‘Heathers’ Showrunner Defends His New Bullies As Wild 1st Trailer Drops

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Published

January 19, 2018

The first trailer for the Heathers reboot is here, and while it looks like an absolutely wild time, not everyone’s happy.

In the 1988 cult classic, the Heathers – the trio of popular girls / bullies – were your usual straight, rich, white women. Typical WASPs.

In this new reboot, they’re a body-positive plus-sized leader (Melanie Field), a genderqueer person (Brendan Scannell) and a woman of colour (Jasmine Mathews). The protagonist Veronica (Grace Victoria Cox) remains a straight white female. And even though it’s her boyfriend J.D. (James Scully) who ends up being the real villain, there’s still been criticism that it comes across as the straight white couple vs the ‘outsiders’.

The first trailer came out today, and it proves the show knows EXACTLY what its doing with these new characters.

But yeah – not everyone’s happy.

This show feels like a gimmick without a purpose. The creators thought they were being edgy, but didn’t understand the awful implications of turning (still!) marginalized groups into popular bullies.https://t.co/QZML2rqTXF

— BethElderkin@Mastodon.Social (@BethElderkin) January 18, 2018

Realizing the Heathers tv adaptation is going to have a white straight couple killing marginalized characters because the white straight people see themselves as the victims AND we’re supposed to side with the white straight people. pic.twitter.com/bysm09mzPs

— Katie Schenkel (@JustPlainTweets) January 18, 2018

┏┓
┃┃╱╲ in
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╱╱╭╮╲╲house
▔▏┗┛▕▔ we
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hate the heathers tv reboot
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— greg abbott hate account (@whizzermutual) January 9, 2018

Showrunner Jason Micallef has defended his flip of the roles, telling EW that he sees the Heathers not as the villains but as the aspirational characters, and that he flipped the characters because “today, all different types of people are more aspirational.”

“The main thing to really take away is I don’t view the Heathers as the villains. The three Heathers are incredibly powerful and ruling the school; they’re the people you would want to be. In the original film, the Heathers were the ones I always loved, and it’s the same with the series. The Heathers are the aspirational characters. [That the Heathers are the villains is] the underlying thesis of the small segment of people that have an issue with it. The villain is J.D. — and that’s the same in the movie and same in our show.

“The reason I changed the Heathers surface identities is I think today [the characterisation] rings true. Today, all different types of people are more aspirational. People that wouldn’t have necessarily been considered the most popular kids in school in 1988 could very well be — and probably most likely are — the more popular kids today. And also because it’s a TV show, we have so much more time to explore their characters and get behind it. Of course, no one’s seen the show yet. Once they see it, I think they’ll get what we’re talking about.”

EW also notes that Scannell recently described the character flip as the modern-retelling of a classic.

“One of the themes that we talk about on the show is like how power corrupts, and everyone at their core is kind of an a–hole and concerned with themselves. So in the movie, we have these like three beautiful white women who you wouldn’t expect to be wreaking havoc on a school, and that was sort of new and hadn’t been seen before. So our modern retelling of it, we’ve got traditionally marginalised communities. We’ve got a black Heather, a plus-sized Heather, a queer Heather. These communities still face discrimination. But our show is turning that on its head and using the power of the internet and the power of like pure self-confidence to trash everybody around them.”

It’s also important to note that not everyone is off-side about this reboot – plenty of people are insanely excited.