Mean Girls: A Musical Adaptation of the 2018 Broadway Production

Unique Points

• Mean Girls is leading the box office this weekend with a strong opening.
• The adaptation of the Broadway adaptation of Mean Girls earned $11.65 million from 3,791 theaters across Friday and preview screenings.
• It's expected to have a four-day opening of $31.5 million through Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday.

Accuracy

• The new Mean Girls is an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical.
• Renee Rapp serves not only vocals but also charm, humor, sexiness and bitchiness as Regina in the new movie. However, she is taken in a softer direction which is unsatisfactory given her purpose.

Deception (50%)

• The first sentence states that Mean Girls won the weekend at the box office. This is not true as Wonka finished first with a higher opening of $167 million.
• The title of the article mentions that 'Mean Girls' leads Beekeeper with a strong opening. However, this statement is misleading as it implies that Mean Girls has outperformed The Beekeeper when in reality, they are neck and neck for second place behind Wonka.

Fallacies (75%)

Bias (80%)

• Paramount changed its plans to release the movie directly on streaming after test screenings which suggests they were initially planning to make money from it without considering the potential impact on audiences
• The author uses language that dehumanizes those who hold different beliefs than themselves by referring to them as 'homeschooled Cady'
• The use of phrases such as 'formidable Regina George' reinforces negative stereotypes about women and their roles in society

Site Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

Author Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

Unique Points

• Rachel McAdams created one of the most iconic film characters of a generation as Regina George in the original movie.
• Lindsay Lohan embodied Cady Heron perfectly in the original movie.

Accuracy

• Renee Rapp serves not only vocals but also charm, humor, sexiness and bitchiness as Regina in the new movie. However, she is taken in a softer direction which is unsatisfactory given her purpose.
• Bullying now occurs on social media instead of landlines as it did in the original movie.

Deception (30%)

• The author uses language that implies a direct comparison between the two films when they are not actually being compared. For example, phrases such as 'How does the new film stack up against the original?' and 'We like that Regina's bitchy!' suggest a side-by-side comparison of their qualities, but this is not what is happening in reality.

Fallacies (85%)

• The author uses an appeal to authority when they say 'the new film promises at least in promotional materials that it “isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls.” (Mother?! That math doesn't add up.)'
• The author uses an appeal to authority when they say 'the new film is not a simple remake of the original but rather, an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical.'
• The author uses inflammatory rhetoric by saying 'Regina George “isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls.” (Mother?! That math doesn't add up.)'

Bias (80%)

• The article mentions that the film was not simply a remake but rather an adaptation from the 2018 Broadway musical. This implies that there may be some sort of monetary bias in trying to profit off Tina Fey's original work.
• The author uses the phrase 'isn't your mother's Mean Girls,' which is a reference to the original movie being from Tina Fey who is Jewish. This implies that there may be some sort of anti-Semitic sentiment towards her, as well as an attempt to make money off of her work by creating a new version of it.

Site Conflicts Of Interest (50%)

• Nadira Goffe acted in Mean Girls: The Musical as Tina Fey.

Author Conflicts Of Interest (50%)

Unique Points

• The new Mean Girls movie includes many punchlines from the first film, but with updates to reflect contemporary sensitivities and acknowledge two decades since its release.
• Bullying now occurs on social media instead of landlines as it did in the original movie.
• Asian jokes, sizeism slander, ableist language and pedophilia plots have been removed from the new movie.
• The cafeteria cliques are not categorized by racist stereotypes in the new version.
• Tina Fey wrote both screenplays for the original and new movies.
• Janis Ian has become Janis Imiike, who is now queer instead of being saddled with a last-minute heterosexual pairing with a male mathlete.
• Janis is also the narrator in the new movie along with her best friend Damian.
• Regina George attempts to use Janis's sexual orientation against her, but this time it doesn't lead to Janis being kicked out of school or labeled as weird.
• The apology exercise scene from the original movie has been updated in the new version to reflect a new generation's social ecosystem and underscore that women can be queer without letting it define them.
• Janis calls out insidious, unspoken ways in which women deceive and undercut each other for their own gain in her anthemic showstopper song.

Accuracy

• Bullying now occurs on social media instead of landlines as it did in the original movie.
• Regina George attempts to use Janis's sexual orientation against her, but this time it doesn't lead to Janis being kicked out of school or labeled as weird.

Deception (50%)

• The character Janis is now queer instead of being saddled with a last-minute heterosexual pairing with a male mathlete. This change allows for her to be bullied less based on her sexual orientation, as she was in the original movie.

Fallacies (90%)

• Janis Ian has become Janis Imiike and she is now actually queer instead of being saddled with a last-minute heterosexual pairing with a male mathlete. And in a particularly satisfying twist, she's also the new movie’s narrator, along with the other out queer character, her best friend Damian.

Bias (100%)

None Found At Time Of Publication

Site Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

Author Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

• The article mentions Tina Fey and Lizzy Caplan, both of whom have been involved in social media controversies that may compromise their objectivity on this topic.
• The author discusses Janis Ian's experiences with bullying which could be seen as a personal conflict of interest for the author since they are discussing someone who was bullied in high school.

Unique Points

• The movie musical version of Mean Girls is a hit adaptation of the 2004 film.
• It was written by Tina Fey and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.
• Angourie Rice stars as Cady Heron, who transplanted from Africa to an American high school with her zoologist mother Jenna Fischer.

Accuracy

No Contradictions at Time Of Publication

Deception (30%)

• . . . Everything that made the original picture so sly, funny, and affecting is gone.

Fallacies (75%)

• Musicals—certainly this type of musical—are supposed to be pure pleasure
• Mean Girls comes off as enforced fun, a kind of bullying disguised as entertainment
• characters behave reprehensibly and then use faux feminism as a shield

Bias (85%)

• > Janis (Auli'i Cravalho) provides a friendly place for her to sit in the lunchroom, helping her to distinguish among the school's various cliques, and urging her to avoid one in particular. The girls known as the Plastics, they tell her,

Site Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

Author Conflicts Of Interest (0%)

None Found At Time Of Publication

Unique Points

• The Beekeeper is a January thriller directed by David Ayer.
• Jason Statham plays the titular character in The Beekeeper, John Wick.

Accuracy

No Contradictions at Time Of Publication

Deception (30%)

• The title of the movie review implies that it will be a critical analysis of John Wick: Chapter 4.

Fallacies (75%)

• The author uses an appeal to authority by stating that the film is a derivative and rough around the edges without providing any evidence or reasoning for this claim.
• There are multiple instances of inflammatory rhetoric used throughout the review such as calling it 'serviceable schlock' and describing some lines as 'rubbish'.
• The author uses dichotomous depiction by stating that Statham knows exactly what to do in the film while simultaneously criticizing his performance.
• There are multiple examples of informal fallacies throughout the review such as using slang ('swarming') and exaggeration ('a solid, low-stakes medium reward new year').

Bias (70%)

• If you’re not in the market for what David Ayer is forcefully selling in batty January thriller The Beekeeper at the point when someone says to the titular character, “To bee or not to bee, that is the bloody question,” then you might as well just give up and walk out. By this stage, late in the film, Ayer and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer have given us just about enough bee puns,

Site Conflicts Of Interest (50%)

• The article mentions that 'John Wick' was directed by David Ayer who also worked on The Beekeeper. This suggests a financial tie between the two projects, which could compromise the author's ability to act objective and impartially when reviewing John Wick.

Author Conflicts Of Interest (0%)