Mean Girls director says the movie is 'very un-PC'

1 May 2019

'Mean Girls' director Mark Waters says the film would be "more PC" if it was made now.

Mean Girls star Lindsay Lohan

The 54-year-old filmmaker admitted that some aspects of the 2004 teen comedy starring Lindsay Lohan are "very transgressive" and he feels if it was made today there would be "micro-managing" about how "teenage girls relate to boys".

In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, he said: "There's a lot in the movie that is very 'un-PC'. I would think there would be more micro-managing over things you should or should not be portraying with teenage girls doing to each other and the way they relate to boys. It's hard for me to delve into what would or would not be considered too 'un-PC' but we made light-hearted jokes about the gym coach having affairs with the students with lines like, 'Step away from the underage girls.'

"You can't really make that joke, it's very transgressive. We did it in a light-hearted no big deal way, but it is a pretty big deal."

The 'Freaky Friday' director went on to explain that the film - which also starred Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert - was originally "very R-rated" and had to be toned down in order to achieve its PG18 rating.

He said: "The first script I read was very R-rated, it had sexual commentary as well as a lot of profanity; a lot of f-bombs and salacious talk. It was very clear we weren't going to release an R-rated movie, it needed to be PG13. That was the studio's decision but we didn't fight it, it was understandable. We stripped all that stuff out before we started shooting.

"We were making a movie set in a high school which would be primarily marketed to girls aged 12 to 25. A girl in high school should be able to go and see a movie about girls in high school."