Heathers Influence On Teenage Girls

(By-line)

Michael Lehmann’s 1988 black comedy, Heathers, modernises the characteristic Gothic genre – cracking the age old stereotype of the damsel in distress and exploring dark taboos that no one has since dared to remake in a teen film.

As killer heels click down the halls of Westerburg High School, students part like the red sea: making way for the queen bee who rules the school with a toxic mix of cruelty and fear. Her ruby scrunchie is a sign of her reigning terror and a threat to all. She is wealthy. She is manipulative. She is Heather Chandler. Wouldn’t life be better without the very existence of this evil red queen? Well, If Heathers has taught us anything, its that “it is one thing to want somebody out of your life, it is another

thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid drainer.”

As a cult classic and movie royalty, Heathers (1988) is a contemporary take on the classic dark romantic and gothic genres – it is cold, dark and remorseless, all while pulling off a kind of candy-coloured satiric absurdity. Like most films to engage teenage audiences, Heathers begins with the typical high school scene. The most popular clique are three girls who share the same name and are just as malicious as the last – the ‘Heathers’. As their newest recruit, Veronica Sawyer is indeed not an outsider trying to climb their way to the top of the social hierarchy, but instead an insider struggling to escape from the clutch of Heather Chandler. Veronica meets J.D – a dark horse in the running – and is immediately drawn to his mysterious and ‘bad boy’ image. The seemingly cliché storyline takes a twisted turn when Veronica and J.D accidentally poison Heather Chandler and pass it off as a suicide. Veronica then discovers J.D’s hidden psychotic motive – to murder the popular students and disrupt the hierarchy.

Heathers claws into the sweetness of the John Hughes films that preceded it. While films such as Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club touched upon self-doubt, comedy, love and tragedy, there was not a hint of any darkness or taboo themes. Heathers deals with dark aspects of human nature such as murder, sexual assault and suicide as a gothic film would, all while addressing a teenage audience by placing these themes within a familiar setting.

Like any gothic film, Heathers incorporates symbolism that is consistent throughout the entire movie. Each Heather has a signature colour, and most importantly: Heather chandler is always seen wearing red, while blue is Veronica’s trademark. The two colours of conflict reflect the good and evil, and could potentially be a reference to the U.S. and the Soviet Union. While each of the characters are onscreen, their colour is reflected somewhere in their surroundings. When Veronica poisons Heather Chandler with blue liquid drainer – her tongue and teeth are stained blue – Heather falls onto red carpet. As well as her carpet, Heather’s entire room is decorated with red, and Veronica’s bedroom is always lit by a soft blue light. Perhaps the most significant symbol is Heather Chandler’s red scrunchie – the ultimate symbol of power. When she dies, it is passed onto one queen bee to the next, until the end of the film when Veronica claims her authority and plucks the scrunchie from Heather Duke’s ponytail: “Heather my love, there’s a new sheriff in town.”.

Channelling both Jack Nicholson and James Dean, J.D is the classic anti-hero archetype that is exploited in traditional dark romantic texts. He moves along the edges, sitting alone and in the corner away from the structured societal order. While everyone else accepts and is bound by the constrictions of society itself, he desires to unmask and destroy the pitiless hierarches. He has an urge to manipulate those around him, and essentially play god. Eventually, he plans to blow up the school, his argument being: “The only place different social types can get along is in heaven”. His destructive desires reflect Freud’s concept of the Id – the uncovered part of the human mind which drives our primitive, immoral and selfish impulses. Although a character who is so cruel that he’s uncomfortable to watch, the audience can’t help but sympathize with the fallen man – his father is a psychopath who murdered J.D’s mother, and he only ever wanted someone to love him.

Perhaps the most underlying theme in the movie – femininity – is challenged in the film.

Veronica Sawyer is less one-dimensional than the average damsel in distress, and instead embodies a new type of gothic heroine. What makes Veronica such a compelling character is that she isn’t labelled as hysterical or over-emotional, but rather aggressive, clever, rebellious, and beautiful. Heathers has changed the way teenage girls are portrayed on screen – it acknowledges the complexity of the female adolescent and breaks the unpopular/in need of a makeover cliché. She is neither innocent nor vulnerable, and not at all helpless. At first Veronica seems unruffled about the murder of her enemy, and rather takes it as a joke when watching the sappy aftermath. Blinded by J.D’s charm, she is then fooled into murdering another two students. Finally, her intuition kicks in. Instead of being controlled by J.D, Veronica declares her Bonnie and Clyde days to be over and ends their relationship. She eventually matches the pieces together and discovers J.D’s plan to blow up their high school, and singlehandedly fights J.D and saves the school from a deathly massacre. His power over Veronica shatters – and she ultimately saves herself. Bloody and wounded, J.D surrenders: “You’ve got power. Power I didn’t think you

had.”