Heathers in 2014

Heathers is a time machine. Pop it in and you are transported into a time where guns in school were not hot button issues and teen suicide did not make the news every other week. There wasn't a 24 hour coverage and back story of some kid who shot up his school and there were way more movies to watch. When watching Heathers, I think that everyone's gut reaction is "how were they able to do that?" and "Why aren't there movies like this anymore." The answer is simply... time.

Why haven't we put another school movie on the big screen since Columbine? Why can't we talk about 9/11 without the tagline "never forget?" My theory is that it has to do with the news. We all have a desire to watch these kind of movies and acts. Some strange voyeurism into the face of death that we cannot understand ourselves. In the 80's these were things of fantasy. We were able to make jokes, develop story, and create an interesting connection with main characters that film can lend us. After these events unfolded into reality, the story was switched from fiction movies to news stories. Everyone wants to watch the real thing opposed to the representation, so why watch a movie when you can turn on the news and see surveillance camera footage of Columbine, or a detailed backstory of the Virginia Tech killer.

Whenever one of these tragedies happens, I can just hear the producers at the news agencies jumping for joy because now they have 24 hour coverage of guaranteed ratings boost. They go through detailed history of the killer as well as diagrams, animations, reinterpretations or the actual acts, as well as tons and tons of interviews of people who were there or who maybe lent the killer a pencil one time in 3rd grade.

Heathers is a perfect example of something that hasn't been done in a long time. Making a joke, or rather a satire, out of a very serious issue and putting it in the main stream. The reading suggests that there are some TV shows that try to tackle the same issues that Heathers did but end up feeling like a "Hallmark card factory" and for good reason. None of these TV shows try to make a statement but are just like the news. Knowing that these are hot button issues, they get free advertisement from every blog on the web for their courage to portray bullying as it is. When really all it is is some thin plot wrapped in a happy bow.

One movie that I thought of when thinking about the absence of school shooting movies is The Dirties. This is a movie that follows a kid as he plans a school shooting in order to kill his bullies. He even plans on wearing a shirt that says "We are only here for the bad guys." This does something different because it shows very little of the school shooting. Its all about the preparation this kid goes through and his mindset and how he rationalizes it. This was a very indie movie and although it got very good reviews, it did not get very much exposure. Currently it is on Netflix.

I think Heathers is a great movie and that it tackled some issues that in the 80's were edgy and now they are seemingly off limits. I think we need to go back to an era where we respect art and treat it as such so that we can see creatives tackle issues that are looked down upon. I really want to see a school shooting movie told by Tarantino. Once we take away the need for the details in the news, we can start to deconstruct the events as a whole through fiction.