We all know the plot to Mean Girls, where Lindsey Lohan is sent on a mission by her outsider friend to infiltrate “The Plastics”, a popular clique in school to humiliate their head Regina George by any means possible. Their attempts range from wardrobe malfunction (which causes a new fashion trend) to sneaking in fattening muscle building We all know the plot to Mean Girls, where Lindsey Lohan is sent on a mission by her outsider friend to infiltrate “The Plastics”, a popular clique in school to humiliate their head Regina George by any means possible. Their attempts range from wardrobe malfunction (which causes a new fashion trend) to sneaking in fattening muscle building bars (which actually is far more successful). The movie ends with Lindsey Lohan realizing that everyone’s a person and that despite aspiring to be an “IT girl”, it is far saner to be normal. Well for those who thought that was a completely original concept, I think I’ve found the plot of this culturally significant 2004 film in a rather obscure (at least comparatively) 80’s film. I will ruin the ending by saying that Mean Girls ends almost exactly like Heathers ends…but lets just say rather than humiliating the popular clique murder is involved. Yeah, don’t tell me things were “cleaner” in the 80’s!
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2014/03/heathers1/lead_la…)
Please don’t click on your browser and dismiss me as insane for making the comparison, Heathers really very familiar to those of us who grew up with that famous Lohan movie. In this 1988 film a fifteen year old Winoa Ryder is sick and tired of her status as the “IT girl” due to her paper-thin friends and the extent they take to garner awe (just as Lindey Lohan feels towards the middle of Mean Girls). They go to college parties, drink heavily, and humiliate vulnerable souls in torturous ways, such as delivering a love letter to an overweight lonely girl professing to be from her crush. So, Veronica resolves to turn against the rest of her popular clique and makes things right.
(http://imagesmtv-a.akamaihd.net/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/w…)
Here are where the differences begin. You see rather than humiliating the lead Heather (As the title hints there are multiple girls named Heather; three in fact), Winoa Ryder’s character Veronica accidentally makes her hangover cure lethal, causing the lead Heather choke and die. With her boyfriend at the time, J.D (portrayed by Christian Slater) they decide that in order to absolve themselves of wrongdoing in what was an accident, they need to fake Heather’s handwriting to make it seem as if she had committed suicide. The dead queen bee becomes more popular and beloved due to the revelation of a “sensitive side,” thus suicide becomes popular throughout Westerburg High School and Winoa Ryder slowly discovers that getting revenge on bullies in her school simply adds fuel to the fire. It even gets to the point that when an unpopular girl attempts to die by running into oncoming traffic that she is deemed as being not cool enough to die by her own hand.
(http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/ikzidna/media/heathers01_zps9cb90f94.j…)
This allows the main themes of both movies to become even more present in Heathers. Not only is there more at stake with characters actually dying, but we see the themes of these movies (the futility of being popular) more fiercely in Heathers. In Mean Girls characters are mainly annoyed by the bad things that are happening (Like simply being the butt of jokes) but in Heathers characters are raped, beat up, and to top it off since suicide is popular, popularity is seen even more clearly as a social disease. The latter movie’s R rating in my opinion makes the movie more affective, rather than simply being a silly feel good film where real life is toned down for a more sensitive audience.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Heathers_The_Musical_Off-…)
The film is currently waiting for your enjoyment on Netflix (where I found it) and for those of a more musical persuasion the movie is now an off-broadway musical!
Enjoy everyone!
Best,
Robert Finch