via New World Pictures
I’m an unapologetic Gen Xer who fully embraces her generation’s moniker. And I’ve seen the movie “Heathers” probably more than any movie other than “This Is Spinal Tap.”
Veronica Sawyer was my heroine – I saw myself in her. I was a loner, Dottie, a rebel. While at the time I liked to think I was J.D., I knew deep down that I was Veronica. An outsider who, given the chance to be accepted by the cool kids, would probably drop her old friends in a heartbeat. But even with the cool kids, I would still feel the outsider. I’d be using my IQ to decide what color gloss to wear.
Veronica was completely complicit in the deaths of Heather, Kurt and Ram. JD was right – she knew, deep down, that was what they were doing, and she wanted it. She wanted them to die because she couldn’t stand being in their world.
I posted a simple sentence on Facebook, yesterday:
What’s your damage, Heather?
Immediately, friends began commenting on it with some of the most iconic lines of an iconic film. A couple double-checked details on IMDB, to be sure, but most came completely from memory. Heathers was very.
So when I was getting ready to go to sleep but saw Heathers was coming on next on one of the Showtime channels, I launched Twubs and started livetweeting in the hashtag #heathers. One friend was on his way home, and turned it on when he got there. Others blamed me for distracting them from work with my tweets. Others retweeted, responded, told me I was making their night.
Heathers is as relevant today as it ever was, despite the hair and the clothes being utterly 1980s, trapped in time.
Brilliant and truthful lines:
“You don’t get it. This society nods its head at any horror the American teenager can think to bring upon itself.”
Or
“When teenagers complain about wanting to be treated like human beings, it’s usually because they ARE being treated like human beings.”
Or
“Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing to offer the school but date rapes and AIDS jokes.”
We can all laugh at those lines, because we’re sitting comfortably in our living rooms, pretending this movie is truly satire and not reality.
And, of course, it is satire. But so deeply rooted in the reality that is the cookie-cutter suburban high school experience we’ve created that it’s both painful and marvelous to watch at the same time.
Two of JD’s final lines:
“Let’s face it. The only place that different social types can actually get along is in heaven.”
and
“Now there is a school that self-destructed not because society didn’t care, but because the school WAS society.”
He’s the anti-hero who just misses his mommy and wants to be loved. But not by his dad, who’s an unfeeling beast of a businessman who cares for nothing but the almighty dollar and winning. Not even about his son, whom he has a playful role reversal with when he gets home from work each day, acting the son to his son’s jovial dad. We learn that JD’s mom killed herself by going into one of the buildings her developer husband was blowing up, moments before it went sky high.
Veronica, on the other hand, actually has two still-married parents who seem to actually like each other – and Veronica, for that matter. Even so, they don’t really know how to deal with her, and she doesn’t really know how to communicate with them.
But in the end, my heroine takes the huge, red scrunchie out of Heather #2’s hair and puts it in her own. A symbol that she’s taking back her own power and that the Heathers don’t really mean anything. The remaining Heathers can do or say whatever they want. They no longer exist for her, and she’s going to play croquet with Betty and watch movies with Martha Dunnstock if she damn well wants.
That’s the thing. As much as I feared I would drop my friends if I were taken in by the cool kids, I wanted to believe that I would be like Veronica turned out. I would look at them and find power in saying, “Heather, my love, there’s a new sheriff in town.” And I’d turn my back on them and show someone more put upon than I was that she mattered more than the Heathers.
I mean, who really has fun at prom anyway? It’s not very.