FEAR Feature: The Latest Trend

I love movies. I think I’ve mentioned that enough times here to prove my point. Heck, I just love being entertained. Anything that causes my right-brain to do jumping jacks and fierce calisthenics are right up my alley. When I was on the brink of my early teens, I had a mild obsession with all things Winona Ryder. I also had a mild obsession with astrology, so the fact that she was a Scorpio meant she was ten times cooler in my book. Around this time in my obsession, she and Christian Slater starred in a movie that would later become the cult hit of my generation: Heathers.

Please, please, PUH-LEEZE tell me you’ve heard of this movie. Have seen it in your lifetime. Have experienced its awesomeness. If not, run (don’t walk) to your nearest video store, redbox, or Netflix and PICK. UP. THIS. MOVIE! I am not even exaggerating. Heathers put the spotlight on teenage suicide in the affluent suburbias of Midwest America. It was the first time a movie went so far as to delve into two pots of teenage psyche: suicide and bullies. Heathers is the mother to Mean Girls, if Mean Girls were a step-child. Featuring a pre-90210 Shannen Daugherty and a bunch of people who either went on to have a semblance of movie stardom -- or not in some cases. (Who knew Kim Chandler [a.k.a. Heather Chandler] died? More importantly, who knew she was dating Christian Slater during the movie, who then made the cavalier move of dumping her and dating Winona Ryder? What an arse!)

Fast forward over twenty years later (I think I just passed out as I typed that), and suicide is back to being the latest trend. All the kids are doing it. Again. How did this happen? When I had my brushes, I wasn’t thinking about being immortalized by my peers. I was thinking about how much this life sucked. How much I couldn’t handle it. How much I didn’t want to wake up the next day. I am in no way saying suicide is a cultural phenomenon. But at the height of its occurrence, it wasn’t kosher. Drug overdoses were more on the rise than suicides. It was the 80′s. Who wanted to die by their own hand in Generation Me? But suicide is back?

Even worse… suicide RINGS for assisted suicides are vogue? What?!

With the world in its current state, I can’t say I’m that surprised. A little stunned at the numbered rise in cases, but not surprised. Could we categorize this as a national cry for help?

If you’re feeling pretty good about life, I recommend having Heathers in your life and in your movie catalog. It may be hard to believe, but there’s a moral in there somewhere and its still relevant today. Unfortunately.

J.D.: Is your life perfect?
Veronica Sawyer: I’m on my way to a party at Remington University… No, my life’s not perfect. I don’t really like my friends.
J.D.: I… I don’t really like your friends either.
Veronica Sawyer: Well, it’s just like -- they’re people I work with, and our job is being popular and sh*t.
J.D.: Maybe it’s time to take a vacation.