Great Character: Veronica Sawyer (“Heathers”)
The Great Character theme for the month: High School Characters. Today: Veronica Sawyer from the 1988 movie Heathers, written by Daniel Waters. Here is regular contributor Jason Cuthbart’s background and analysis.
The common story tropes of 1980s Teen Movies were certainly: gaining acceptance from the cool kids, bully ambushes, getting the girl or guy of your dreams and rebelling against parents and teachers. These youthful identity journeys popped up in countless high school 80s classics like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Say Anything and The Lost Boys. But towards the end of the decadent decade of the 80s, two up-and-coming teen actors, a pre-Edward Scissorhands Winona Ryder and Christian Slater before he tackled Quentin Tarantino dialogue in True Romance, swung a satirical bat at the entire prom date circuit.
Heathers, written by Daniel Watters (Batman Returns, Vampire Academy) is a 1988 dark comedy about the Bonnie & Clyde misadventures of Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), a sick of being popular good-girl-gone-bad and her Jack Nicholson-meets-James Dean rabble-rousing boyfriend ironically named Jason Dean (Christian Slater). Many of the main characters from movies like The Breakfast Club would have been in “The Burial Club” had they been written into Heathers opposite Veronica Sawyer.
VERONICA SAWYER: Dear Diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.
Heathers IMDB:
A girl who half-heartedly tries to be part of the “in crowd” of her school meets a rebel who teaches her a more devious way to play social politics; killing the popular kids.
With its mixture of poke fun parody and its David Lynch unsettling tone, teenage stereotypes are lampooned, right along with the often-aloof adult guardians that teen flicks have often made out to be clueless adversaries. Screenwriter Daniel Waters had a clear vision and inspiration for his deconstruction of the high school movie:
“’Heathers’ was my response to the way the media and other films treated teenagers. They didn’t seem to have a clue as to what young people were about and how they acted. Films often portray teenagers as the innocent victims of a cruel society. I’ve always felt that young people were born with a lot of evil already in them. I wrote ‘Heathers’ with the idea that most teens are not innocent victims, and that it’s a cruel world from day one.” — Daniel Waters
We enter Veronica Sawyer’s fame game with a surreal introduction that literally puts her beneath the feet of the popularity trio knows as the “Heathers,” with Veronica’s head popping out of the grass during the croquet game of Heather (leader), Heather (bulimic) and Heather (cheerleader). This daydream immediately projects Veronica’s dilemma, should she keep being the Heather’s mascot for social status in their clique or admit that she can’t stand being in their presence?
VERONICA SAWYER: Tomorrow, I’ll be kissing her aerobicized ass, but tonight, let me dream of a world without Heather, a world where I am free.
The Heather 3 continue to prove ultimately superficial by alienating Veronica from her real friends and also down right hateful when they push Veronica to write a fake love letter from an athlete to give to an ostracized heavy-set student. It doesn’t take long for Veronica to focus her attention towards Jason Dean, the reclusive and exclusive loner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LkFNZauk90
Veronica is smitten with Jason’s unruly one-man crew lifestyle and especially his zero tolerance for the Heathers. She is the girl that is intelligent enough to gain the trust of adults and her peers, yet is quietly enthralled by her wild side that Jason only inflates her infatuation of.
VERONICA SAWYER: I use my grand IQ to decide what color lip gloss to wear in the morning and how to hit three keggers before curfew…
The problem in paradise arises when Jason’s influence over Veronica becomes worse than the Heathers. He reluctantly makes Veronica a killer accomplice as he begins to systematically murder cafeteria bullies and popularity princesses.
VERONICA SAWYER: The cops? This is my life. Oh, my God. I’ll have to send my S.A.T. scores to San Quentin instead of Stanford.
Writing convincing suicide notes to sit beside the corpses of her classmates is not exactly how Veronica imagined her high school education who get utilized. She took no pleasure in being a sex kitten for college guys with the Heathers, nor does she believe that the “cool crowd” deserves to die just for being annoying. Like any high schooler, whether real or imagined, Veronica places value on making friends, unfortunately she is having a miserable time choosing the right ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqZmu8hay1o
To make matters worse in Veronica’s complicated kid world, the “suicides” that have happened to students at her school are causing suicide to seem like an optional exit strategy for her associates that aren’t quite feeling the love on campus. This magnifies Veronica’s growing guilt, pushing her further towards developing her own identity, one not smothered by the irrational whims of her peer group.
VERONICA SAWYER: If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn’t be a human being. You’d be a game-show host.
For her smart and compassionate aura, her growing trust in listening to her conscience, and her desire to become comfortable in her own skin, Veronica Sawyer is a GREAT CHARACTER in the fraternity of high school protagonists.
Heathers is a terrific movie, one I’ll bet feels as relevant today as it did back in the late 80s, perhaps even more so.
Thank you, Jason, for this post. Please join us in comments to discuss Heathers.
You may follow Jason on Twitter: @A2Jason.