The extreme always seems to make an impression

Watching Heathers in this day and age was a very uneasy experience. The topics that we hear over and over in the news today; bullying, suicide, teen shootings, were all brought up in such a light manner. Willa Paskin states how people should watch the film twice because on the first viewing you'll just be thinking "this movie could never be made now" and that was how I felt. I actually felt bad laughing at some of the jokes in the film but it was also sort of a relief to laugh at the same time, because in these times you just aren't really "allowed" to laugh at these types of things. They are all very sensitive manners.

I was about 9 when the Columbine school shooting happened and I just remember it being plastered over every news channel, even Nickelodeon had a show on about the shooting asking teenagers how they felt about it. I remember all the images of it so vividly. I feel like this was such a huge turning point in not only how people felt about bullying/teen shootings but how the media covered this type of news. The media tries to figure every little thing out about the shooters, about the family of the shooters, about why the shooters did this, etc. They almost glamorize it in ways. You can get on the news if you shoot up your school! Similarly, there are so many kids you hear about committing suicide today because of bullying and it's all over the news. Their friends (maybe not even their real friends like in the film) and family go on the news and talk about how they were such a great person. This is much like in Heathers. As Veronica states in the film, "suicide gave Heather depth, Kurt a soul, and Ram a brain." And then Martha, a girl who actually does get picked on tries to follow in on the suicides. I think that the "glamorization" of suicide in Heathers compared to how the media reacts to school shootings, teen suicides, and bullying and also glamorizes it now a days is interesting and there are actually a lot of similarities.    

Another aspect of the film that I found interesting was all that quotable dialogue. Although I'd never watched Heathers before I had definitely heard the quote "lick it up, baby lick it up" and many others. I really love how Paskin compares it to Clueless. I was definitely thinking about that film while watching Heathers ("as if!"). Another film that it reminds me of is Mean Girls. One of my favorite films that is also so quotable "That is so very" in Heathers reminded me of "that's so fetch" in Mean Girls. Both films also deal with cliques, evil girls that basically rule the school, and just the basic workings of high school. The BIG difference in these two films though, is that Mean Girls has a feel good ending. Heathers definitely does not. Heathers is a very cynical film with no moral to the story at the end. To me it was almost a direct parody of The Breakfast Club. J.D. being Bender and Veronica being Claire. It's like what happened after that one detention they shared together!