Reneé Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Not My Fault” Seeks to Vindicate Regina George For Being a Bitch

Just as Regina George likely would have been praised for her burgeoning badonkadonk had the original been made in the present, so, too, would she have also been praised for being a bitch. Or what Latrice Royale calls, “Being In Total Control of Herself.” In fact, that’s exactly what Reneé Rapp (who plays Regina in both the Broadway musical and the latest film edition of Mean Girls) and Megan Thee Stallion seek to achieve with their single, “Not My Fault.” A line, of course, taken directly from Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron’s mouth when she tells Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan), “It’s not my fault you’re, like, in love with me or something.” This narcissistic dig itself borrowed from Regina (Rachel McAdams) when she told Cady that Janis was, like, “obsessed” with her when they were friends back in junior high. Proving that, in the art of “mean girl’ing,” the student surpassed the teacher as Cady came up with a better way to phrase it.

Alas, back in 2004, it was frowned upon to be an outright bitch. To be sure, it was really only the gays—ahead of the curve on trends as usual—who revered the cunty women of this world (see: that scene in Truth or Dare when one of Madonna’s dancers gushes, “I love it when she’s mean”). As time has gone on, and views/attitudes about how a girl should “be” have evolved, it’s now actually become more frowned upon to be “nice” as a woman than it is to be a so-called bitch (a.k.a. acting the way men do without consequence all the time). To that point, when a woman is “nice”—better known as “meek”—she’s presently more likely to be accused of perpetuating the vicious cycle of (white) silence that has allowed patriarchy to thrive unchecked for so long. 

So it is that with the “upgrade” of Mean Girls into the later twenty-first century (which hardly means that it can ever compare to the original), an according soundtrack upgrade has come with it. Thus, aligning the “woke” messaging of the “new” movie with the new music. Enter Megan Thee Stallion (no stranger to Mean Girls homages after her 2021 Coach ad campaign) to assist the “new queen bee” (but, honestly, there is no replacement for Rachel McAdams), Reneé Rapp, on the rather flaccid “Not My Fault.” Indeed, it sounds like something from the Meghan Trainor reject pile, and far beneath Megan Thee Stallion’s usual collaborations. And, speaking of far beneath someone, the recent appalling Mean Girls x Wal-Mart commercial featuring the original cast was noticeably missing the presence of McAdams as Regina (because, really, what sensible person would want to be part of such grim fan fiction?). Soon after the release of the none too subtle Trojan horse for capitalism via millennial nostalgia, McAdams had no problem explaining her absence by remarking, “I guess I wasn’t that excited about doing a commercial if I’m being totally honest. A movie sounded awesome, but I’ve never done commercials, and it just didn’t feel like my bag.” Translation: “that’s the ugliest f-ing commercial concept I’ve ever seen.” 

The same goes for the first single to represent the latest Mean Girls Soundtrack, with Rapp seeming to have taken overt inspiration from Britney Spears’ anachronistic “Mind Your Business.” While Britney sing-chants, “Where she at? Where she at? Where she at? Where she at? Where she at?/There she go, there she go, there she go, there she go, there she go/What she do? What she do? What she do?” Rapp simplifies it down to, “Where she at? (where she at?)/What she doin’? (what she doin’?)/Who she with and where she from?” Just another vexing manner in which Gen Z feels obliged to copy millennials (despite constantly branding them as cringe) while seeming to genuinely believe they’ve come up with something “unique.” However, the accompanying video, directed by Mia Barnes, doesn’t bother pretending to be anything innovative, mostly stealing its costuming from the Barbie-meets-Pam-Anderson-in-the-90s playbook. 

With the majority of the “narrative” flashing to scenes from the movie in between Rapp and Thee Stallion parading around in their aforementioned Barbie/Pamela pink stylings (complete with furry hats), there’s also a long scene of Rapp getting “Regina George” tattooed in various fonts on various parts of her body. Another moment shows Megan and Reneé standing between two rows of Regina-inspired mannequins before taking baseball bats to them. Almost as if, in some faux “poetic” way, they’re trying to tell us that they’re destroying the “old” Regina George (“Sorry, the old Regina can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead”). The one who was lambasted for being a “bitch” and then decided to amend her ways at the end of the film by channeling her rage into lacrosse. 

Rapp confirms this “rebranding” with the lyrics, “I’m not on the same shit from before/I can’t take this pettiness, now I’m bored, uh-huh/We can share, babe, there’s enough for us all [an obvious nod to Cady sharing the pieces of her seemingly endless tiara]/Told you who I am and what it is, that’s not my fault.” In other words, she won’t be apologizing for simply being her undiluted self. Then again, no one is much interested in that self when she’s standing next to Megan Thee Stallion, who viewers have to wait a full one minute and forty-four seconds to hear deliver her verse (making it somewhat awkward to see her dance and prance around next to Rapp for that entire time). Rising to the occasion of embodying her “Black Regina George” status, she appears in a tank top with holes cut out at the nipples to reveal a purple bra à la 2004 Regina after Janis, Damian (Daniel Franzese) and Cady fail to sabotage her outfit because she ends up “making it fashion.”

Megan then carries the song out of the bowels it began in by rapping, “I’m a mood, borin’ whores gotta Pinterest me.” This being the crux of the song’s statement about how “bitches” are really just women who express themselves without fear of reprisal (including the usual “comeuppance” of being called a bitch, especially by men). So it is that Thee Stallion also adds, “It’s funny how the mean girl open all the doors” and “I got influence, they do anything I endorse/I run shit, to be a bad bitch is a sport.” And an art. One that, to Tina Fey’s chagrin, cannot be topped by the original gangster of mean girl’ing that is Rachel McAdams’ Regina. Who Megan and Reneé once again pay tribute to at the end of the video by sipping from matching teacups, with Megan’s reading, “Boo You” and Rapp’s reading, of course, “Whore.” 

But, like “bitch,” “whore” now has a much more positive connotation than it did in 2004. That wasn’t the case when Regina was using it in a more “SWERF”-sounding than sex-positive manner when directing it at Karen (Amanda Seyfried). But then, this is also the girl who didn’t want to invite a potential lesbian to her birthday party. So yeah, it’s much harder for Regina to be mean in the same way in the present as she was in the past. Which, in the end, invites the question: how much of a bitch can she really be amid post-woke culture?