You know what I want, babe? Cool guys like you out of my life.

Arthur Chu wrote a very perceptive essay last week for The Daily Beast, entitled

"Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds." Here's an excerpt:

But the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to “earn,” to “win.” That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well.

He mentions Revenge of the Nerds, Can't Hardly Wait, and Sixteen Candles, among others, as movies that propagate misogynistic entitlement, where the women are props in the story of nerd redemption.

This week I want to showcase a film where a woman is the protagonist of her own story: Heathers (1988).

Image source: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/newsroom/img/mt/2014/03/heathers1/lead.jpg?n3b0yj

Heather, Heather, Heather, Winona

Heathers is the original, darker, weirder Mean Girls with a 'Dear Diary' voiceover. Like the latter, the cult classic is characterized by its in-house slang. "What is your damage, Heather?" the main character Veronica asks her frenemy. Really, what is your damage?

Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, is the outlier of the namesake group. Brunette and smarter than everyone around her by half, it looks like she's going to spend the rest of high school bored to death--until she meets J.D. (Christian Slater). The new kid is dashing and clever, a proto James Dean on a motorcycle.

Image source: http://content6.flixster.com/photo/12/43/90/12439096_gal.jpg
No caption necessary.

He also likes using football players as target practice. As it turns out he's a loner, Dottie, but he's not a rebel--he's psychotic. 

The film soon becomes a battle of the wits as Veronica and J.D. hook up, make out, and begin a murder spree that takes over the school. It's when Veronica starts having pangs of remorse that things become interesting. As soon as J.D. pulls out the gun for more target practice, she says: "That's it, we're breaking up."

She's realized that there's a way out of the relationship. The problem is that J.D. hasn't. Like football players Kurt and Ram, he feels entitled to sex, companionship, love. When he doesn't get it, he turns to violence. 

It is impossible to ignore J.D.'s resemblance to Elliot Rodger, whose story I'm sure you've heard over and over this past week and a half, in different settings, in different ways. And I'm sure that for years to come people will think back on Rodger, and what he did, and why he did it. 

Will they remember his victims? I don't know. I hope so. But by wielding violence in such a public way, he made certain that their stories are always intertwined with his.

This story doesn't end that way. Heathers may be a fantasy, but it's not J.D.'s fantasy. It's Veronica's. She's a mean girl, a former Heather, and she has power. As she tells her ex-boyfriend: "It's over, J.D.--over. Grow up."

Image source: http://oi40.tinypic.com/2nb945d.jpg

That's all I have to say.


If you like Christian Slater and/or pirate radio, you should also check out Pump up the Volume (1990).