Heathers is a black comedy highschool that subverts ideas of popularity, stereotypes, and much more. The protagonist, Veronica Sawyer, is a rude, intelligent high schooler who has mixed or flawed sense of moral seen throughout the film. Considered to be a member of the Heathers, she and her love interest, Jason Dean(JD) “accidently” murders students within the school and frames it as suicide. Now, duo must hide the truth, while also fighting each other Compared to Veronica, Jason Dean is also cynical, somewhat intelligent, and shows himself through the “bad boy” stereotype. However, we see within the film that is the trope taken to certain extremes, killing and being manipulative to our protagonist. One of the greatest subversion of Heather is playing with trope of “layers” while also showing characters as humans. For context, the movie came out in a time(80s) protagonist needed “layers” in order to become compelling. Well known films that followed this idea were Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and many more. Heather was even advertise as this to show it of as the same cliched film. In short, Heather Chandler never really changes, and is mostly satisfied with her state of power. Heather Duke is no different as she takes the role of Chandler once Chandler’s gone. Both are characters are shown as human with Chandler dispising certain roles of her persona, and Duke gaining corruption through power despite knowing better. Giving us reasons on the character’s internal crises, but never justifying their actions. Similar things could be said of the society of Heathers, as they parallel “the real world”. Almost all the students within the film are either stereotypes or extremes of stereotypes(JD included). This within the film displaying the idea of popularity as meaningless rather than holding value to the audience. Yet students considered as meaning only through the false belief of happiness similar as money or a promotion. Even our protagonist explains her friendship with the Heathers as “co-workers”. Leading up to the society of Heathers seeings students as freaks of nature rather than Human beings. This creates a side-effect that allows JD and Veronica to get away with their “suicides” so easily. During the decade of Heathers, suicide was unintentionally romanticized as tragedy turned to beauty. A large example being being sitcoms such as Full House. The film plays with this as a key role with each victim. Even After the Chandler’s death, her popularity amplified through false sense of purpose devised by JD and Veronica. To the point that actual suicide is shown with the character Martha it never really considered a surprise to the society and even ridiculed to some degree. It works when because it states the truth of society not caring of suicide, but rather the drama behind it. This idea of romanism is also focused on the relationship between JD and Veronica, and show criticism on how these relationship would work in a different film. What makes Veronica human is though she doesn’t “wish” for certain murders to happen, she still covers up her and JD’s actions as an external desire . Throughout the film she tries to justify their actions as “fighting” against the system as two “lovers”. Ignoring major character flaws with her love interest to a disturbing degree. Seeing him as the “bad boy”, and also following with him as a way to kill people who wronged her as the internal desire. It’s not only a good dynamic on the layers of Veronica, but also works because this is how the relationship would work if based
around murders. A great quote from Veronica that represents her character is after a college party scene She states. “ Christ, I can't explain it, but I'm allowed an understanding that my parents and these Remington University assholes have chosen to ignore. I understand I must stop Heather.” This is a well written dialogue because it shows Veronica’s external and internal crisis before its executed. Thus, allows the audience in the back of their mind what the true reason on where her actions are mainly based, as well as her own excuse for these actions. It also has a side effect of giving off how Veronica relates to JD in a way and why she is ok with the later scenes within the film. Another quote fits well with the previous one, as it parallels with the tone and intention of Veronica. “You want to wipe the slate clean as much as I do. Okay, so maybe I am killing everyone in the school because nobody loves me. You have a purpose though! Remember? Let's face it, the only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven.” This is a quote from JD and is similar to Veronica’s. However, compared to our protagonist, he flat out states his reasoning as pure selfishness, while still trying to justifying it. This mirrors on Veronica’s intentions to an extreme level, and shows who she was helping, but also who she could have turned into if she completely sided with JD. Certain scenes show off the style of Heathers by having different moods either contrasting stereotypical upbeat scenes with sinister scenes. This structure shine in the climax of the film. The two main characters battle the survival of the school in a dark, clustered, boiler room underneath the school itself. The scene being storyboarded to cut back and forth between the all American High School and metaphorical/literal dark fight sequence underneath. The colors of upper setting are mostly colors of red, white, and peach. Meanwhile, the colors of the boiler room have a consistency of being dominantly blue/grey with contrasting colors of orange/yellow. I enjoy this scene mainly because it gains a feeling of the darker scene pouring into the bright tone, until JD is defeated Veronica comes up away from the boiler room. Giving off the idea to both Veronica and the audience this part of her life is now over. The dialogue within this scene shows of the emotions of mainly JD and compliments the setting nicely. It gives off the feeling that JD is within his natural setting or is somewhat free in the boiler scene. It’s also where the film within this scene tries to states both the perspective of
JD and philosophy of the film. It makes the film feel a bit full circle and helps us connect the dots of previous scenes, allowing us to reflect as an audience. The character designs are straightforward analyzing symbolically. Each character has color show certain aspects of their personality. For instance, Heather Chandler is considered powerful to the audience thanks to her color palette of red to both her friends and school. It also demonstrates herself as cruel, manipulative, and powerful. What strikes interesting is a scrunchy Chandler once wore to represent power, as Heather Duke first wears the scrunchy and later on wheres the same customer as Chandler. Before then, Duke was represented by green symbolizing envy and greed. Finally, we have the two main characters, which Veronica showing blue as intellectual and depth as well as JD showing black for aggression and fear. On wondering if Heathers would work today, it would be possible that certain events such as the school bombing or certain murders would be frowned upon today's society. There is also the controversy within Heathers through suicide, gun violence, stereotypes, and much more. It’s important to keep in mind that Heathers was considered ahead of its time, and later stories would follow in the same root. A grand example being Mean Girls, created by the brother of the Screenwriter of Heathers. Overall, Heather had made its mark as cult classic alot 30 years, with its popularity increasing daily.