of the entire cast she was easily the weakest in terms of vocals and it was pretty disappointing since she’s the LEAD. I could barely hear her in the new song “What Ifs” because of how quiet and breathy she was. I think it’s a better written song compared to “Roar” though.

Jon Hamm cameo!

Ashley Park cameo!

I cannot stress enough how funny this movie was. I was probably laughing louder than everyone else in the theatre.

I lost my shit during “Meet the Plastics” when Regina unzipped her jacket and Cady was staring at her boobs. She’s just like me fr 🏳️‍🌈

I know that Regina is a horrible person but I couldn’t find it in me to dislike her in the slightest. She just served too much cunt 😩

Christopher Briney is a good actor, but I don't think he was the right choice for Aaron Samuels. I would hate to ridicule anyone for their looks, but it still plays an important part in casting. Aaron is supposed to be a somewhat naive, wholesome, hot jock (and Regina has high standards, so he better be a fucking model). Briney is definitely a cutie, but gives off “smoldering badboy with a secret sensitive side” energy, which isn’t what Aaron should be.

The fantasy sequences (Stupid With Love, Revenge Party, October 3rd). I LOVE when movie musicals USE the medium to tell stories in a way that they can’t on a stage!!!

THE CHOREO!!! Everyone freezing then shaking in “Someone Get Hurt” AHHHH that entire number was HYPNOTIZING!!!!!!!!!!! My friend told me the choreographer’s name is Kyle Hanagami, so shout out to him. (also reneé rapp was so fucking hot while singing that oh my lord)

I will be calling my pimples “face breasts” from now on (avantika ilysm)

DAMIAN’S FRENCH COVER OF THE ICARLY THEME SONG 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

why was there a 0.5 camera shot of cady during revenge party 💀

“I’d Rather Be Me” was so much fun and I felt so fucking empowered. And the transition from the song to the bus was just *chef’s kiss*

“donut worry i am still your freend” 🥺

Lindsay Lohan cameo!!!!!!!!!

NOT ENOUGH RENEÉ RAPP 😭😭

Overall, the movie was not perfect, but the Broadway show already had plenty of flaws, so it’s understandably how that would affect the adaptation. I still a LOT of fun and would definitely see it again. Go stream Snow Angel by Reneé Rapp. i love women 🥰🥰🥰

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damthosefandoms · 21 days ago

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clothes, shoes, diamond rings, stuff that's driving me insane

(ao3 link) (based on this post)

Summary:

Soda is allowing himself to be selfish, just this once. Just about this. Because they promised, okay?

The diamond’s burning a hole in his pocket.

Soda’s parents have been dead for all of thirteen days, and he doesn’t really feel like a person anymore. He’s had a smile plastered on his face, the same one he’s always got on when the going gets rough—he once grinned his way to the hospital after he fell off a horse and tore his ACL. He kept it going after Mickey Mouse got shipped off to that ranch out in Garyville. He smiles every morning even though he dreads nothing more than going to school.

Finally he’s found something he hates more than school, but he’s still got to keep smiling, because the alternative—the way Darry’s working himself to death or how Ponyboy hasn’t spoken to anyone since they got the news—doesn’t really seem like an option. Their parents wouldn’t want that, Soda thinks… but he’ll never get to ask them what they want ever again.

The hospital sent Darry home with whatever they could salvage from the wreck, when he went to identify them. He and Dally walked back into the house, and Darry ran to the bathroom to throw up—who could blame him, after that?—and Dally wordlessly handed the small package over to Soda.

Their mom’s purse, their dad’s wallet, the rings—the first thing Soda pulled out was his dad’s dogtags, from Korea, where he spent all of the year after Soda was born. He hung the chain around his neck, sat back on the couch, and cried. He doesn’t really remember much else, and hasn't taken them off since. He knows Ponyboy dug through the rest. He probably found the rings in there, Soda assumes, and put it all back in their parents’ room for Darry to pick through later on. At this point, he kind of wishes they’d been lost in the accident, because it would’ve saved him so much grief.

“Why’d you go?” Soda asks him today, as they’re standing out in the stable Buck Merrill keeps his rodeo horses in. His parents—and by extension, now Darry—never allow Soda to come out to Buck’s, not unless they’re going to pick up or drop off Dally, but again: Soda’s parents are dead, and who the hell is going to care? So now he’s spent every afternoon here, the only place he can think when he needs to be alone, while Darry’s distracted trying to do everything all at once, and Ponyboy chainsmokes on the front porch with Johnny.

“Go where?”

“To the hospital. With Darry.”

Dally doesn’t respond for a second. He hands Soda a brush and motions for him to get to work, if he’s going to hang around. The horses aren’t going to groom themselves, and he knows damn well that Soda needs it, in the moment.

“I don’t know, man. He sure as hell wasn’t gonna drive himself that night, was he?”

But Dallas Winston is more complicated than that, and Soda knows it. Dally—by his own admission, if he wasn’t making it up for street cred—has seen a dead body before, and there was one time—once, in the dead of night, in the first few weeks after Dally got back from New York and was sleeping off that whole horrible experience on Soda’s living room couch—where he told Soda about it. Lifeless eyes, and the smell, the cold hands… Soda had forgotten about his midnight snack in favor of forcing a hug on somebody who might’ve stabbed him for it, had he not been at his lowest point. Dally might not be the most mentally stable kid around, but Soda is sure he wouldn’t just willingly put himself through that kind of conversation again.

He has no idea why he even got to hear any of it. He and Dally probably wouldn’t even be friends if they didn’t share a love of horses, or for those times Soda would get so frustrated doing his homework he’d run all the way to the playground and sit on the swings until someone came to find him. Dally would always be there, leaning against the post as Soda swung back and forth, and they’d talk about everything and nothing until Soda’s mom would come marching through the park to them, and would tell—not ask—Dally to come home with them for dinner. And he would.

“You’ve got quite a mom. She knows the score.”

Soda knows that if his parents had a say, Dally wouldn’t be living above a glorified bar at seventeen years old. They’d also probably not have gotten hit by that train, but you know, semantics.

“That’s a load of bull. You know exactly why you went.”

“Well, if you’re already so sure, don’t ask stupid questions you know the stupid answers to, Curtis.”

The horse he’s brushing lets out a contented whinny, and Soda treasures it. There is some good still left in the world, he tells himself. There are so many things worth keeping your head up for. Like horses, and brothers, even if they’re tearing you apart.

“For what it’s worth, Dal, my mama really—”

“Why’re you here?”

Straight to the point, then. Soda reaches into his pocket and pulls out his treasure.

“Shit, man, is that a real diamond?”

“It’s worth more than my whole house.”

And it is. His mom’s engagement ring is a family heirloom; Soda doesn’t know how far back it goes, but it’s been in his dad’s family for generations, and somewhere—very far—back, somebody must’ve had some money, because the stone on his mom’s engagement ring might not be very big, but it’s just as real as anything sitting collecting dust in a soc’s jewelry box. It’s the most precious thing their family owns. Soda closes his fist around the ring and holds it against his chest. It is worth more than his whole house. It’s worth everything… to him.

“My brothers want to bury her with it,” Soda says, trying not to let his voice shake. “They wanna put their rings back on them. But I can’t… they promised me I could have them, one day. Not just this one, the wedding rings too, to use however I see fit. But they’re mine and I just can’t let them go like that. I don’t give a damn what Ponyboy or Darrel want, if there’s no Will… they’re mine.”

Soda’s dad proposed to his mother after a few months of dating. It kind of came with the territory of getting a girl knocked up at twenty years old, and they sure didn’t have any kind of dream wedding. His mother and father had a marriage license and a tiny ceremony at the church his father grew up going to, with Grandpa Pat and his dad’s brothers as the only witnesses.

His mom’s family wanted nothing to do with her after they found out she was pregnant. Darry’s never even met any of them, and he’s met basically everybody—partially because most of their extended family who stuck around died before Pony was even born, or at least before Soda can remember. Soda keeps wondering to himself these days if his mom’s family will come to the funeral, or if Darry’s wasting stamps on the invitations.

The wedding rings are cheap and probably not worth much at all, but Soda treasures them with his whole heart because he knows what they meant to his parents.

His dad had come home from work on a bright sunny day in April, and Soda had never heard the word anniversary before, but it made his mama smile when his dad brought it up. He’d brought her flowers and a small box and Soda remembers Ponyboy—two and half years old at the time—was pulling at their mom’s skirt to try to get her attention, but she couldn’t take her eyes off their dad. How Dad had made a whole scene, getting down on one knee. Darry had rolled his eyes and said, “but you’re already married!” as if either of their parents cared.

It wasn’t about that. It was about the gesture. It was about the symbol of their love that they’d gone ten years without, and even if they didn’t need it, it was something they wanted anyway. They were being selfish, but they didn’t care.

In hindsight, Soda thinks that’s the first time he ever realized what true love looks like.

Today, his parents are sitting in a hospital morgue, or maybe a funeral home, or somewhere between—Darry knows the details and Sodapop’s too afraid to ask for specifics—and Soda’s got their rings in his pocket.

And Darry wants to take them from him. The last bit of their parents’ love, and he wants to bury that with their cold, dead bodies. It makes Soda sick.

“Why’d you come to me?” Dallas asks, and this time he’s looking directly at Soda, which is odd, because usually if Dally’s going to help you, he’s at least going to pretend he doesn’t want to. But these days, everyone seems to have lost their minds, so Soda figures it’s just the grief.

“Darry told me to quit bein’ a baby about it. So I am. You’re gonna hide ‘em for me,” Soda says, handing him the rings, “and then we’re gonna go get in a fight, and I’m gonna lie to my brothers.”

Dallas, ever true to himself, doesn’t blink an eye.

---

Soda can’t focus on much of anything, between the feeling of adrenaline coursing through his veins, the pounding feeling in his head from being punched right square in the eye, and Dally’s maniacal laughter as he slams the door behind them.

It’s not long before Ponyboy’s leaping up from the couch, crying out, “Who hit ya?!?” and Darry’s stomping through the doorway from the kitchen and demanding to know what the hell happened.

Dally regales Soda’s brothers (and the rest of the gang who seem to have all gathered under their roof just in time for dinner) with a tale that Soda’s sure is only partially accurate to how the rest of their day had gone since they left Buck’s.

It’s the first time any of them have gotten into any sort of trouble since the accident, and to his credit, Ponyboy seems only sort of shaken up at the sight of his brother’s bruised face. He grabs Soda’s hand and leads him into the kitchen, snatches a bag of frozen peas out of the good ol’ ice box and plants it against Soda’s eye.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Ponyboy starts to mutter, but Soda ignores him. He doesn’t want to hear it. He has to focus all his energy right now into lying to Darry—the only person he’s never lied to before. Not even a little fib.

His older brother is his hero and his confidant, and it’s hard to look someone like that in the eye and say anything but the truth. Ponyboy, on the other hand, might be Soda’s closest friend and mean everything to him, but god—sometimes you have to lie to your little brother. You know, about things like Santa Claus, and how many girls you’ve kissed, and that he doesn’t look silly when he tucks his shirt in like that.

It’s for Pony’s own good, really. Besides, the kid backed Darry (something he never does!) on the one thing Soda’s wanted for himself since that horrible night, and it’s not fair they chose that moment to agree on something.

“Soda, I know what those rings mean to you, but I just feel like—”

“Do me a favor and can it, Pony.”

Maybe it’s cruel, and he knows that he’s the only reason Ponyboy’s been getting out of bed in the morning lately, but god, they’re still brothers and he’s still angry, and the guilt of being selfish about this is eating him alive. Sue him for snapping. Their parents are fucking dead. He’ll get it together some other time and spend the rest of his life trying to make up for the look on his little brother’s face now.

He hears Dally in the living room, getting to the part where he says they got jumped—and Soda pushes up from his seat at the kitchen table and calls out: “We didn’t get jumped, we got mugged.”

The whole gang is looking at him now, standing in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the door frame that all the Curtis kids have been measuring their heights on since Grandpa Pat was still in diapers. The whole gang’s marked on there now, too.

It’s not really something anyone talks about, because at the end of the day the result is just the same, but there’s a difference between getting jumped and being mugged. Getting jumped is greasers blowing off steam or socs having fun. Getting mugged is a real crime, somebody dangerous trying to hurt you and take away anything from your wallet to your dignity. It’s something you could actually go to the cops about, because if you word it right, they might even give half a shit. And today Soda’s using that phrasing to get his brothers to believe him. He feels like shit for it. But at least he’s feeling something other than grief.

He’s allowing himself to be selfish after all these years—and an especially hard past thirteen days— of existing solely for others.

“Dal’s just tryna hype me up,” Soda says, and he can feel Pony’s eyes searing into his skin from behind him. ��Like he said, he was with me ‘cause I stopped at Buck’s to see the horses before we went to get the rings cleaned. This guy came up when we were walkin’ back, we got in a fight—but he had a heater and you don’t mess around with that.”

Soda has to sell this. He looks at Darry, at his older brother who has just told them a few days earlier how he’s going to sacrifice everything he’s ever worked towards, everything he’s ever held dear or dreamed of, to take care of Sodapop and Ponyboy so they can stay together, and his guilt overtakes him. Suddenly, the tears—familiar as they are—come easily.

“The rings are gone, Dar.”

And Soda gets his way.

---

It doesn’t matter who the father is. Soda has known what true love looks like since he was five years old and his dad asked his mother to remarry him at home in their tiny kitchen while Darry complained they were being ridiculous and that he was going to be late for football practice. He knows how he feels about Sandy and he doesn’t really care what she did. But he knows what he needs to do to try to make things right.

And maybe that’s why he went to Buck’s that day, stomping right past the old cowboy and up to Dally’s room. Maybe that’s why he picked the lock—hanging out with Two-Bit Mathews kinda lends itself towards learning skills like that—and maybe that’s why Dally finds Soda there, when he should be behind the counter at the DX, tearing his friend’s room apart.

“Hey! You got a death wish or somethin’?” Dally yells, and Soda should probably care more, because he’s got a point—you’ve got to have officially lost it to go digging through Dallas Winston’s stuff.

“Where’re the rings?”

“What?”

“The rings, Dal, my parents’ rings, I need them.”

“You need ‘em.”

“Yeah,” Soda says. “I’m gonna marry Sandy.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dally laughs. “Marry her. You are nuts. What’re you doing that for? Don’t you got more to worry about right now?”

“Her parents are makin’ her move to Florida! I oughta make things right, maybe if I do, she’ll stay, you dig?” Soda crosses his arms as he tries to defend himself, and when he notices the look on Soda’s face, Dally’s laughter trails off, like something else has occurred to him.

“…No fuckin’ way, Sodapop Curtis, you did not.”

Dally’s got his signature shit-eating grin spreading across his face, and even with everything going on in the last week, he’s got the nerve to laugh.

“No, I didn’t, and don’t you start judgin’ me, Dallas, ‘cause it ain’t like you didn’t go back to your girl after she did the same damn thing, an’—and Sandy—she…”

Soda’s voice trails off when his eyes land on a navy-blue sweatshirt thrown over the back of Dally’s relatively-unused desk chair.

The sleeves are cut off, just like the tags.

The color drains from Soda’s face. He feels sick.

“You know where they are.”

“The rings? Yeah, yeah, they’re in—”

Soda snatches the sweatshirt off the chair—the one that used to be his, that Ponyboy wears everywhere now that it fits him better, the one that he was wearing on Friday night—and holds it up with two shaking hands.

“Ponyboy was here, wasn’t he? He— where is he, Dally?”

Dally doesn’t answer, just lights another cigarette, and Soda’s lip starts to tremble. His stomach twists. He can’t help it, and he’s been accused of faking it before, to get out of going to school, or because he didn’t want whatever was being made for dinner and he’s picky, or because of a million other reasons. It’s exhausting being the local crybaby when you genuinely can’t help it. When you’re a nearly seventeen-year-old boy and you shouldn’t ever shed a tear over anything but your body can’t seem to get the memo.

Crying is as cathartic for him as fighting is. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop, and the thing is, he’s so insanely jealous of people like Johnny Cade, who in all their years of knowing each other Soda’s only ever seen cry once—when those socs beat the living hell out of him—and Dallas, who makes the thought of it seem laughable. Real hard to break the kid who’s beyond broken.

“Don’t fuckin’—hey, Sodapop, don’t you fuckin’ cry, man.”

He tries. He sniffs. Dally groans and presses his palms into his eyes exasperatedly. Soda wipes at his face with his sleeve.

“Can’t help it.”

“Would you just—ugh.” Dally looks around the room, and then walks over to the desk, ripping the drawer open and digging around for something. He throws whatever it is on the desk, and grabs Soda, shoving him into the chair.

“Write him a letter, or some shit. I’ll make sure it gets to him, but I’m only doin’ this once, so make it count, man. I’ll go find those rings for you so you can get the hell out.”

Dally turns on his heel and walks out, and Soda hears him mutter something along the lines of “fuckin’ Crybaby Curtis over here” as he walks out.

Soda reaches for the pen with his right hand, puts it on the paper and prints his brother’s name in shaky chicken scratch. He sniffs again and bites back some tears, switching the pen to his left and getting comfortable.

Well, I guess you got into some trouble, huh?

Dally comes back twenty minutes later and asks if Soda can read his own handwriting.

Doesn’t matter, because he knows Ponyboy can figure it out, backwards letters and all.

Soda heads back home, fidgeting with his parents’ rings in his coat pocket. He daydreams about proposing to Sandy, twirling her around with the sun shining through the kitchen window. She’s supposed to look like an angel. She’s supposed to look like there’s nothing else in the world but the two of them. But in his mind she doesn’t, she won’t meet his eyes, and the kids at the dinner table laughing at them don’t look anything like him.

---

The holidays are coming up. It doesn’t feel like it, not with so many people missing from their lives.

Soda kicks off his sneakers by the door, takes in the sight of his poor little brother, laying back on the couch with cartoons blaring on the television set. Soda figures it could be worse; this time a month ago, he was still in a borderline catatonic state over what happened to their friends, and now he’s got his sketchbook back out. Soda pretends he can’t see the extra attention Pony’s paying to the shape of Johnny’s big, dark eyes and hangs his coat up.

He slips into the kitchen and expects dinner to be getting cold already, since Darry’s getting out early these days due to the weather and lack of light, but instead there’s nothing in there but Darry with his head down on the table.

“You feelin’ alright?” Soda asks, and he goes to feel Darry’s forehead, but his brother just lifts his head, and shakes it.

“I wish Santa Claus was real,” Darry mumbles, and Soda tries to feel his forehead again, ‘cause that’s quite a statement for the almost twenty-one-year-old, and Darry bats his hand away.

“You know what I really wish, Soda? I wish we still had Mom and Dad’s rings. Especially Mom’s engagement ring.”

Soda hopes he doesn’t look as green as he feels.

“You’re the one who wanted to bury them,” he mutters, and he hopes Darry doesn’t see him swallow.

“An’ now I think you had the right idea. I mean, glory, selling that diamond alone could go a long way.” Darry laughs humorlessly.

“I ain’t got a clue how in the hell I’m supposed to get y’all presents this year. We got the hospital bill today, you know. From when Pony got sick after Windrixville, and… I think I can get help from the state for some of it, but it’s cutting it close, Soda. Ain’t gonna be no spending money, even with you helpin’ out. I mean, it’s gonna be so close—with the electric bill, the hot water—”

Soda thinks about the rings, sitting buried in an old shoebox underneath his bed, in his old room just down the hall. He thinks about how horrible he felt last January, looking Darry in the eyes and lying to him, saying he lost part of their parents forever. How that diamond ring, their only real family heirloom, burned a hole in his pocket as he asked Dally to help him keep it safe where his brothers couldn’t take it from him, because you couldn’t trust Dallas Winston for little things but he was always, always good for his word when it came to something that mattered.

Soda’s given everything to his brothers this last year, and maybe he’s given all of himself to everyone his whole life, but today—today he’s still going to be selfish, because he deserves it, just for this one thing.

“The holidays ain’t really about presents, Darrel,” he says, sitting down and putting a hand on his brother's shoulder.

“We oughta just be glad we have each other, ‘cause god knows we don’t have much of anything else.”

Except their parents’ rings. But he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to convince himself he deserves this. Even if it makes him sick.

Because his parents loved each other, and they loved him, and they promised.

#sodapop curtis #ponyboy curtis #darry curtis #dallas winston #the outsiders #curtis brothers #the outsiders broadway #the outsiders musical #the outsiders book #the outsiders 1983 #this one is honestly much more book canon lol #soda dally friendship my beloved #horse girl soda my beloved #I’m pushing Crybaby Curtis so hard #julie writes stuff #my post

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