As my closest friends can tell you, I usually have an obsession with some piece of entertainment or another. Recently, my obsession has been with the cult classic 80s film Heather and its 2014 musical adaptation. Subtext tends to fascinate me and this film has a lot of symbolism that I very much relate to in my own way. However, in this particular instance, one fascinating topic Heathers discusses is mental health, depression, suicide, and our own thoughts on this topic. In this spoiler filled post, I am going to discuss the themes brought up by the story and some of my own thoughts based on my experiences.
We’ll start off with a brief synopsis of the first third of the film so that everyone is caught up and will continue discussing events as they become relevant to the discussion. Essentially, our story starts off with a high school being dominated by various cliques and social hierarchies. At the top are the group known as the Heathers, which includes the Queen Bee Heather Chandler, the “mythic bitch” who dominates the school, Heather Duke, her pathetic yes-girl lackey, Heather McNamara, the head cheerleader, and Veronica Sawyer (yes, her first name isn’t Heather), the fourth member of the group who joined late in order to advance her social status in the hopes that she could get above all the unpleasant bullying those on the lower spectrum of the high school hierarchy have to face. Over time though, Veronica begins to feel out of place and uncomfortable in this position as she is required to do things she finds unspeakably immoral such as helping Heather Chandler bully other students. Eventually, this leads to a confrontation between the two that ends with Veronica trying to unplug from the high school insanity. However, on accident Veronica and her boyfriend JD murder Chandler and make it look like a suicide. So, the rest of the film follows the school as it deals with the unexpected “suicide” of the most popular girl in school as the threads that hold the social order of the school slowly unravel.
In order to hide the actions of JD and herself, Veronica has to fake a note in Chandler’s handwriting to convince everyone it wasn’t murder. As a result, she writes it to make it look like Heather was going through major personal problems with her sense of self-worth. As a result, her death is no longer the passing of someone in the school (generally unliked as a person) but a tragic cry for help from someone close to the other students. As a result, just about everyone has their own perspective in relation to the events of the death and what has caused it. This is best exemplified by the funeral scene where the inner prayers and thoughts of each student are revealed, but also by the different actions of individuals throughout. However, there are actually two general approaches that particularly stick out.
The first is to genuinely ignore it and pretend nothing is wrong. This is actually the approach of the adults throughout the film as the principal initially doesn’t even want to cancel school the day after Chandler’s death as the potential backlash from parents would be an annoyance. Veronica’s own parents meanwhile check to see if she’s alright and then immediately change the conversation after they get a response. There is some show of concern as the students try to leave a sympathetic portrayal of her in the school yearbook and the local pastor makes references to Christ’s love as an alternative to death, but both fall hollow and disingenuous as the students always hated her. Thus, covering up Chandler’s unkind reputation does little while the reference to Christ is (intentionally) superficial. In short, most people try to treat it like nothing is wrong or out of the ordinary.
This is tragically similar to the history of mental health as it has been terribly stigmatized. Historically, those suffering from mental illnesses were considered extremely abnormal in society, being compared to animals, talks of demon possession or opposition to God, and so forth with these views daing back to even before Hippocrates. The answer to deal with this was largely to lock those with mental health illnesses away in asylums, a place where they wouldn’t have to be dealt withor addressed and could be easily ignored. Stigma against it even continued into the 2000s with a 2010 studyfinding that 46% of adolescents “described experiencing stigmatization by family members…62% experienced stigma from peers…and 35% reported stigma perpetrated by teachers and school staff.” Bottom line, treating mental illness like an outside abnormality that can’t really be addressed has been a continuous problem for a while.
The apathy and disinterest stigma causes results in the impact of reducing improvement. One study found that the stigma regarding it lead to “exclusion, poor social support, poorer subjective quality of life, and low self-esteem.” Another study found that stigma was the fourth highest reasonwhy people do not seek the help they actually need. Honestly, it can be scary to admit that there’s something bad going on in one’s life and people not being supportive can actively prevent those who need help from wanting to admit there is a problem. However, this all only further reduces the ability of people to get help or overcome this intense struggle.
Before continuing, there is one last thing to keep in mind about why apathy may be the main approach to mental health. Honestly, mental health problems are harder to understand as unlike physical illnesses, they cannot be seen or do not present obvious symptoms as they exist in the brains of those who have them. This can make them hard to relate to and scarier due to a lack of a frame of reference. As a result, it may be easier to just avoid it all together instead of addressing it. However, as said, this is counterproductive and makes things much worse.
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