Ever since I was in high school, I loved the movie Heathers (and I still do!). It spoke to me in a way high school movies rarely do. The reason why it spoke to me is because Heathers is not afraid to take a brutally honest look at issues that a lot of high schoolers deal with, but aren’t particularly pleasant for people to talk about, like mental health and suicide. It also shows how people tend to glamorize the mental health struggles of adolescence, even though there is nothing glamorous about them, and whose struggles get glamorized. So grab your slushies and your blazers, and let’s discuss why Heathers is a dark, but important, teen movie!
**This article is not written by a mental health expert. This should only be taken as a movie review.**
It talks about how the mental health problems of teenagers are glamorized
One of the most apparent issues discussed in Heathers is the glamorization of teenage mental health problems, suicide in particular, and how teenage suicide is glorified by the media and ends up seeming like an attractive solution, even though we all know it’s not. When Queen Bee Heather Chandler “commits suicide” she ends up being “more popular than ever,” in Veronica’s words. Legend status even. Her death is all anyone at the school, be it a teacher or student, can talk about.
People analyze her “suicide” note, even discussing it officially in class as an example of “the profound sensitivity of what a human animal is capable of.” Because of the note (which wasn’t really hers by the way but I’ll get to that in a bit), people think she had more depth and insight than she actually did. Because of that note, and because of the fact that she is now dead and can no longer speak for herself, she is now immortal. People are free to put whatever words they like into her mouth and she cannot object. She can be whoever and whatever they want. When the reality is, she didn’t even kill herself. JD tricked Veronica into killing her, and they framed it as a suicide. They wrote the note, not Heather. The Heather in the note was just an invention by JD and Veronica, and now Heather will never have the opportunity to correct that. People are not adoring the real her, they are adoring and reminiscing about the person they thought she was. The truth is, Heather was just as mean as she appeared. Could she have had hidden depth? It’s possible, but now we’ll never get to actually know.
Given the attention and adoration, and the remorse over how how everyone treated the victim, it’s no wonder that suicide can end up seeming like an attractive option to a teen who is struggling and feels as though their struggles are overlooked by the world. It’s no wonder that Martha Dunstock, who was mercilessly mocked and derided by her peers, constantly having her pain ignored, saw suicide as the only way to have her struggles seen. Which brings me to my next point…
Whose struggles get glamorized?
Yet, not every struggling teen is lucky enough to have their struggles glamorized. As we see in Heathers, only a certain type of teen is lucky enough to have their mental health struggles be glamorized. Someone who was pretty, successful, popular, well-liked, and whom no one would have expected to be suffering, and in Heathers, it seems, actually succeeds in their suicide attempt. Martha Dunstock is not conventionally attractive, or popular, and in the words of Heather Duke, “I mean Heather and Kurt were a shock, but Martha Dumptruck? Get crucial, she dialed suicide hotlines in her diapers!” As you can see, a teen’s suicide is only glamorized and seen as “tragic” if it is considered as something no one saw coming. In addition, after Martha attempts suicide and fails at it, Heather Duke says, “Martha couldn’t take the heat, so she got out of the kitchen! Just think of what a better place this world would be if every nimrod followed her cue!” From this, it is clear that someone’s suicide is also only seen as something “tragic” if they were seen as “desirable” and “attractive.”
In addition to this, it seems as though your mental health struggles are only seen as tragic after you are dead. For Heather M., when she opens up about her feelings on a radio show, and Heather D. and Veronica happen to catch it, Heather D. has absolutely no sympathy, despite many people at her school “committing suicide.” She thinks it’s the funniest sh*t ever, and wants to “crucify her” with this newfound information. The next day, Heather D. tells everyone about what Heather M. said. So, as long as you’re still alive, you’re just supposed to keep quiet about your struggles because even though people say they care, they really don’t, and will just see your struggles and vulnerabilities as something they can use to make fun of you. The only time, it seems, people will see your struggles as something that should have been taken seriously, is after you have passed on, because then people will see your struggles as warning signs that were overlooked, something that people should have noticed, but didn’t.
It shows how insincere people can be when there’s a tragedy
When someone dies unexpectedly, especially if they were popular, there are going to be people who claim to have known them better than they actually did, miss them more than they actually do, or pretend to be more sad about it than they actually are to get clout from the situation or to hop onto the bandwagon. Heathers demonstrates this phenomenon very well. For example, when Veronica and JD are watching the news about Heather C.’s passing, Heather D. gets interviewed and reminisces about Heather C. They change the channel, and there Heather D. is again, eulogizing about Heather C. To which Veronica exclaims “Heather, how many networks did you run to?” They also see one of Heather C.’s teachers talking about how it’s not going to be the same without her and how they looked forward to seeing her, to which Veronica exclaims, “What are you talking about? You hated her, she hated you!” As you can see, Heather D. and Heather C.’s teacher didn’t actually miss Heather C. and were trying to honor her memory, they were simply trying to get social clout by claiming to be close to Heather now that she is a famous dead girl, and are trying to get their 15 minutes of fame, even if they are taking advantage of a tragic situation to do so.
But they are not the only ones doing this. After the deaths of Heather, Kurt, and Ram, one of the guidance counselors keeps on trying to encourage the students to get together and “talk about their feelings.” While at first this seems genuine, we later see that she too was doing this to get media coverage and attention and to say to the world “Look what a great counselor I am!” Even though, from the outset, it seems as though she cares, she is also just trying to use this tragedy to make herself, and the school, famous. Even though some people genuinely seem like they want to help, like the guidance counselor did, in these situations, sometimes their help can turn out to be for a self-serving reason, and not because they genuinely care about the people actually experiencing the problem. We can even see this with the student body of Westerberg High, with how they mourn for Heather, Kurt, and Ram, but mock Martha and Heather M. for going through the same things because they don’t fit the narrative about who should be struggling.
To sum it up, even though Heathers is darker than most teen films, it is still an important film to see, and its message is an important one to get out there. Mental illness and suicide in teens and young adults is still a huge problem 36 years after Heathers came out. According to the JED foundation, 36.7% of high school students reported feelings of sadness and hopelessness in the past year, and the percentage is higher for girls (46.7%). Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for young adults age 10-34, and 25.5% of young adults reported having seriously considered suicide in the past month, which is higher than any other age group. Struggling teens and young adults need to know that suicide is not the answer. While movies and TV make suicide look like the only way a struggling person can make others realize how much they are truly suffering, suicide is also a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It’ll rob you of your future and your potential. You will never be able to grow from it or get better, or achieve what you wanted to or were meant to achieve. Everyone has so much potential to accomplish so many amazing things in their lives, and it feels unfair to rob yourself of that. There is nothing that time, and support from your family and friends, can’t fix.
resources
- SUICIDE: If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. You can also reach out to the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386, or to your local suicide crisis center.