On January 12th, 2024, Mean Girls hit the big screen. But this wasn’t just a modernization of the 2004 comedy; it was a film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical, which opened in 2017. This is one of many movies to follow the trend of movie adaptations of on-stage musicals, a concept that has been around for decades. Recently however, movie musicals have made a highly anticipated comeback, and it appears that they’re here to stay.
The major idea behind the movie musical is that emotions are not just spoken or acted, they are full-blown productions with purposeful song and dance moving the story forward and conveying an intense, emotional impact. While movie musicals existed before, they boomed in the 1950’s and 1960’s with classics like Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Oklahoma (1956), The Sound of Music (1965) and Hello Dolly (1969).
Skipping to the 2000s, movie musicals boomed once again. With the rise of the Internet as a fun, new place to connect and feel-good pop music and rom-coms dominating media, it only makes sense that fantastical movie musicals would have a spot in this era. Movie musicals like Chicago (2002), Rent (2005), Dreamgirls (2006), and Hairspray (2007) became instant classics. Some of these musicals were able to address serious topics, such as the AIDS crisis or segregation, while using music and dance to create a light-hearted energy. A reflection of society at the time, these movies often left the audience feeling happy and comforted.
Movie musicals force the viewer to suspend their disbelief and enter a world where people can break into song at any moment. This makes them inherently unrealistic but adds to their charm. Wanting to do something new and different, director Tom Hooper experimented with adding more realism to this genre with Les Miserables (2012). He used jarring camera work and required the actors to sing live during the filming process, something that hadn’t been done before on such a large scale. While innovative, this process stripped the movie of its whimsical nature, adding realism in a new setting. While movie musicals were still released after this, they weren’t as sensational as its predecessors (except for Hooper's second attempt at a movie musical, Cats (2019), which gained icon status for all the wrong reasons).
In a post-Tom Hooper world, why have movie musicals come back into fashion? In recent years, movie musicals have returned to their original fantastical form to fulfill a new desire, the desire to escape. Movie musicals in recent years, such as The Prom (2020), In the Heights (2021), and the new Mean Girls film (2024), are movies that transport the viewer back into a world where people spontaneously sing and dance. These films allow the audience to enter a reality where main characters get their happy ending and aren’t worried about the pressing issues and challenges of the real world. While the characters in these movies still face real world challenges like gentrification and bullying, they relieve the stress and tension with catchy music and visually stunning dance scenes. With the success of the recent movie musicals, and more to be released like the highly anticipated Wicked, the movie musicals have come back strong, and don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.