Jennifer Keishin Armstrong on Mean Girls and Its Continuing Influence on Pop Culture, Teen Movies, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and So Much More

Surprise! I’m here with a bonus episode today celebrating the pop culture juggernaut that is Mean Girls, in honor of the release of the musical film yesterday. To talk about Mean Girls—yes, the 2024 film, but also the 2004 original film and the Broadway musical, which debuted in 2018—I have Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, who has actually been on the show before. She joined me in late 2021 to chat about Sex and the City and she’s back today to talk about another pop culture phenomenon we both love. Jennifer is a New York Times bestselling author and a pop culture historian, and her latest book, So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (and Why We’re Still So Obsessed with It) comes out January 16. Interestingly enough, Jennifer and her publisher did not time the book’s release four days after the new Mean Girls movie on purpose—it just worked out that way. Talk about happenstance! As we approach the 20-year anniversary of the 2004 original in April, I’m wondering: will we ever see a proper Mean Girls 2 featuring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert? After all, three of the four original Plastics did do a commercial together late last year. What is the Broadway musical like, and is the new movie worth seeing? Do younger generations relate to the original film like my generation did? (After all, we were in high school at the time and the movie’s target audience.) What are some behind-the-scenes details about the filming of the movie we might not know? I have questions, and Jennifer has all the answers. So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (and Why We’re Still So Obsessed with It) by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong