Some people may watch Netflix’s latest low-rent holiday romcom Hot Frosty and wonder what kind of Christmas “candy” they hand out at the streamer’s HQ in order to produce such a gonzo idea for a movie. How have we as a society reached a place where millions around the globe are bingeing a film that seems to have been made with the sole aim of launching a new niche fetish? Forget furries, get ready for snowies.
Remarkably, though, Hot Frosty‘s unique elevator pitch — “People like snowmen… People like hot guys” *exec meshes his fingers* — isn’t the most brain-addling thing about it. There’s one particular scene from the film that’s causing even more discussion online than the sight of Ted from Schitt’s Creek running through the snow in naught but a scarf. It seems Hot Frosty may have just launched the last cinematic universe we were expecting.
Hot Frosty Easter egg confirms it takes place in the same universe as Mean Girls, and I need to cool down
As X user @EmmaTolkin went viral for pointing out, the makers of Hot Frosty couldn’t resist slipping in a joke about how former Mean Girls Lindsay Lohan and Lacey Chabert are both Netflix rom-com queens nowadays. In one brief but mind-blowing moment, Chabert’s character introduces snowman-come-to-life Jack (Dustin Milligan) to the concept of TV. When she switches it on, a scene from 2022’s Falling for Christmas plays.
“Huh, that’s so weird,” says Chabert. “It looks just like a girl I went to high school with.”
Excuse me, I’m going to need a moment to process this. As the OP puts it, “the implications of this are insane.” At first glance, this merely seems like a harmless metafictional nod, but if you decide to jump down the rabbit hole of what this actually means for the storytelling world that Hot Frosty inhabits, you may find that you can’t climb back out.
Think about it. If Lohan looks like someone Chabert’s character, Kathy, went to high school with, then does this mean Kathy is really a grown-up Gretchen Wieners, who at some point changed her name and moved to Hallmarktown, USA? But hold on, if Falling for Christmas is fictional in this world then does that mean Cady Heron went on to become an actress?
Yes, Hot Frosty just retroactively made Mean Girls into the Iron Man of a shared movie universe we never knew we needed. “Netflix Christmas universe,” one X user pitched in the replies, while another suggested, “MGEU?” Others were just excited to get one more Mean Girls moment before 2024 was out. “A mean girls reference in a Christmas movie in 2024??” wrote one. “Gays and girls WE F****** WON.” It seems fans definitely needed this pick-me-up after the disappointment that was the musical remake.
The thing that is really fetch about this, though, is that Lohan has another of her own Christmas rom-coms coming to Netflix any day now. Our Little Secret debuts on streaming this Nov. 27. If that one doubles down on the crossover references, and confirms everything either Lindsay or Chabert makes is set in the same giant St. Elsewhere-like snowglobe universe, then Mean Girls fans may never recover.
