Before I start, a disclaimer: Heathers is a mature musical. It features mature elements and ideas, and as such, this particular blog post will be more PG-13 than my usual posts. So if you’re young or just don’t like this kind of thing, maybe sit this one out.
That said, content warnings for talk of consent and suicide.
One last disclaimer. I’m basing this analysis primarily on the soundtrack for Heathers, as I haven’t been fortunate enough to see the full musical live. So feel free to consider this as more of an analysis of the Heathers soundtrack as an adaptation.
Now, onto the actual content!
The Kind of Hot Take
I’m going to start off with a hot take.
Heathers the musical, a black comedy, treats suicide with more delicacy than a certain drama show that shall not be named.
There are a few reasons why I say this.
Heathers goes into detail explicitly showing how suicide can be glamorized, and the dangers of doing so. The accidental murder of Heather Chandler, which is passed off as a suicide, is immediately glamorized by the student body and by the counselor Mrs. Fleming.
There are two actual suicide attempts in the show (both of which fail) and both of them are in some way a consequence of the glorifying of the deaths believed to be suicides. The first is Heather McNamara. She comes forward with her actual issues following encouragement from Mrs. Fleming (who is motivated by the desire to keep the influence she gained from glamorizing Chandler’s death) only to receive bullying from her peers in return. It drives her to a suicide attempt which Veronica talks her out of. This event is indicative of the school’s failure to help students with actual problems. The second suicide attempt is Martha Dunnstock’s. This is the one that carries more emotional weight. Unlike McNamara, Martha actually follows through on her attempt, but is left only injured. Afterward, the students deride her as trying to imitate the popular kids.
All of this serves to reinforce the idea that martyrizing suicides is a bad idea that can lead to more, and all of this is done without the characters having to actually say it.
Now what does all this have to do with the point of this blog post, which is showing that the musical is a good adaptation of the movie?
Well, to some extent this nuanced take on suicide is in the original 80s movie, but it is much more pronounced in the musical. Part of the way the musical makers adapted the musical to be more fitting for the modern audience was by treating the material in a way more typical of modern media, which is (aforementioned drama show not withstanding) more sensitive to the way it talks about such subjects.
The Setup
The musical also changes the setup. In the movie, Veronica is friends with the Heathers, and has been for some time. In the musical, Veronica starts off having zero history with the Heathers. Her only friend is Martha, but as thanks for forging a hall pass in the opening number, the Heathers give her a makeover and let her into their group. This makes the dilemma much more personal and greater for Veronica when the Heathers urge her to use her forgery ability to help them pull a prank on Martha later.
Making Martha Veronica’s friend on the outside and not Betty Finn both helps simplify the cast for the audience, and make Martha more important so her suicide attempt late in the musical hits harder.
Dead Girls, Deadbeats, and JDs
Another reason the Heathers musical adapts the movie well is that many of the changes it makes work together. This starts with one scene in particular, or in this case, song: "Dead Girl Walking".
This is the scene where Veronica and JD sleep together. It’s where their relationship becomes official, and is the last major point both in the plot and their relationship before the deaths start.
The events of the scene are virtually the same on stage and screen. What changes is who does what, and that changes everything.
In the original movie, JD breaks through a window into the room of a drunk Veronica and they sleep together. The musical reverses who does what. In its version, a drunken Veronica breaks into JD’s room and initiates sex with him. This changes the dynamics completely. It makes the act more clears consensual, takes away any potential creepiness and giving Veronica a more active role.
This fits in line with the musical’s adjustment of JD as a whole. The musical version is more sympathetic. (Don’t worry- the story ultimately still holds him just as accountable for his actions.) In the movie, he’s more obviously murderous from the get-go. In the musical, he has more of a bad boy demeanor. It's from the small things, like getting into a fight with Ram and Kurt in his intro scene instead of shooting at them. To a modern viewer, it can be difficult to understand what Veronica sees in the movie version of JD. The musical version makes him just a bit more charismatic. This leads to Veronica and the audience’s horror being all the more greater when JD turns out to be a stone cold killer.
Don’t get me wrong, the JD in the musical is still violent, manipulative, murderous, emotionally abusive, and gaslighting. He ends up in pretty much the same place as the movie version. The difference is that of someone whose clearly murderous from the beginning versus someone who at first seems like just a troubled outcast, who then reveals himself to be a killer.
These changes to JD ripple to fit together with the changes to Veronica and JD’s relationship. It hits deeper than the movie version did, helped in part by songs like Seventeen, where Veronica pleads with JD to give up the killing to be a teenager with her. If they didn’t change JD, Veronica’s attachment to him wouldn’t quite work, because Veronica herself is changed.
Veronica is a better person in the musical. She’s more idealistic. She opens up the show by talking about how she sees good in everyone. This nicer Veronica would be less likely to form a relationship with the JD from the movie, let alone the deeper connection the musical calls for. But the slight changes to JD and the slight changes to Veronica and the adjustment to their relationship all work in tandem.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the reason the Heathers musical works so well is that it takes the best core elements of the original movie, makes alterations with its own target audience in mind, and takes advantage of the musical format’s longer length to cast more depth on subplots and characters alike.
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