Heathers Essay

Kenzi Kostel

1. The movie Heathers is plagued with bullies, violence, and aggression. Rarely does a scene go by where a character does not engage in an aggressive manner. Our textbook tells us, however, that aggression is not always expressed the same but rather each aggressive action can be classified by one of three forms—physical, verbal, or relational. The movie Heathers not only encompasses all three forms but shows multiple examples of each.

Our textbook describes physical aggression as damaging someone or something. This damage can be either direct, like hitting someone, or indirect, like smashing their property. While the movie does show glimpses of this indirect aggression—like when the Heathers stopped through a mother’s flowerbed

According to our textbook, juvenile delinquents are children or adolescents who engage in illegal acts. From class, we have learned that delinquency rises over adolescence and then declines from early twenties on. This being said, the movie Heathers features high school students who share this increased likelihood of participating in delinquent behaviors. Throughout the film, both of the main characters, JD and Veronica, initiate delinquent behaviors but for differing reasons. Over the course of the film, JD engages in many delinquent behaviors. He breaks into both Heather and Veronica’s houses in hopes of killing them, physically pours chemicals into a teacup for Heather to kill her, blackmails the other Heather with photos, shoots and kills one of the football players in the woods, and tries to bomb the school during a pep rally. Veronica, however, is not an innocent bystander in the movie. She commits her own share of delinquent behaviors. Throughout the movie, Veronica helps JD break into Heather’s house, gives the cup of chemicals to Heather ultimately killing her, shoots and kills the other football player, and helps JD cover up multiple murders to look like suicides. But what are their motives? Why did they commit these delinquent

In JD’s case, he most likely inherited the traits that predisposed him to aggressiveness. That combined with his father’s inept parenting and lack of involvement, allowed JD’s aggressive and delinquent behaviors to persist into adolescence. Once in high school, his antisocial tendencies spurred him to befriend other prospective deviant youths (Veronica.) This new-found friendship facilitated his violent behaviors and relieved his loneliness. Without any major intervention in his life, JD’s tendencies to act aggressively and commit delinquent actions kept increasing over the years until at the end of the movie, he blew himself