New York City – My review of the Mean Girls musical!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was lucky enough to be able to see both the Frozen musical and the Mean Girls musical during our short interlude in New York City. In my review I gave the Frozen musical a B+, and in this post I’ll write a bit about what I thought about Mean Girls. Warning: It’s a bit more passionate and angry.

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Note: we are currently in Northeast Brasil. This place is crazy awesome and beautiful but has less crazy awesome internet connectivity. So, I’m recapping a bit of our time in New York until then (packing, etc.) and as soon as we can get our pictures up on the interwebs I’ll share more about our travels on this blog. If you want a sneak peek of the beachy, sand-dune-y gorgeous-ness you can look at our Instagram here.

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To give a little background, I went to see the Mean Girls musical on a Thursday, two days after seeing Frozen and also two days after the Tony nominations came out. I was already excited to see the show but became even more so when it led the way with 12 Tony nominations (along with SpongeBob Squarepants – which I’ve also heard good things about).

I went to the show with my husband, Damian, and a dear friend, Hiral. We showed up to the theater about 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start, waited in line to get in, did the very important pre-show pee and headed to our seats!

My grade for the Mean Girls musical: C

So let’s not beat around the bush. Mean Girls is an amazing movie. Tina Fey is an amazing writer and comic. This story is a great one to translate to Broadway. There are a lot of leads for women. And there were definitely things I liked about the show. But, i]on one very personal point it deeply missed the mark, and it brought down the whole experience for me.

What I liked about the show

The cast. I have to say, the show did an amazing job casting this show. I had seen Taylor Louderman in both the Bring It On: The Musical and in Kinky Boots. I thought she did a good job in both (though coming after Annaleigh Ashford is a near-impossible task). But this is her moment to shine. Louderman originates the role of Regina George in the Mean Girls musical, and her voice and acting steal the show. In the stage version the script amps up the roles of Janice and Damian, and Barrett Wilbert Weed and Grey Henson are both great in those roles. And finally, Kerry Butler, who plays Cady’s mom, Regina’s mom and Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey’s character in the movie) was awesome! Often times these multi-part roles go under appreciated but her acting skills especially were on point.

The scenery. The set designers were super smart and creative in designing this show. They used a number of hi-res LED screens to project background images and then had stage sets / props in front of the screens, to give a fuller visual effect. It sounds a little cheesy, I know, but it actually worked really well.

The nostalgia. I mean, I can’t let this go unsaid! The Mean Girls movie is such a classic, and especially those around my age have such strong memories of watching it during our formative high-school and college years. There were literally points in the show where people started cheering in anticipation (e.g., right before Damian says “She doesn’t even go here!”). Reliving those years and memories collectively with the rest of the audience was special.

What I hated about the show

So there were probably more things that I liked less / didn’t like about the show, but I can’t seem to focus on thinking about them or writing about them when there is one big one that really, really bothered me.

Why in the world is the Mean Girls musical perpetuating racial stereotypes with their casting?

I’ll give some more detail before I go off. A significant part of the story of Mean Girls is how Cady (the main character) is really good at math, pretends to be bad at math to impress a boy, gets in trouble and then has to join the Mathletes to make up for her bad grade. In the movie, which came out in 2004, the Mathletes captain is Indian, because, of course, Indians are all nerds who are good at math (insert eye roll here).

However, here we sit, fourteen years later, after Hamilton has changed the course of what certain characters “need” to look like, and the Mean Girls musical perpetuates the Indian-math-geek-nerd stereotype. In a cast of ~28 people there are two South Asians, both men. And of course, one is the Mathletes captain and the other is the 2nd member of the 3-person team.

As many ways as I try to wrap my head around it, I cannot understand why the casting director would do this. I highly doubt it is “chance” that the two South Asians who happen to be in the show also just happen to be in the Mathletes. And, just to make it clear, I don’t fault the actors – Cheech Manohar and Nikhil Saboo – for this at all. There are so few opportunities for Asians on Broadway that when you get one you take it. (Note: People who have spent a lot more time thinking about and researching this have written some pretty compelling work on it, which you can find summarized here, with the raw data compiled and shared by AAPAC – the Asian American Performers Action Coalition – here).

This type of casting just perpetuates the stereotypes of South Asians (and Asians more broadly as well, but I have more experience and understanding of the South Asian perspective and thus am writing from that). In the past few years Hari Kondabolu has been doing some amazing work with The Problem with Apu, and educating people on how having a singular portrayal of an entire race can be deeply damaging to millions of people.

I have felt this effect personally so many times, and it took me many, many years to be comfortable with and proud of my ethnicity. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a longer, more painful process for me because of the constant chatter I heard, “So what type of doctor are you?” (no, I am not a doctor), “Does your house smell like curry?” (no, and that doesn’t even make sense), “Does your dad own that gas station?” (no, he doesn’t, and even if he did, there is no shame or negativity in an entrepreneur making a living by owning a gas station).

I struggle to put it into words, but the biggest issue it causes for me is that when people meet me they have certain pre-conceived notions of who I am, what I can do and what I like because of my name and my skin color, while those who are white with names like “Jessica Smith” get to go into a situation as more of blank slate, with the other party leaving more options on the table for who she might be as a person. It takes a lot of time and work to overcome these stereotypes (if it is even possible in the situation), which is always exhausting and often times demoralizing. So, why, in 2018, would a major new musical want to perpetuate that?

It’s not even that “daring” to cast without racial stereotypes anymore!

I think what bothers me most about this is that this barrier has already started to be broken, but the Mean Girls musical team decided to stick with the old, outdated way instead. Obviously Hamilton’s casting has led the way and even I can’t believe how well it has worked. Now when I think of George Washington the first image that pops into my head is a black man, and when I see a painting of what Washington really looked like it is almost a bit jarring. That is not to take away from who Washington was, but it adds into the narrative that this country was founded not just by him, but also by the hundreds of thousands of African slaves that were shipped to this country. Think about what a powerful tool Lin-Manuel Miranda created to help re-shape how different races are viewed in the United States.

To get a little data-y about it, Hamilton follows what is called non-traditional casting, which the Actor’s Equity defines as “the casting of ethnic minority Actors, female Actors, senior Actors, and Actors with disabilities in roles where race, ethnicity, gender, or the presence or absence of a disability is not germane to the character’s or play’s development.” Unfortunately, using this definition (which I like) about 80% of roles that are played by white cast members, could be played by actors of color (source article).

There is even an example of another major show following in Hamilton‘s footsteps. I adored how the Frozen musical has taken the barrier that Hamilton broke and stomped right through it – Kristoff, Anna and Elsa’s mom, and the Anna standby, among others, are played by black actors (note: I am using “black” instead of “African-American” purposefully, based on discussions with some friends, but I am no expert on the best terminology to use, and am open to discussion on it if anyone would like). Did this change the characters themselves or the show’s development? Not one bit. Four for you Disney, you go Disney!

And then furthering racial exclusion in the storyline?

The Mean Girls musical did have one of the mean girls (Gretchen) played by an Asian-American actress, but I also felt a lack of sensitivity around her story line. A running storyline through the show is that Gretchen wants Regina and Karen (the third mean girl) to like her and often feels left out of their two-some.

If there weren’t the other racial issues in casting this would feel like no big deal, but it threw up another red flag for me when the minority in the 3-girl-group feels excluded by her two white, blond-haired friends, repeatedly, as part of the storyline. And oh yeah, that was only underscored when Regina George spoke the (newly-added) line, which went something to the effect of “Gretchen, watch yourself, if Cady [the main character, raised in Africa] becomes part of this group it’s your “ethnic” spot that is at risk”. I mean really?

Why does this matter?

Almost 40% of Americans are non-white. This country was founded on the ideals of equality, and I personally believe it is a fundamental human right for all individuals to feel equally valued and equally comfortable in society, regardless of race and/or ethnicity. As a person, I believe we should be making decisions that do not potentially marginalize 40% of a country’s population, especially in an industry like media/entertainment, which has a ripple effect in broader society.

Now I know that Broadway won’t necessarily save the world, but Broadway is a forum to enact change and affect individual perceptions of race and ethnicity (praise to Hamilton here, again). Let’s do a little thought exercise for the Mean Girls musical. Imagine if Aaron Samuels (Cady’s love interest) had been played by a minority? Or if all the mathletes had been white? Or if all the mean girls had been minorities? And I’m not saying that we need to go 100% the “other” way either (I get there is nay-say push-back on this), but imagining the extreme helps us to see how far this could still go, and how little it would affect the overall story of the show.

I love what Ruth Bader Ginsburg says when asked when there will be enough women on the Supreme Court. Her answer? “When there are nine. People are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” And to me, that is what we are looking for in the theater as well.

So what happens now?

It’s a good question, and I’m not sure. I started by writing this and putting it out there into the internet-sphere, and I’ll probably follow up by sending notes to some key Broadway producers and Executives as well (I am the Queen of cold-call emails). The beginning is always about continuing to bring awareness and start the discussion and so I’ll put my efforts there for now and go from there.

In the long run, I think moving towards resolution in these issues will require more diversity in the actual production and pre-production of a show. Admittedly I don’t have the data or understanding to know who did the casting for the Mean Girls musical, or the diversity makeup of the production team, and so I don’t want to knock it. But, I bet you if someone like Hari Kondabolu, or Hasan Mihnaj, or Mindy Kaling, or Angel Desai (AAPAC), or Pun Bandhu (AAPAC) or even I, had been at the table when certain casting and creative decisions for the Mean Girls musical were being made, it would be much more likely that these issues would have been resolved before the show hit the stage.