Commentary: The new ‘Mean Girls’ isn’t perfect. But it’s justice for Janis

While the new “Mean Girls” movie includes many, many punchlines from the first film, recited verbatim, devout fans will clock plenty of changes. Bullying, once the province of three-way calling on landlines, now occurs on social media. Gone are the misguided Asian jokes, the sizeism slander, the ableist language and the whole pedophilia plot. And no, the cafeteria cliques aren’t categorized by racist stereotypes.

“Sometimes you write something and 20 years go by and you go, ‘Oh, I wish maybe we hadn’t said that,’” Tina Fey, who wrote both screenplays, said in a “Today” interview. “And what a gift to be able to open the hood and fix things up a bit.”