Tina Fey became one of the grandmasters of millennial comedy when her teen satire Mean Girls hit theaters in 2004. A decade later, as the writer of the Mean Girls (2024) screenplay, Fey remains more than a little plugged into the vernacular of young people—a skill she exhibited to great effect on Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang’s Las Culturistas podcast this week.
Certain mega-fans of the Broadway musical upon which the 2024 movie is based took issue with minor changes that were made to some of the songs’ lyrics for the screen adaptation—for example, in the song “Sexy,” the Broadway lyric, “This is modern feminism talkin’/I expect to run the world in shoes I cannot walk in,” was changed to, “Watch me as I run the world in shoes I cannot walk in”—and Fey is having none of the nitpicking.
During a round of “I Don’t Think So, Honey,” a Las Culturistas segment in which guests are encouraged to fire off their hot takes, Fey let fly.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I don’t think so, honey: little Broadway cunts on TikTok complaining about two lines of ‘Revenge Party’ when I bring you fucking Reneé Rapp, I bring you Auli'i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey,” Fey said, referring to the film’s young cast members, as Yang and Rogers howled with laughter. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
But Fey wasn’t done, informing SNL star Yang that he is now too famous to speak freely while managing to sneak in her own dig at director Emerald Fennell and her divisive latest, Saltburn.
“I don’t think so honey: Bowen Yang giving his real opinions about movies on this podcast,” she said, prompting Yang to shriek. “I regret to inform you that you are too famous now, sir. What’s gonna happen? You have a problem with Saltburn? Shhh! Quiet luxury. Keep it to yourself, because what you are gonna do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project where you play Carey Mulligan’s co-worker in the bridal section of Harrods, and then act three takes a sexually violent turn and you have to pretend to be surprised by that turn?”
“Learn from Ayo, podcasts are forever,” Fey said, referencing Emmy-winner Ayo Edeberi, who recently found herself in the middle of a minor controversy when years-old cracks she’d made about Jennifer Lopez’s singing voice resurfaced, just in time for the two to appear together on SNL.
“Authenticity,” Fey concluded, “is dangerous and expensive.”
As Edebiri herself commented on an Instagram post of that clip, “LEARN FROM ME.”
