The 1988 dark revenge fantasy/comedy Heathers, starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder as a couple of high school miscreants who violently seek revenge on the popular kids (the Heathers), is headed to TV Land. Yeah, TV Land.
TV adaptations of popular films is all the rave these days, so Heathers meeting that same fate isn’t all that surprising. The fact it landed on TV Land (!) is a little odd, but whatever. No, where this new idea really takes a turn for the worst is in the description of the first season over at The Hollywood Reporter.
Heathers will focus on new “Heathers” each season – another new trend – but check out what this debut season is going to have:
Heather McNamara (originally played by Lisanne Falk) is a black lesbian; Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath; and Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) has a body like Martha Dumptruck.
So let me get this straight… The Heathers in question this time around, the ones who are targeted and subsequently taken out by the Slater/Ryder duo, are a black lesbian, a transgender, and a morbidly obese girl?
In the original film, the irony and the entire point of the film was turning the tables on bullies. Now, in this new TV Land adaptation, the targets are going to be kids who would be (and are) bullied here in the real world. The report does say “only this time the outcasts have become high school royalty,” inferring that these individuals are popular and must be destroyed. I think… I THINK… I get where there head is, but holy hell is this a bad idea.
How is it a good idea to make the targets of high school revenge students who suffer abuse and mockery every day in real life? In the film, the Heathers were popular and had everything going for them and nobody was making fun of them or bullying them, i.e. they had it coming in the eyes of Ryder/Slater. The version of those kids in reality was similar: no worries, no bullying, no hardships. It was comeuppance for a squad that knew nothing of the sort.
Regardless of whether or not these unique students are all wildly popular, they bring with them the stigma with which so many of their groups are attached, again, in the real world. No matter how popular they are, is it not a moot point in the face of legitimate social issues? This sounds like a show for the FOX News crowd.
It seems impossible for this TV Land Heathers to go off the way its described in the report. Perhaps there’s ore to it, but if that’s the case maybe issuing this press release was a bad idea.
There’s no date set for HeathersTV, but keep an eye out for some #madonline.
