A review

Heathers 2018 : A Review

Date Released: February 28, 2018, delayed till July 10, 2018

Network: Paramount

Rating: ⅕

Where to Watch: Flixtor, or Paramount on July 10, 2018

**In 2017, a reboot of the 1988 cult classic “Heathers” was announced by Paramount Network and was set to come out on February 28, 2018, but because of the tragic recent school shootings, Paramount decided to delay it and release it on July 10, 2018. When I heard about this, I was kinda excited, since I do the love the original, I mean, I literally dressing up as Veronica for Halloween this year and the musical is pretty good, but after seeing the instagram account, @heathers, and the trailer, I was a bit disappointed. For a few reasons, actually, For example, I disliked that none of the original actors or actresses from the movie where in it, like Winona Ryder, or Christian Slater, possibly having a cameo as a parent,  but after watching the first episode, Shannon Doherty, or Heather Duke is in it, for a quick minute, though. On the Heathers TV wikipedia page, it says that Shannon is portraying JD’s Mom, but on other sources, she is an unnamed character, but after watching the episode, the opening scene with her thoroughly confused me. For a lot more reasons, the first episode, and their aspects of promotions for the show, statements about the show, had me beyond disappointed.**

 **Social Media**

Firstly, since it´s 2018, each character, or the main ones have a instagram, to promote their self and the show.  Heather McNamara´s instagram has the bio of ¨Heather {yellow heart emoji} Out & Proud” and two more yellow heart emojis. Though, this seems fine, just a high schooler who is proud of who they are, but in the first episode, Heather M is seen making out with the male High School teacher, while Heather D. and Veronica are getting slushies.

So, Heather M. is not a lesbian, though, as my friend brought up, there is a possibility that Heather M. is bisexual or pansexual, though I think it is unlikely. After looking on the official wikipedia page of Heathers TV, on the character description for Heather McNamara, it states that “Heather McNamara, a biracial lesbian who is the most naive and timid member of "The Heathers". Another Problem with the instagram accounts, is that on the main account of heathers, a post in the early stages of the account, is a picture of what I presume to be Heather C.’s keychain and possibly her notebook, with the caption of “Sorry Guys, but We’re bringing Bullying Back”. This is problematic because, even though I do not expect the reboot to be almost exactly the same to the movie, but in the original film, they did not try to promote, or “bring back” bullying, they were just bullies, or a better term for the Heathers, specifically, the “Mean Girls”. In a big amount of the articles about Heathers 2018, it is deemed inclusive, and has representation, for example, in the Article the Gay Times wrote about it, the title reads “Here’s when you can finally watch the new inclusive Heathers Reboot” which I agree with to the extent of the overweight character and the genderfluid character, but mentioning this again, one of the characters that is “Out and Proud” and her character description says she is a lesbian, is not a lesbian. I wonder if I can edit the wikipedia page to get rid of the lie they have stated. Another example of this is an article titled “The New Queer Heathers is just so very” by a writer from the website of Pride. The introduction says “Heather McNamara is a black lesbian, and Heather Duke is genderqueer. In this reimagination, the bullied have become the bullies.

Poor Choices of Representation

By this, I mean why are they making the bullies, the people who are most likely hated the most by people at school and the audience of the show. These characters and the minorities they are portraying are already hated enough for who they are, for example, Heather Duke, or the genderfluid heather, is already, in our society, already being told to go to hell, why amplify that by making the minorities demonized because of being bullies? Though, an argument that does contradict with this, is that some people actually really like the bullies in a lot of TV shows, because of their sass, and comebacks. For Example, some people favored the girl in stranger things, Carol, because of her rudeness and how they liked that about her, or for a more obscure reference, Emaline Addario, from Everything Sucks, pre-character development. I am not one of people, so I cannot argue for this. Another Problem with making the bullies minorities, is that the people who kill them off, (or most likely kills them off) is a straight, white, cis couple, attempting to kill off the overweight character, and despising the genderfluid character and the black “lesbian” character.

What’s Different?

Since this is a Reboot, many years later from the original film, it definitely is a given that somethings will be changed, or significantly different. The opening scene is to a cover of “Que Sera, Que Sera” and it opens up on a house, and show the “iconic” red, yellow, green and blue croquet set, and then cut to maybe a minute later, Shannon Doherty has a red ribbon in her hair, without a doubt, a reference to Heather Chandler's in the movie. By this scene, I was already very confused, because I thought is this one of the Heather’s moms, but then Shannon opens a drawer in her room, pulls out a gun, a match, and we see a bright pink jug of gasoline. Then, what we can presume is young JD, and his dad pull up into the driveway, while the house starts to emit flames and smoke. Shannon waves to young JD from the window, and pulls out the previously seen gun and shoots herself in the head. With context clues, and the help of the Heathers TV wikipedia page, Shannon plays JD’s mom, but if it’s JD’s mom, why does she have things that would point to her being a past Heather. Based on what else is different in the show, I would not put it past them. Later in this episode, if you have seen the movie, it is time for Heather Chandler’s staged suicide, with the  blue Hull-Clean hangover cure, but the writers decided for Veronica to spill an art piece of A large bottle of Hull Clean onto Heather at a party the night before, and Veronica tells Heather to “Lick it up, Fatty, Lick it up”. Instead of drinking blue poison, JD has a weird, creepy, dad, who is obsessed with Hitler. The duo sneaks into Heather C’s room and steals her phone while she is asleep and puts a nazi hat on her, in order to blackmail heather by posting this picture on her instagram, but  Heather wakes up, says a pathetic speech that mocks Veronica. JD, with his Hitler-Obsessed Dad, gives Heather some corn nuts and dares her to chug the bag, but secretly puts what was a pill that supposedly induces vomit, but since it is Jd, we presume that it will be the opposite and actually kill her, like in the movie, with the mixup of hull clean and a “vomit inducing” milk and OJ concoction. Heather supposedly chokes, smashes into her glass table, and dies. JD, being the psychopath he is, uses the speech mentioned earlier that was mocking Veronica, and posts it to her instagram. Later in the episode, after a really illogically written scene and really bad plot change that I’ll talk about in a minute, Heather C. lives. I know, like, what the heck did I just write, because I don’t know either. In one of the sneak peek clips from the official Paramount tab for Heathers, Heather C. is demanding that Heather D. breakup with Kurt, a football player, that is originally killed off in another staged suicide, but this one staged to look like Kurt and Ram were in a homosexual relationship that ended in a suicide pact, but now it seems like Kurt is actually pan, because he is in a relationship with a person {Heather Duke} who is gender fluid, meaning they are not specifically conformed to one gender, but it depends on the day. At the end of the episode, another large, confusing plot twist, was Betty Finn becomes the mean girl. Before this, Betty is Westerberg's activist, who is always posting about feminism and how she loves science on her (fake) instagram. She gives Heather Chandler’s eulogy, even though she didn't know her, and talks about how the school should be united and treat others with respect, it cuts to her and her friend group insulting people and condescendly stomping through the halls. I would try to analyze this, but I can’t even really understand why this is the ending of the episode.

What do others think?

While some reviews were positive, some were negative, there is a demographic for this show, but I don’t think they liked it. Coming from a person who is in the demographic, which, in my opinion, was fans of the original movie and teenagers right now, because of all of the main advertising on social media, because I haven't seen any posters for this show, and I live in Los Angeles, where there is advertising everywhere, for everything. While researching, I came across a few different review videos on youtube, all negative, both made some of the same points, and one girl brought up that JD literally looks 27, and when I looked up this actor’s age, (James Scully), I couldn't find it anywhere, conspiracy theory? I, for one, hate it when a kid it supposed to be like 15 and the actor is 25, example, Cole Sprouse, because it can push kids to think they should look like that, but really when the actor is 25 and has already gone through puberty and matured already. A review by a TV line writer said something around the lines of that “The Heathers reboot is as good as the movie, if not better”, and I disagree very strongly with this statement, as you may be able to tell. Articles that I think are a bit more accurate, are Daily beast’s “OH HELL NO The New ‘Heathers’ Is a Trumpian, LGBT-Bashing Nightmare”, and Refinery29’s The Heathers Remake Is An Insult To Teens In 2018”. For data, on IMDB, out of around 370 votes, it got a 4.2/10, on Rotten Tomatoes, it got an outstanding 33%.

Scenes+Conclusion

In just the first episode, there were so many scenes that were, just (how) very problematic. In the start of the episode, JD talks to Veronica at a vending machine stocked with snacks of the company, “Big Fun”, this is a reference to the band that performs the song played in the movie, “Teenage Suicide (Don’t do it)”. Veronica says that she likes JD’s whole rebel thing, he says he is not a rebel. Veronica says that he has to be something and he says “Do they? I’m white. I’m black. I’m pro-gun. I’m queer. I’m post-queer. I’m a post-queer, pro-gun Latino. Blah, Blah, Blah”.

So, the way I see this, JD sees being queer as nonsense, and also “post-queer”? I looked this up and it supposedly means “After the establishment of the queer (homosexual, bisexual, transgender, etc.) movement, or queer theory.” First of all, that's not a sexuality or LGBT+ term to describe yourself by, and, this may seem like a stretch, but, it seems like a partial insult to the LGBT community, since he was dismissing that by saying “Blah, Blah, Blah”, at the end of his monologue. Also, he said he was pro-gun twice, which is a bit concerning, especially because he seems a, just a tiny bit, mentally unstable, considering her mother shooting herself right in front of him while he was a child. Next, I mentioned this scene earlier, but the scene where they go to a art school’s high school party, which is a art display of a lot of neon, pop art. In this, Veronica spills a big art piece of Hull-Clean onto Heather C. Earlier in this scene, Veronica is having slight intercourse with a boy at the party in a car, and she is on her phone, just like every highschool girl in 2018! She sees something concerning on her instagram feed, and says ‘No!”, the boy says something like “I stopped right when you said no!”, and she rolls her eyes. To, whoever wrote this episode, not just “social justice warriors” need consent, not just “crazy social justice warrior art school kids” support the movement of always needing consent in sexual situations. Also, the insults in this show, in the span of only 45 minutes, the Heather’s have called people panera, sbarro, cheesecake factory, an ugg boot latte, told someone to suck their third nipple, and yelled “Oh. My. Cl\*T”. The reviewers of this show call these clever, but they really are just disgusting and confusing. In the movie, they were a bit more understandable, like when Veronica throws up at the cool college party, she calls her a bluebird, and a Girl Scout cookie, meaning she’s being boring and pure, or at least that’s how I see it. In conclusion, this show tried to connect to the 80s obsessed teens of 2018, but they did the opposite. Hopefully, this show just had a poor pilot, but of all the sneak peeks I’ve seen, I don’t think was just a poor episode. This show was overall, very confusing and very badly written, and that is why I give it a ⅕.

Sources and Articles Mentioned:

http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/105356/heres-when-you-can-finally-watch-the-new-inclusive-heathers-reboot/

http://www.paramountnetwork.com/shows/heathers

https://twitter.com/KDavisGayFriend/status/991627330870235136

http://tvline.com/2018/02/26/heathers-review-reboot-paramount-network/

http://www.paramountnetwork.com/video-clips/ssdmrh/heathers-return-to-westerberg

http://www.paramountnetwork.com/video-clips/r5z2uw/heathers-heather-chandler-demands-a-breakup

https://www.pride.com/tv/2018/1/19/new-queer-heathers-reboot-just-so-very

http://www.yourdictionary.com/postqueer

https://www.refinery29.com/2018/02/191688/heathers-show-criticism-teen-activists-high-school

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-new-heathers-is-a-trumpian-lgbt-bashing-nightmare

https://bit.ly/3oE0Y7F

Heathers 2018 : A Review