Heathers and Bullying
Heathers and Bullying
What can bullying lead to? The film Heathers is a perfect microcosm of the effects that bullying can have on people and what it can lead them to do. In Heathers, audiences view a lifelike portrayal of bullying through witnessing the role of cliques in high school, by seeing the potential for homicide as a victim's possible resolution, and through watching how peer pressure may very well impact bullying behavior. Cliques are particularly important, as they can play the largest role in bullying. Cliques are basically groups of people that share a particular, collective interest. Unfortunately, the many cliques that inhabit the typical high school scene, as portrayed in Heathers, are often, for lack of a better term, doing battle. Heathers portrays what could be called a hierarchy, with groups such as the “preps”, “populars” and the “jocks” near the top, while groups such as the “nerds” tend to be near the bottom (Heathers n.pag). The popular people of the school are four girls named Heather Chandler, Heather McNamara, Heather Duke, and Veronica Sawyer. As Roz Kaveney says in her reading “Teen Dreams”, the girls “dominate school life through beauty, bitchery, and sexual favors.” (Kaveney 49). The girls were shown to be frequent bullies, spreading hurtful gossip and rumors (Heathers n.pag). One such for instance of said rumors being a fake love note being dispersed to a heavy-set girl named Martha, nicknamed by all the popular kids “Martha Dump Truck” (Heathers n.pag). This is just one of a multitude of examples in regards to bullying. The two best football players of the school’s team, Ram and Kurt, are also heavily involved in bullying. They beat up and harass anyone who questions their intelligence or anything along those lines. As Kaveney states, “Kurt and Ram are instantly established as unpleasant thugs and as playing entirely outside their league, both in their attempt to bully J.D. and in their sexual fantasies about the
What can bullying lead to? The film Heathers is a perfect microcosm of the effects that bullying can have on people and what it can lead them to do. In Heathers, audiences view a lifelike portrayal of bullying through witnessing the role of cliques in high school, by seeing the potential for homicide as a victim's possible resolution, and through watching how peer pressure may very well impact bullying behavior. Cliques are particularly important, as they can play the largest role in bullying. Cliques are basically groups of people that share a particular, collective interest. Unfortunately, the many cliques that inhabit the typical high school scene, as portrayed in Heathers, are often, for lack of a better term, doing battle. Heathers portrays what could be called a hierarchy, with groups such as the “preps”, “populars” and the “jocks” near the top, while groups such as the “nerds” tend to be near the bottom (Heathers n.pag). The popular people of the school are four girls named Heather Chandler, Heather McNamara, Heather Duke, and Veronica Sawyer. As Roz Kaveney says in her reading “Teen Dreams”, the girls “dominate school life through beauty, bitchery, and sexual favors.” (Kaveney 49). The girls were shown to be frequent bullies, spreading hurtful gossip and rumors (Heathers n.pag). One such for instance of said rumors being a fake love note being dispersed to a heavy-set girl named Martha, nicknamed by all the popular kids “Martha Dump Truck” (Heathers n.pag). This is just one of a multitude of examples in regards to bullying. The two best football players of the school’s team, Ram and Kurt, are also heavily involved in bullying. They beat up and harass anyone who questions their intelligence or anything along those lines. As Kaveney states, “Kurt and Ram are instantly established as unpleasant thugs and as playing entirely outside their league, both in their attempt to bully J.D. and in their sexual fantasies about the