Heathers was a pretty interesting movie that I would always catch bits and pieces of on IFC but I never actually saw the whole movie. I was excited to see this on the list so here we go.
Heathers portray the stereotypical high school pecking order and cliques pretty dead on. The jocks, the popular girls, the meanest bitch in the school, the nerds,
and that one rebel, outcast. I think watching this movie and being trained I guess to analyze most things we see in film really made everyone search and search for meanings and in my opinion, anything or any person that was presented in this film was just for the sake of presenting a situation and not a deeper meaning behind anything really. I was pretty fuzzy on post modernism but it was really cleared up for me in the class discussion or at least how it applies to this film.
I guess what I concluded with after reading the article and watching this movie is that most of the things that happen to most people in high school aren't that big of a deal. We deal with things and struggle with certain situations at this time but most people move on from things that happen to us in high school. I'm not taking away from the seriousness of suicide or anything like that. What I am basically trying to say is cliques we are a part of in high school usually only last until we graduate, we don't usually keep a lot of the same friends we had in high school, we aren't usually bullied all of our life or are at the top of the social ladder all of our life. We worry about how we look, what clothes we buy, what side of town do you live on, who likes you, who doesn't like you, and who you want to like you. These things that happen in high school are only as important as high school lasts.
I know this is late...so you don't have to comment if you don't want but i'd appreciate it.
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You really don't think there was any deeper meaning to their actions? I think that is interesting, because you try to with your last paragraph. I agree about after high school, but I think there is a commentary going on in this movie that stretches beyond high school.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't think Heathers was a meaningless or pointless film, I think I see what you're getting at here. Unlike most movies, and especially the typical teen movies of the 80's, it didn't offer any concrete solutions to teen problems. At the same time, it definitely was a critique on high school social hierarchies and high school in general. We're just not used to movies that don't give us a way to make happy endings in our own lives...
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with a lot of what people said above about this film not really being meaningless, but hey maybe I was just looking for meaning just like you said. so maybe there was no meaning, you know there was a lot of empty references that pointed back to themes of other popular films or series at the time so maybe your right. on top of that i really liked that you brought up that people look for meaning in things that don't necessarily have a meaning. it reminded me a lot of that south park episode where people looked into the catcher in the rye and got nothing out of it...hilarious
ReplyDeleteIt’s strange because Heathers is a satire and satirical stories exploit and exaggerate our own lives in order to get us to recognize a larger concept regarding our society or life in general. However, as far as what I understand, post modernism is about not going beneath the surface and simply embracing exterior style over the interior substance. While Heathers is filled with empty references and an overall pointless and pessimistic tone, I still think that there is something underneath it all that we don’t have to search too far to get at. Its comments on the conflicting feelings of teenagers and the relationships between them are clearly and uniquely addressed in Heathers. So I guess my question is: How post modern is Heathers?
ReplyDeleteWhat obk said, I think. It's not a movie about real teens or real problems. It's a movie about movies about teens, and also a satire about the indifferent, shallow, or self-serving ways that people can react to truly serious problems. It's satirical, and the reading suggests that it's the _imagery_ that points to nothing, not that actual teen problems are meaningless. But yeah, there's real feeling in it. Postmodernism isn't just empty gesture. It's more style that points to style than meaninglessness.
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