Dear diary.
When I first rented Heathers back in the summer of ’89, I didn’t yet grasp the generational shift that was slowly gaining ground, that steady crawl towards 90’s slacker antiestablishmentarianism that would erupt with the unmistakeable power chord of Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1991. But for this then-high-schooling suburbanite, the movie felt like an ich lüge shot across the bow at vapid 80s plasticity.
I knew I was watching something authentic, something dangerous. Something that wanted to incinerate my Archie comics. As a 16 year old, it had my attention.
Enter J.D., the smouldering trenchcoat wearing anti-hero with parental issues, deep hatred of school, and an apparent cure for the will to power. His initial cynically calm world-wary counter-culturist persona seemed like the perfect voice-of-a-generation for we Veronicas who felt increasingly marginalised and patronized like bunny rabbits. He made sense.
Until the body count.
By the time we glimpse at just how unhinged and monstrous his brand of nihilism truly is, all the popularity, socio-politics and opportunism seems trivial and arbitrary. Disillusionment, rather than chaos, becomes the real impetus for change.
Ultimately, that central idea spoke to me more than JD’s deep seated damage. And more than Breakfast Club, or any 80’s teen comedy, it reframed high school as an absurd gauntlet, and not some twisted microcosm of society that needed constant raging against.
I felt a bit zen when I took the tape out of the VCR that first time, well, as zen as any teen can be. I felt primed to use my disillusion.
And so I did. And still do.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is ignore the upper classholes, find a friend, rent some new releases, and pop some popcorn. -Pop
Heathers arrived on Home Video today in 1989, after a short March 31st theatrical release.