Michael Lehmann’s Heathers (1989)

Set in the late eighties in a stereotypical high school in Ohio, Heathers follows the story of Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), a student who identifies herself with the notorious clique called The Heathers. The Heathers pride themselves on being the four prettiest and most popular girls in school; they are also the most powerful, a characteristic they maintain often through the humiliation of others. Veronica, however, wishes to detach herself from this exclusive clique and, in doing so, soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous relationship with loner Jason Dean (Christian Slater) that leads to a series of murders.

With its dark comedic humor, Heathers asks us to re-evaluate our attitudes about individualism, conformity, and the high school social structure as metaphor for all society. It is a satire, and satire, as it often does, forces us to look at something from two points of view – first as an object of satire and ridicule and second as a reflection of a real-world institution that we cannot treat the way the satire does. When Stephen Colbert tells the president, sitting not 10 feet from him at the 2006 Washington Correspondents Dinner, that having a 32 percent approval rating means that 68 percent of the people approve of the job he’s not doing, we scowl or laugh – nervously – because the powerful is being held up to ridicule. But we also reflect on what approval ratings and the office of the presidency mean. Heathers forces us to look at adolescent cliques the same way. Do we laugh at the demise of the popular “bitches” who make everyone’s life hell? In doing so, are we just as shallow as they are because we fail to see them as complete human beings? Does Heathers want us to laugh?

In addition, Heathers directs us to confront our fetishistic obsession with death. Held up for inspection and ridicule are our generation’s many odd responses to shocking and untimely death – from hypocritical eulogizing to group trauma therapy to the uncomfortable idea that we often pay more attention to an individual who has died than we do to the same person while alive.

Heathers is a film that bears watching repeatedly. The first time through is comic absurdity, but its messages, which become clearer with each viewing, are iconic, transcending its time period and the subject matter, and rendering Heathers a true classic.

Sonya Aziz-Zaman and R. Findlay
Film Club