Have you ever wondered what Mean Girls' Cady, Regina, Gretchen, Janis, and Karen would be up to today? Would they be married with kids, or touring the world showing off their "ESPN" powers and predicting the weather with their boobs? In the absence of a sequel, we may never know for sure. But, lucky for us, there's Bad Moms, which is probably as close to a Mean Girls sequel as we're ever going to get. If you just watch the trailer for Bad Moms, a movie about three mothers who decide to stop trying to be perfect and embrace their flaws instead, it's not an obvious Mean Girls 2.0. And yet, when you see the movie, you'll likely agree that Bad Moms is totally a grown-up Mean Girls.
Bad Moms answers the question: what would high school be like for moms? Instead of the kids going after each other's social lives by cutting holes in their tank tops or switching out their face moisturizer with foot creme, what if it was the moms who were doing that? Bad Moms takes the Mean Girls social structure and just places it in a slightly different setting: the PTA, where there are two kinds of moms: moms in charge, and moms who are bullied. Sound familiar? Here are all the ways Bad Moms is a grown-up Mean Girls .
1. There's A Grown-Up Regina George
If Regina George grew up, married rich, and had children, she would be Bad Moms' Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate). In Bad Moms, Gwendolyn is the "perfect" mother — the impeccably dressed president of the PTA — who loves putting down other mothers. She has the run of the school and she knows it. She even has her own Gretchen and Karen in Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Vicky (Annie Mumolo).
2. And A Grown-Up Cady Heron
Mila Kunis' Amy in Bad Moms is a lot like Cady from Mean Girls in that they both feel like outsiders who decide to take on the queen bees. There's also the fact that she likes plaid shirts and falls for the hottest guy in school (Hot Dad Jessie). Unlike Cady, Amy doesn't get completely sucked in to Gwendolyn's crazy world, but she does become the rival queen of the moms when she decides to run for PTA President, kind of like how Cady wanted to be Prom Queen.
3. There's A Mr. Duvall 2.0
You know Bad Moms is a grown-up Mean Girls when all of the women gather in the school gym and come together over their hatred of Gwendolyn, listen to an inspiring speech by Amy, and learn to love each other under the watchful eye of a school principal.
4. And A Grown-Up Janis
Carla is like a more sexual version of Janis from Mean Girls. Like Janis, Carla doesn't care what people think, and she's not afraid to make it known. She also helps Amy (aka Cady) find her voice, and will most definitely be the fan favorite of the movie.
5. And A Grown-Up Aaron Samuels
Let's be real: Aaron Samuels was not a catch. In Mean Girls, he proves himself to be dumb, easily manipulated, and attracted to the meanest girl in school — which of these qualities is supposed to be attractive? 20 years after Mean Girls, you know Aaron Samuels is like a washed up hottie, depending on his poor wife to do everything for him while still basking in his good looks. In other words, he's Amy's dead-beat husband, Mike (David Walton).
6. "Get In, Loser, We're Going Shopping"
There are a few scenes in Bad Moms where I actually expected the characters to start saying "Fetch" and raise their hands if they ever felt personally victimized by Regina George. The parallels are undeniable, and that's not a bad thing.
Bad Moms is a lot like Mean Girls in other ways: the voiceover, the parties, the drinking, the laughs, proving that you never really do leave high school.
Images: STX Entertainment (3); Giphy (4)
