Tina Fey calls out millennials for thinking they “own” Mean Girls

The original Mean Girls movie was released at the height of the teen comedy era with its fanbase being comprised of almost all millennials, but creator Tina Fey is hitting back their supposed claim to the hit pop culture film.

Mean Girls was released back in 2004 – the same time as classics like Sleepover, The Girl Next Door, 13 Going on 30, A Cinderella Story, and more hit theaters. It was a year of movies that millennials to this day still binge-watch over and over and reminisce with nostalgia.

Written by Tina Fey, Mean Girls became an icon in the genre. It spanned a sequel, a Broadway play, and a resurgence thanks to a Mean Girls musical remake. New and old fans alike are hooked on the story of a female lead being thrust into the chaotic world of American high school.

But as the remake brings back the success of the original movie, Fey has a few words for millennial fans who claim ownership of it.

Tina Fey goes against the millennials

The Mean Girls writer is fighting back against fans’ complaints that the musical remake called out its original millennial viewers and claims the movie is hers, not theirs.

In an interview with TODAY, Fey explained the bit of hesitation she had venturing back to a project that became a pop icon. She said one of the main topics was millennials and their “ownership” of the 2004 movie.

“Millennials especially, like, they feel real ownership of the movie. And they were sort of like, ‘You can’t! We own this!’ And I was sort of like, ‘Well, no. It’s my thing,'” said Fey. Her daughter told her to not let the millennials overthink it.

She also addressed the social media scrutiny behind the Mean Girls 2023 marketing tagline. It read, “This isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls,” clearly aimed at the original millennial audience. Many of them are now grown adults with their own families.

“It did expose a little millennial narcissism. When you went, there were other people in the theater, too! And some of them may have been older than you! It was so centering themselves in the story,” she said to USA Today.

But the actor and creator agreed that Mean Girls was something that could be shared between them. Some fans commented that her supposed “ownership” of the movie isn’t necessarily true.

On X/Twitter, one fan said, “Sorry, but this is where you are wrong. You may have written it, but you wrote it for the generation at the time, and as we know with all art, it’s the masses that determines what is valuable and what isn’t.”

“We were the ones who went to see it and kept it going all these years. I’m sure she made lots of money off of it,” said another.

Another said that Fey is overthinking it, with one fan agreeing saying, “I kinda agree. I don’t always agree with every expression of ‘the author’s intentions don’t matter,’ but in this case, it doesn’t feel like the ownership is about misunderstanding a message so much as feeling a really strong connection with the applicability to a moment in time.”

“Still curious why Tina Fey decided to include the ‘fire crotch‘ line without consulting or even considering Lindsay Lohan who made a cameo in the new Mean Girls. That’s seriously hurtful, she should answer to that before dogging millennials,” said another.