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%#@& me gently with a chainsaw! Heathers is coming to TV!

 

Yes, I know, I know, another reductive Hollywood rehash. Although, I have to say, if you’re gonna reboot something, I would rather it be a show or movie that has had a few years to incubate within the public consciousness… Unlike these Spider-Man and Superman reboots that occur within the same decade, amirite?

 

Bravo has announced that they are taking a respite from aiming cameras at catty housewives and obsessive-compulsive designers and taking a stab at scripted content. But they are going to have to ease into it ever so gingerly and thus will rely on previously available material as inspiration to get the ball rolling.

 

The concept is actually rather interesting, though, in that it doesn’t actually take place within the Heathers universe that we all grew up with but instead draws from the canon to update and expand on it. In the proposed show, Veronica Sawyer (played to emo perfection by Winona Ryder in the movie) is now a grown woman with a teenaged daughter of her own. Said daughter finds herself in a similar predicament as her mom when she encounters the daughters of Veronica’s same-named frenemies, who are all named Ashley.

 

So, apparently, Heather McNamara and Heather Duke both had daughters that they named Ashley, but there were originally three Heathers, which is what made it interesting, so either one of the two surviving Heathers had another daughter which they also named Ashley, or there is a third, non-related Ashley out there.

 

At any rate, when it comes to matters of relatability and relevance, I don’t think this TV show will have a hard time fitting in to today’s cultural climate. Heathers pretty much invented the “mean girls” movie, and even some of the famous expressions and quotes from the film are still used in everyday parlance. Forgiving the awful ‘80s fashions, Heathers hasn’t aged a day.

 

I will be interested to see how Veronica turned out following the explosive (har har) ending of the movie, after having been involved in three murders and being a not-so-innocent bystander for a fourth, and then claiming the Red Scrunchie of Power for herself. And will Veronica’s daughter also fall in with a local bad boy, like J.D. (Christian Slater)? Will the Ashleys also share a common fashion accessory as a mark of their Mean Girl territory, like a bejeweled iPhone case or something?

 

Corn nuts! I mean… Stay tuned!

 

 

- Katie Marzullo, YH Staff Editor

katie@younghollywood.com