Heathers and Heathers (and Heather, and Veronica)

Both the cult classic movie Heathers and its Off-Broadway adaptation Heathers: The Musical feature themes of teen angst, school cliques, and violent murder. But given the difference of 22 years between the release of the movie and the writing of the musical, and the change in format itself, there are some significant differences in how they present these issues. In fact, the whole dynamic between the two main characters changes; and because the musical is 20 minutes longer, there’s also more room for development in the characters and their motivations that help highlight the social changes. In particular for this scene, we see way more emotion from Jason Dean (J.D for short) in the musical version of the convenience store scene.

    Snappy Snack Shack                                                  VS                                    7/11 “Freeze Your Brain”

 

 The Snappy Snack Shack

·       Synopsis: Veronica goes to buy snacks before a party, and meets up with J.D. They have back-and-forth commentary about neither of their lives being perfect.

o   The emotional aspect of this scene is more about establishing the relationship between J.D and Veronica

o   Genre: Teen Drama- most, if not all, of the conflict in the film comes from teenagers in fighting against themselves, and ideological wars with parents or any authority figure. Going against the status quo is the status quo. “People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, ‘now there’s a school that self-destructed, not because society didn’t care, but because that school was society.’” –J.D, Heathers.

·       Paradigmatic Analysis: Originally, the Snappy Snack Shack was supposed to be a 7/11, but executives from the company pulled out at the last minute (Nerdist, 8/22/16). So, how we view the scene is altered slightly, by factors out of anyone’s control; a 7/11 would’ve been a more familiar environment, but instead we have a made up store and even made up products like Turbo Dog- in place of familiarity, we get creativity. I think it helps make the scene more memorable, at the cost of making it more comedic.

·       Veronica and J.D stand close together throughout most of this scene. Because they’re both able to bond over the fact that their lives aren’t perfect, this scene is the spark to their ultimate relationship.

o   Anchorage- Veronica and J.D share textbook moments of flirting: (sarcastic) excessive smiling, leaning towards each other, asking questions and sharing personal information

·       Similar to the musical counterpart, this scene is also when we learn parts of J.D’s family background. It’s more clipped here, and some bigger revelations are saved for later in the movie. Unlike in….

The 7/11 (“Freeze Your Brain”)

·       Synopsis: Veronica goes to buy snacks before a party, and meets up with J.D.

o   Musical number, “Freeze your brain”: J.D’s perspective on the world (and wanting to escape from them)

o   Genre: Musical (Teen) Drama- In this case, the fact that the film was adapted is also part of the genre. Some of the trappings of musical storytelling are allowing the characters to more directly announce or address their emotions, as is evident in this song. It’s still a teen drama, but more dramatic. “This is their big secret; the adults are powerless.” –Heather Chandler, ­Heathers: The Musical

-Story changes: In the movie, Veronica's seen J.D around for awhile and had a conversation with him before this. In the musical, this scene is the first time she's had a full conversation with him, and she didn't know his name until now, to build suspense. 

·       Syntagmatic Analysis: The differences in staging a scene in a movie and a scene in a musical are stark. A movie has a complete set, with no empty space. Here, the setting is very minimalistic; only a few blocks and props represent the idea of the whole store. In the background, you can even see the set for many scenes in the rest of the musical. This kind of staging depends on how well actors perform, and how specific the props are, to get the message across. We know the characters are standing in a store because there’s a stand with snacks, and they mention both Slurpees and Big Gulps before confirming it’s a 7/11.

·       “Freeze Your Brain”: The song for this scene is about J.D’s family situation, and how he does (or doesn’t) deal with it. He’s covering up a depression from his mother’s death, a traumatic event from his past you don’t hear until much later in the original movie; in the musical, all of his problems are brought to the forefront. I think this is due in large part to the change in context around violence between the movie and the musical.

·       Articulation:

§   Based on analysis from the Tribune-Review and the United States Crime rate, I found that the overall number of violent crimes decreased steadily between the times of the movie and musical release. However, both the rate and the amount of deaths occurring from school shootings went up dramatically. Some of the deadliest school shootings occurred in this in-between period, like Columbine High School (1999) and Virginia Tech (2007). The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, while occurring in 2012, could still be considered influential to this particular performance of the musical, which was in 2017.

§  I believe these facts are one of the main deciding factors as to why J.D is represented as more emotional (or with less emotions, depending on how you look at it. J.D exhibits psychopathic behaviors throughout the movie and musical). There was a lot of crime in general at the time of the filming for the movie, and I think that helped form the more cynical tone the movie portrays. In later years the crime rate overall drops but we have too many specific, traumatic events, and this tends to lead to one question over and over in the news: Why are people committing these crimes? This obsession over the “why” versus the “what” of a crime is where I see the main shift between the movie and the musical: Because the 80’s movie was focused on the “what” of crime, it was more violent., focusing on the act of violence itself. Now with the 2010’s musical more focused on the “why”, it actually becomes somewhat less violent than the movie (for example, instead of shooting blanks at the bullies in the cafeteria, J.D fights them in the musical). Instead, the musical focuses on the emotion and the reasoning behind what’s happening on stage, almost going as far as trying to create a sympathetic villain, or maybe even an anti-hero, out of J.D. 

·     Conclusion: Heathers: The Musical both goes back to the original ideas of the movie, and reinvents one of the central themes (violence), because of the changes that have taken place in the 22 years since the original movie’s release.