Making use of my Netflix account

I've been trying to watch shows but I'm in such a place mentally sometimes I only need noise with no requirement for engagement, and if you're trying to placate another person when you're viewing stuff, I'll go with whatever the other person wants, I don't care.

I've been trying to get into Sweet Tooth, which is mostly a good show, but I can only say that kid got picked to do the main role because he looks adorable with antlers and animatronic dear ears. He's basically on a level of the kid who played Anakin. I know kid actors can get better. I genuinely hated Halley Joel Osment when he was a child actor, I like him now he's grown up, but he wasn't adorable to me, he was a little prat and I didn't like anything he did. I thought he was mostly overacting in AI and Sixth Sense, I just wasn't interested in his efforts. The Sweet Tooth kid is genuinely cute but he's middling for a child actor. Plus he's basically playing a kid, there's not a lot to his character outside of the inevitable naivety from growing up isolated from a decaying civilisation while having to cope with being made and not born like other kids. There's a few tired cliches as well, it's not a bad show, I'm just not that invested in the main character, just the rest of them in his orbit.

We also got into an Australian comedy drama of a small town murder and I am invested but not enough to give a shit if there's a new episode, plus it's also not on Netflix. What I'm really trying to avoid is the torturous chore of scrolling through streaming services just to find something to make noise while I eat dinner.

Having said that, I'm finding out about how bad the show with the Weeknd is in, I don't really understand the point of it other than to be a vehicle for his music. I've heard songs of his and liked them, I wanted to listen properly but this is putting me off. He's a pretty bad actor and I find him really off-putting already, it kinda doesn't help his videos are intentionally making him look ugly, which is a really interesting aesthetic for someone making pop music. But now him getting pissed on missing out on nominations make him even less sympathetic. Which sucks because his synth pop sound is really nice to listen to, I don't think he needs a TV show to showcase his music and his severe lack of acting prowess.

No, I'm serious. I am Daria.

Seeing reels from Daria on Instagram reminded me how good the first season was. It's not online for free (meaning Amazon has free trials), so I busted out my barely used DVD set, the one I hated because the music's missing (bar one song), and decided to watch it. To be fair, the replacement music really isn't that bad, it just wrecks some jokes.

Anyway, episode two Britney asks Daria if the phrase "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is from a song. I nearly died. That scenario happened to me almost exactly. Okay, it wasn't between me and a cheerleader, my country doesn't have that shit. It also wasn't even at school, in the cafeteria, which we also didn't have. It was at work. And I like the person who was the Britney. And technically I didn't correct them, the person who said the phrase said, no that wasn't Kelly Clarkson. That person also looked really appreciative when I said it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche. I'm not that smart, I can't spell the guy's name off the top of my head. But I had a Daria moment in real life. And I was the school Daria. Most of those girls grew up and were told they weren't that smart or edgy, and it wasn't that cool to say you were. But, fuck it, how is this not evidence I can fucking own this one. The only reason I'm not on Instagram right now telling people is the Britney follows me. Whether she remembers the scene, I don't know. I just don't want to point it out and be mean. And people were really quick to call me out for being too smart, they still do it. You don't ever get away from that.

I also have a limit on Daria's voice when I binge the show, and the theme. It takes a while for her monotone to grate on your nerves. This really was a show better seen on TV. And I missed most of the later seasons, again these shows were on during my transition from high school to college when I wasn't around a TV much once I'd moved out.

Also, Tiffany had a totally different voice in the second episode (Britney and a few other characters weren't as "on" initially, they really do lean into the quirks of those character voices along the way), and Stacey's nowhere to be seen as yet. I forgot how much Daria terrorises Quinn early on, and her family. Daria's completely toxic but it's against objectively awful people like her entire family and 99% of the students at school, and her teachers. And the lines are giving me late 90s MTV website vibes where they had just enough space to upload a couple of videos and audio clips you could click on. This show was my life back then. I feel like I have an absolute right to claim my Daria card.

Oh, and Quinn being asked to tutor Daria was basically my life at work until recently. And Quinn "outperforming" as a writer over Daria was my authorship life until recently.

I actually feel kind of stupid for how angry I got about the lack of licensed music from the show, considering I don't even remember every song they played, they weren't all even hit songs, just whatever MTV was playing at the time. Even the websites I'm looking up have varied totals of songs played which leads me to believe people couldn't identify some of them to list them, given something licensed played as incidental music through the whole show, so it never had a score, getting that info even for a fan wiki is a lot of work if you weren't listening to the radio back then. Looking at the track lists I don't remember hearing those songs much. I can't believe some episodes only had 2 songs total, plus some of the credits had songs played. Now I'm wondering if this was harder to curate back in the day because the internet wasn't that accessible. So I'm seeing a lot of lists where they had no idea what song was played, so they've left a ? or no listing at all. It didn't occur to me nobody would've been able to get this info down without keeping track live or having every broadcast episode videotaped. Someone's supposedly done a complete play list of 628 songs. The Wikipedia section mentions 99% of the songs were removed which makes sense to me because I distinctly remember Tori's cover of Strange Little Girl playing in the second movie when I was watching the DVDs for the first time and my brain just went Huh? K? You got that? It would've made way more sense to admit defeat from the outset and just not even try to secure licensing. 

It's been a quibble of some TV show fans where rules in certain places dictate you only have the rights to use the song once during the initial broadcast, and it's revoked and then needs replacing for streaming or physical release. Which seems silly, again there's a couple of scenes in Skins season 2 that were just crap without the original song. Something about certain scenes with certain songs, if it hits you in the feels the first time, or you watched that version and got the feels, it's really a shock to the system when you're expecting the song/moment and a totally different song is playing. It makes you mad, you're looking for an emotional lift and it's just completely denied. I think it's something people who add music for shows don't always get. Dan Harmon insisted music not be used if an editor can make a scene without a pop song and it's totally fine, then don't force it. The problem is worse in trailer terms especially now everyone wants like a gritty reimagining of a popular song with beats you can use for dramatic edits and bass drops. Or they happen upon a meme song and suddenly it's in the trailer.

This wasn't about music in shows but it's important to bring up in the context of Daria, it was what made the show famous outside of the titular character being iconic on her own terms. Watching it now, it didn't get the mainstream credit it deserved for how subversive it was, it was competing for attention from Futurama fans, who were becoming disillusioned Simpsons fans looking for a replacement cartoon. Bevis and Butthead is still hilarious, the first movie holds up. I couldn't binge it though without getting more annoyed. I don't think other MTV shows relied that heavily on music that was on MTV or just out at the time. Since I only remember a couple of moments where the song mattered, watching now, they did fine replacing it with a score, I was nostalgic for an aspect of the show that made it fun but this change doesn't make it the unwatchable mess I accused it of being when I got the DVD. They at least bothered to make it sound like 90s grunge predominantly.

Also Daria was on the cusp of being a millennial, she was canonically born in 1980, something I never considered until going back to the DVDs which are skipping despite me barely touching them (thankfully, the cheap Bluray player is a good DVD player and the DVDs aren't region locked - I might have to try a few DVDs out and see if they don't skip too much) You could say she was a Gen Xer but it's barely.

Rewatching the Misery Chick episode and Daria has a point. I was the only kid who seemed remotely interested in death as a concept so I'm glad nobody died. And Jane running away and through Daria's problems, I wish people played that clip more. Especially now when nobody on the side of thoughtlessness has figured out why billionaires dying in a submarine is worthy of ridicule. You didn't want to keep going on why? That wealth disparity caused by these fuckers accentuating everyone's poverty with no regard is a perfectly reasonable response to them possibly dying a horrible death. The Onion figured it out, people are still upset. This is the level of stupidity people apply politicians or horrible people in general finally dying - it's ill to speak wrong of the dead, even if they couldn't care less if you die and have likely made decisions that could possibly even increase your entire chance of dying (i.e. Trump). People get upset when Murdoch's name trends on Twitter and it's nothing about him dying. Meanwhile, we get panic attacks if someone who's kicking on a bit starts trending and we all think they're finally gone. Daria being the agony aunt for people who can't cope with grief is another of my shared traits. Some people clued in to the fact I thought deeper than some kids so I must have had some wisdom about shitty things. In truth, I didn't go to a funeral until I was in my early twenties, and the sight of a closed coffin was way more confronting that I anticipated. I was too affected by other people crying.

Another question came up about Daria being autistically coded. I said it was a retroactive diagnosis based on what we know now, not was obvious then. She had big feelings hiding behind a mask and a monotone, that alone would nominate her for the club. But she was really dour and I didn't always have the capacity for that. Maybe when I was 15 and anxious and more aware of being numbed out. The difference is she spoke up when I didn't and was basically right about everything. And her mother was a lawyer so some punishments from the school were mitigated by Helen's legal savvy (however, it's pretty shitty Helen's employing her PA to do Quinn's homework). I think Daria was probably more autistic than me and she wasn't clueless about people. I know it makes people so mad to point out autism where people don't want to see it (mostly neurotypicals), I think it's kinda fun to play that game. We only do it to ruin TV shows for neurotypicals, of course. They're not allowed to enjoy an autistic character without us pointing it out and making them feel shitty for liking anything remotely autistic.

She also gets nauseated in VR, like me. She’s also a chronic bitch who beats up her sister. She gets blotch face and neck like me when she’s anxious. But it's kinda funny the way other students worry about her being in hospital despite her wanting it to be a secret, just because she's the main character. She only really cares about Jane, (and Jodie when it counts). I think I felt so detached from other students it made no sense to me they would show me sympathy when I was sad. Daria's really an anti-hero as much as Bevis and Butthead are, she's diabolical and mean-spirited but the point of the show was really about her slowly succumbing to her own humanity, which we don't see Bevis and Butthead do as much, unless Bevis is butt-hurt about being unable to score. She wasn't miserable, she didn't hate people, she really just didn't hold anyone in good esteem. She becomes a decent friend, so when it comes time for her to betray Jane, that's where the show fell off the wagon for me. It was more, how would Daria cope with being in that situation, and her picking the cheating route felt stupid and forced. Plus, she sucked as a girlfriend, and the guy was nothing to bust a friendship over anyway. I think her going through her whole high school experience without a boyfriend would've been fine. Her crush on Trent humanised her enough, she kept it up despite realising he wouldn't be a good match long term, that's totally normal. And him showing up to her house to see her is amusing. The piercing episode is cute, like the contact lenses one. For such a flat character on the original show, you can see why people loved Daria being given the depth of a normal teenage girl who still couldn't fit in anywhere. Also she was better at telling her mother off for taking calls rather than listen to her problems. Which is why we all love Aunt Amy, Daria's adult counterpart.

And teachers needed to stop entering her work in competitions without her consent.

The Blair Witch Project. A sober viewing two decades later.

I sat in the front row of the local cinema drunk on vodka back in 1999, just having finished high school that year. We didn't have enough internet back then that the makers of the Blair Witch Project could at least keep up the ruse that the kids in the movie were real. But the movie was getting international traction and a lot of interesting commentary about how you can make something big with so little. I also have severe queazy cam so I'm not physically looking at the screen too much.

This movie had vibes. There was this song on the radio that was a remix with quotes from the film that was kinda eerie. The soundtrack also has a great Afghan Whigs cover on it. The guy behind Paranormal Activity passed on this and rued the day ever since so he had to make buttloads more of that franchise to compensate.

The set up for the film is pretty reasonable, you're to assume this footage is unedited and was found as is, so I can't remember if they edited the interviews before going into the woods, I didn't think they did, in camera editing might explain it. People supposed that if you weren't born during this marketing phenomena and didn't know about the movie, could you be tricked into thinking this was real and have the hoax reset.

The main girl Heather is kinda obnoxious, there's good reason to dislike her but she's endearing. The two guys  Josh and Mike are pretty hilarious, they're fun, they have good chemistry at the start, they aren't that annoying. The locals all have the right amount of energy, you get the woodsy fishermen arguing about the facts about the myth and how the woods are haunted. I liked they had black and white and colour shots, and it's getting up to wonky, unstable camera time so I'll keep my eyes down. I was more checking this out because it showed up on a lot of people's top five movies of the 90s, the marketing the big hero of the story. I listened to interviews from the film makers who were responsible for making noises outside the tent to freak the actors out. I don't remember them being particularly egotistical, you can see interviews of indie directors that make a lot of pretentious claims about film making.

It doesn't take long for our intrepid film makers to get lost, and Heather's only proving chicks can't read maps. Josh gets in between Mike and Heather's married couple bickering. There's a lot of hilarious ad lib as well. Heather didn't write anything down so she can't remember shit the crazy lady says at the start, she's way too confident about how not lost they already are, but spirits are relatively high.

I'm also wearing my headphones for funsies which is making this more creepy now you can hear the spoopy stuff happening in the dark and shit. Problem is I can remember all the quotes from that song too. Heather's also making a lot of unreasonable demands of her crew, I'm on Mike's side at this point, nobody's talking to Heather and now they're supposed to be heading back with Heather full of false promises and trying to explain why they're going where they're going. Yeah, Heather's dumb optimism is really irritating, Mike is reasonably pissed and Josh can't keep Mom and Pops from bickering. The ticking clock becomes them having to get back to work on Monday, which is a great little realistic and mundane plot device that adds to the tension. Little Miss Scorsese is still trying to get footage, the equipment's rented and it won't be back on time. There's still a lot of nonsense going on out in the woods, and now I can see where they got the inspiration for that Unity asset torchlight effect that Slenderman ripped off. The crazy stuff's going on. Now we can see Heather's bullshit has gone way too fucking far, it totally is all her fucking fault. Heather sucks. She straight up sucks. YOU SUCK, HEATHER. You can't blame a witch, you straight up bitch. The tension's coming from the bickersons and Josh is now part of it, but he's still got some insanity/levity shit going on. Now they're getting the comradery now. Remember this is all pre cell phone, they're going to count on them not showing up in town should trigger a search, but the river's getting in the way. We get to have a second act moment. Mike's laughing but it's hysteria kicking in. Heather's wet shoes become a bone of contention, but now Mike's confessing about the map being lost. I forgot that part. Now the screaming begins and Heather's blowing out the late 90s mic. Josh and Mike are coming to blows and they can't keep it together.

They've now found the little stick figure things, so shit's about to get all kinds of real. You can't get Miss Director Bitch to stop with this shit. Mike's freaking out now. Even if you thought you were in the middle of the woods back then, you could more likely be in spirals by now. This is fun listening to the little kids freaking them out, you miss a lot of shit without that noise going on. I don't even really get why they ran from camp other than paranoia and the thought they're being hunted and hearing screaming babies. The periods of black and just voices is pretty cool. The sensible thing would've been to stay in one spot and wait for help. But now they're losing their heads and the camp's been ransacked. It's the Blair Witch hillbillies. (There was a Blair St in my home and friends joked about making the Blair St Bogan movie, which would've been fucking funny).

Miss Director is pissing off her crew taping all this, when in absolute reality they would have given up. And really it's got awesome battery mileage. Josh is giving Heather existential raps about her need to keep a camera between her and reality since the witch is targeting him basically. They're also out of smokes. Least it's wet enough you couldn't start a forest fire with a flicked butt. And it's AMERICA so they can't get lost because nobody gets lost when you've destroyed all the natural resources. This is a fucking fun movie drunk and sober. I love it. I'm sick. Also, wouldn't a compass still help even a little? I'm not great with orienteering, but I can mostly read a map.

Now reality's kicking Heather in the nuts and making her snotty with fear. They can't decide where to camp, I guess the witch is fucking with the compass too maybe. It really fits with the whole desert island, stranded alone and at each other's throats. (The sequel sucks balls by the way and I've no interest in any remakes).

Josh yelling at Heather is a great moment to really surmise the situation if it has been too chaotic for viewers, it's a good time to have another emotional beats. Mike's in survival mode, Josh is infected and taunting Heather using her camera against her. Mike and Josh have a moment, they're trying to keep it together making cheeseburger jokes. This is a fantastic movie. I love it.

Now we've officially lost Josh and Heather gets to blow out the mike screaming his name hysterically. And then there were two. The whole scene with them looking for Josh in the fucking dark is objectively scary but I don't see how it could've been in the movies. They can hear him screaming in pain, yeah this is the fuckedy fucked up shit. They can't even tell if it's Josh anymore, everything's totally fucked up. This is such a descent into madness.  I can see the bloody tooth sitting in the ripped up flannel, yeah this was wasted on me at the movies.

The up-nose shot is pretty iconic. Heather's clearly had her brows waxed however because they're a little too neat to me but at least she doesn't look made up, she does put lipstick on for the interviews but now you can see she's not doing so hot. Looking away is helping me not get to nauseated. I think the witch is just fucking with them at this point. Also they got a lot of life on that camera torch too. This admittedly was a pretty scary part, I got the boogans right now, I don't even know whose house this is in reality. You can just hear Josh yelling. Having watched people play that game I can see where they ripped off most of those shots as well. It's kinda pointless them going all the way up to go down but it's cool and intense when the witch is obviously on their asses. 

Yeah, that was a fun movie. My gut actually takes a second to get sick and it is now, so whoops on that front.

South Park... In retrospect

I am genuinely bummed out there's been such a dip in Matt and Trey's perceptions of reality, and they've refused to move out of dated early 2000s gay/transgender tropes because they don't like certain aspects of it. I admittedly got sucked into a lot of the trans in sports debates without realising hormones actually do a lot to level the playing field, and trans women aren't outperforming anyone. On top of that, all people seem to focus on is men breaking into a woman's sport or any space, it's rarely ever men getting pissed off about women entering their spaces, unless they're men or non binary people presenting as femme for whatever reason and they've been forced into the men's room due to stupid laws. Matt and Trey could make more jokes about the hypocrisy of conservative's complaining about the very shit that blows up in their face, but they just go for the low blow ideals that libertarians and conservatives refuse to stop believing.

Maybe have a drag positive episode. Big Gay Al was very much a product of that period, and it was 20 odd years ago, closer to 25.

I was old enough almost to be watching South Park when it was bigger in my country, which was my last years of high school. My brother living in the city meant he could tape episodes on the networks that didn't broadcast down south. Or some kids were able to rent the VHS releases. I was quoting the episode with Barbra Streisand and Robert Smith, it did have a kind of innocence about it back then, like early Simpson's episodes. The  movie was out not very long after, we all ran around singing "Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker", apparently the musical aspect was something  Steven Soderbergh adored. And I used to find the gay relationship between Satan and Saddam Hussein hilarious. Matt and Trey even did a movie with puppets from their apparent dislike of working with celebrities. But they were pissing people off the entire time, so if you were relatively liberal, it was only a matter of time before you flipped and hated them. Even when the Muhammad controversy came out, I still felt they had a point. Now I don't.

I flipped on them for the stupidest reason. They were right about Trump and the fact he'd get in, and while we were all laughing at the notion of him being president, there was enough of an undercurrent that facilitated the rise of Trump, the silent majority that ruined Hillary's chances because they refused to admit they were going to vote republican in the polling, so it skewed to her instead. And I blamed her entirely when she called them a basket of deplorables. She alienated a bigger voter base than she realised. I hated it so much I just stopped watching the show since I was embarrassed I fell for it, even when I had my doubts about Hillary winning. It wasn't fun to watch the show and I ignored Harmontown and any other spaces where people were just going to be mad and bitter.

When Trump lost to Biden, I considered going back over the four years of episodes, but since then it seemed like Matt and Trey felt more comfortable leaning into right-leaning bullshit because of Trump. They enjoyed pandering to their BS with the trans debate, were offensive to autistic kids despite being kinder to other disabled kids. Jimmy and Timmy were a fantastic duo who got to fuck with the PC Principal and I was so here for it, but I'm pretty sure the show just wanted to rip on "assburgers" and leave it there. Seeing them now, it wouldn't shock me they were both neurodivergent to be honest. I hope they are.

I was charmed by them doing a musical that received such earnest praise while making musicals seem more accessible to everyone. But them defending Mormonism while ignoring the fact there are more horrible Mormons than there are awful trans people is depressing. You can't give one group a pass then shit on another that has infinitely less power or ability to even slightly corrupt another person. Picking on trans people isn't fun or funny anymore, it's not just laughing at the cross-dressing guy in the dress, even if you do want to wear dresses to the Oscars while ripped on acid. The show would seem horribly tasteless now, but it always was. The only thing I did in favor of them is getting annoyed at a YouTuber mixing up Family Guy with South Park in two separate videos about Honey Boo Boo. 

I'm only bringing them up for having seen them in feeds giving advice on how to write, and I was interested in their interview on the Book of Mormon. But then I see a trans person complain about them, even while stating they used to love the show and it had salient points to make that were hilarious, and I hate the creators all the more. They claimed one of their producers was a Catholic who never got offended by their shit, and they're right it was the loudest minority that was bitching. Until they just had a problem with being PC or "woke". I was onboard with the anti-PC police initially but social justice is a thing that isn't deserving of mockery. Maybe they should've been retiring the Chinese guy a lot sooner. They're equal opportunity assholes - nobody's precious enough to avoid ridicule, that was the point. But if the mockery is based on misconceptions, not the truth, which it so often was, you're not being funny, you're undermining people. Yeah, they were right about Scientology, and religion in general. They're not right about trans people. It's not funny because it's not true. And I wrote a post about that decades ago after the Margaritaville episode.

Having said that I'm still watching YouTubers who were gay and trying to justify yelling the F-slur under the excuse of the game using it, and them being gay, even if they've stopped now. And I love Trixie and Katya, they're still using it. I know I'm being hypocritical too, but straight boys have less of an argument.

Me and America - The Last Unicorn Soundtrack

Jimmy Webb seems to hold this weird corner of the music industry where he gets this simultaneous respect and derision, when I couldn't say why him writing about a cake out in the rain was so absurd and deserved of ridicule. His band America wrote one of the most, dark and depressing theme songs for a children's movie. I could blame him for any darkness that seeped into my brain by way of his lyrics that I never fully remembered as a kid. I'd get to watch the Last Unicorn whenever I rented it, but of all the songs that stuck, it was that delightful dirge, In the Sea. And only a fragment stuck there. 

There was a massive gap between me last seeing it as a kid and revisiting it as a teenager. I spent maybe two years borrowing this VHS off people whenever I saw it in their houses, and this was in my audiotape movie phase where I recorded entire movies (nearly) onto a cassette to listen to incessantly, as copying VHS tapes was outside my capability. We only knew one person who owned two VCRs, I think once we somehow had two, maybe my brother brought his back and I was able to copy the Craft while watching it for the first time. Then one miraculous day I was able to find a 10.00 VHS copy of the Last Unicorn. I didn't wind up owning a VCR of my own until I had a job, it was one of the first "expensive" things I bought.

The other thing I had to go through great pains to get online was the soundtrack. This was back when I spent hours at my parents' house using Acquisition (not Napster or Limewire, I had Limewire and somehow didn't infect my parents' eMac with a virus) to download the Last Unicorn soundtrack. I tried to find clean copies as a lot of them were clipped or poorly transferred to digital, but somehow I found them all. I did pretty well with other songs back then, particularly with Soundtracks. But many years later during another nostalgia binge I tried to track down a CD copy for a decent price, and successfully managed to do so despite the cover being cracked to shit.

My point was, the songs Webb provided lyrics for and sang were the most depressing on the album. This isn't a fun, fuzzy movie to put on for little kids, so whoever put it on for me originally (thank you, whoever you are) they probably didn't know the hell they were going to unleash on my family from me being irrevocably obsessed with it. Once you're a grown up (or at least 16), this soundtrack hits you in the feels on another level. I was just listening to the theme and realised it was pretty out there to include a reference to the Morning Star in the words, something my kid brain missed. I think Webb was brought on to really put in whatever depressive tone was needed that another lyricist might not consider.

I also just found out that son of a bitch Seth Macfarlene put a cover of That's All I've Got That Say performed by Leighton Meester of all people on his Star Trek parody show the Orville. If I bothered to watch it and had seen this I'd have gone berko with absolute rage. It's not a bad rendition, actually, but fuck him for making me feel shit and for him even being aware of something that good in the first place. Art Garfunkle also did a cover, and it's very pretty, so clearly this song got to people enough they went to the effort of doing their own renditions. I'd shove this song in front of any Disney love ballad, and I'm not even saying those ballads suck, this is just different. 

I think people do love Jimmy Webb in spite of MacArthur Park (I only know it from the hilarious Simpson's gag). It's not like you were trying to stop this guy from making music, someone gave it a good review and said it had Wagnerian moments, but I seem to remember either Leonard Maltin or Roger Ebbert trashing the soundtrack for how depressing it was. It's one of the best scores of a film and it just doesn't get its dues for how perfect it is. Even now I'm seeing why I like baroque music, why I'm okay with folk stuff and orchestral arrangements. The only good thing about doing proper music theory in high school was getting tapes of stuff I genuinely liked. It sucked we were forced to do stupid essays, I did come away with a better appreciation of classical music arrangement than if we'd gotten to listen to pop songs all period. I honestly think the school found out the previous music teacher wasn't teaching either school's much, but we all loved music class because we got to hang out and play our own stuff. Finding out this was my first class first day of high school, I was thrilled we'd get to just hang out for two periods before lunch with the same lady. Then I was rudely surprised by the new lady and her methods. I only took it for three years since I sucked at a lot of other elective classes and it was just easier to do it while I was forced to keep playing an instrument.

But I digress. Here's a few lyrics from the soundtrack you wouldn't see in a Disney score:

In the sea the fish have learned to fly
On a moonlit night on wings of silver
As the enchanted stars sail serenely by
Do they know where do unicorns go
Where winged horses fly
Narwhales lost at sea and never seen again
Go, go and ask the magpie
Where do unicorns go

 

When the last moon is cast
Over the last star of morning
And the future has passed
Without even a last desperate warning
Then look into the sky where through
Through the clouds a path is torn
Look and see her how she sparkles
It's the Last Unicorn

 

Horizon rising up to meet the purple dawn
Dust demon screaming, bring an eagle to lead me on
For in my heart I carry such a heavy load
Here I am on Man's road, walking Man's road, walking Man's road.

 

Yeah, the guy who had his cake left out in the rain was the perfect choice for this shit. Hats off, sir. I honestly am concerned now what Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas has in mind for the new movie adaptation and play. I don't know if I could tolerate anything but Webb's version.

 

 

 

 

Heather vs Heather vs Heather

I just had a major revelation about Heathers and the three girls in particular that I have to flesh out. There's a subtle moment in the film where we see how devious Heather Duke can actually be when you give her incentive, how clever she is compared to Heather Chandler, the self-appointed leader. Also, the three Heathers actually represent three separate social classes in the school. Heather C is the obvious prep, but cheerleader Heather McNamara is technically a sporto. Meanwhile, Heather D is a geek. Without Veronica, the three Heathers have far less in common. Their unification is their name, and their economic status. But that's about it. How did they become the most powerful clique in school? We don't know, but somehow they did, and by rights you feel like none of them should be friends in reality. All they can do is get together and make everyone else feel awful to make themselves feel good. We get a vague idea of the dynamics of the group in the opening montage, but we don't get a sense of who's who in depth until the cafeteria scene. We establish the technical minions first, Heather M and D. Heather M exerts her power over Veronica with physical force, Heather D spinelessly reiterates the demand from the top, and Veronica surrenders with reluctance. Then we're introduced to Heather Chandler with more grandiosity. She turns like a classic movie villain to address Veronica and the audience. Her dominance and importance is properly established here. As far as openings go, we get a lot from the croquet scene without getting too much. When Veronica says, "Heather told me she teaches people real life," we know it has to be the Heather that hit her with the red ball previously. But how evil is this Heather, really? We don't know until the cafeteria scene.

Heather Chandler may hold all the power but she's not smart or even clever. She only knows how to play the game. She's risen to power, we don't even know how the hell she got there other than she was ruthless and willing to do what it takes. Really, that's included sleeping with certain guys and getting in with college boys, all while making all the girls around her feel small and inferior. Did she take down another girl in the position? She's only a junior and she's got everyone eating out of her hand, they all want her as a friend or a fuck, even if Veronica knows they think she's a piranha. She's grown up rich, she can have anything, she sets herself apart from everyone, even her own clique, and she is genuinely depressed. If we pay more attention to the frat party montage, we see how disgusted she is in having to blow guys to keep her power. She's trying to make sure she's not a nobody when she graduates and goes to college, but she's still going to hate herself anyway. (There's a missing scene in the script where we discover Heather D has gotten together with Heather C's college boyfriend David, and she's blowing him offscreen, so he's clearly unaffected by Heather C's death and Heather D is determined to replace her in every sense). The suicide note is a true reflection of Heather C, she was misunderstood, she had feelings that went unacknowledged and she was used by people despite her power at school. Veronica only sees the bitchiness, she has the slightest moment of regret going through Heather C's locker and seeing the evidence they used to be good friends. But we don't have the full reason Veronica wanted in, she just wanted in. I could reference the musical fleshing this out in one of the opening numbers, but I refuse to apply it here, I'm only talking about what we see in the movie. There's enough evidence Heather genuinely wanted to kill herself, even JD sees it looking over the magazines in her room after she's splashed through the coffee table. In that one shot, he's got Heather down in a way Veronica could never see her. It's not even a moment of sympathy, in his eyes it's a stroke of genius and it pays off so well Veronica feels like this is all too natural to him.

Heather D, on the other hand, is genuinely intelligent, but she's also very much a geek. She's more classically beautiful, and Heather C has figured out how to make her feel disgusting and small, and as empty-headed as a pillowcase. I'd hazard a guess Heather C knows damn well Heather D could be more and do more and has to keep her down so she can't usurp power. Heather M might not get shit from Heather C, she gets to play along dog-piling on Heather D and Veronica, the two of them really are on the bottom rungs of the hierarchy, but Heather M will never make a play for the crown. As long as she's basically second in command, she's safe. She's allowed to keep cheer leading and she's supposed to have a jocky as fuck boyfriend in Ram, the himbo. She's the sporto representation, and she's also rich and profiting off her parents' wealth and status. She has it all figured out, or so she thinks. Once Heather C and Ram are dead, Heather M's world is upside down. Her boyfriend turned out to be gay (so she thinks, she doesn't even question Veronica and JD's manipulation of Ram's sexual preference) and she's affected by the fact he killed himself after sleeping with her, not even that he might've been sleeping with his best buddy. Everything feels wrong, and she's in no place to take over as the head student of the social network at Westerburg. Heather D knows this, soon as Heather M outs herself on the radio, Heather D is ready to strike even though Heather M isn't even a threat to her rising popularity. Heather D has enough call for revenge, Heather M never really protected her from Heather C, but Heather M turns out to be the nicest one. Veronica comes to her rescue for more than just preventing a real suicide. She cares enough about her friend to stop her. Heather D would've reveled in being the only Heather left, she wanted Heather C out of the picture no matter what and if Heather M has to go, so be it. She gets the crown, and she stands alone. Heather M might really be the most naive and foolish one of them, but she is not the worst Heather.

Heather D's rise to power is masterful compared to Heather C's. The one moment we see she's genuinely a better manipulator is when she's getting everyone to sign JD's "petition". Rather than moan and groan about having to speak to the "scum of the school" like Heather C, Heather D assumes the guise of whichever group she approaches. Every cut in the montage, she's dressed more like the kids she's trying to win over, and she lies to every person about the reason for the petition. She doesn't just use whatever cache she has being a Heather, she may be "red" now, but she'll stoop in ways Heather C never would to get her way, and she takes absolute pride in it. The shot of her basking in her glory is one of my favourite shots from a movie ever. I use it when I'm feeling victorious. The lengths she'll go to just to do JD's bidding, win total domination and smash everyone including Veronica, she was always the most ruthless, the most manipulative and the most diabolical. All she needed was Heather C to get out of the way, she straight up prayed for Heather C's death. She can ditch her eating disorder and do Chinese at the food fair with her new friends. And she can wear Heather C's entire wardrobe, as she admits in the TV interview she does after Heather C's death. It's a subtle hint early on she might use that to her advantage. She's an immediate attention seeker suddenly on all the news channels falsely lamenting the death of her arch rival and best friend, (same difference, remember?).

Heather D is the Queen Bee from the beginning. It looks like her taking over is more sudden than it is, JD knows he can cash in on her bad side with the right leverage by threatening to out her as the school punching bag Martha Dunstock's childhood friend. He inspires her to manifest her existing lust for power, it's not like she had no intention until he showed up. We even see a subtle difference in her outfits before she turns red, everything's a little grey and pink and a lot less green the more confident she gets. The iconic red scrunchy simply seals the deal. JD's got the Heathers figured out from the very start, and Veronica just fills in the blanks for him. He wants to tear them down for Veronica, but once Veronica's gone, he still needs to finish what they started, she's inspired him to exact his own revenge that he may or may not have followed through on without her. He pulls the gun on Kurt and Ram, we can guess he's done similar things at the six other schools he went to. The only thing Heather D is genuinely dumb about is him and his true intentions. She revels in knowing JD's attention gets under Veronica's skin, but JD adores Veronica in his own fucked up way, and he does want Heather D to die, Veronica playing with the idea is perfect for him but Veronica's over it, and over him. The dream sequence is probably one of the best scenes in terms of playing with the idea of the futility of offing Heather D. Veronica finally has a moment where she sees herself possibly becoming the enemy, and how replaceable she is.

Ultimately, we know Veronica will win, she's the new sheriff and Heather D will go the way of Heather C, fading into insignificance as she moves on to college. Heather D won't have a friend like Veronica, who was looking out for her all along, she'll have Swatch dogs and Diet Cokeheads for friends the rest of her life, she'll date guys like David who'll use her until the next hot piece of ass comes along. Veronica's way is the way, not JD's, or Heather's, or Miss Phlegm's

Veronica's going to be best friends with Betty Finn, Heather M and Martha Dunstock. Maybe things will get better and her high school will be the nice place she wants to be. It doesn't make Heather D any less of a tyrant. You get sucked into her meekness, she is an ingenue who's waiting for her moment, and having a chance to be Heather C's clone is the only way she can do this. You can see how uncomfortable Heather M is by this time, you know she's getting shit from Heather D, Veronica's either with JD all the time dealing with his bullshit or avoiding him and everyone. Heather M's got no real friends left, not even the other girls on the squad like her, they don't let her be captain of the team, her parents are "divorced and stuff". She's the most hard done by of the group, who is she without the clique? Who is she without status? Just another lonely rich kid. We're led to believe Heather M might be in charge the way she manipulates Veronica into going on a double date with Kurt and Ram, she doesn't exactly come in and refute Kurt's claim that he and Ram got with Veronica later that night, she doesn't even challenge that with Ram. She's nowhere around, she's off on the sidelines with a yet transformed Heather Duke, laughing at Veronica and JD fighting in the car. She doesn't see Heather D's lust for power until it's too late, she just notices Heather D's not cowering and simpering anymore. She doesn't even care that much Heather C is dead (she’s not in a state over it, she didn’t value Heather C, like everyone else’s prayer, hers is shallow and self-centred, and maybe she didn’t get along that well with Heather C) or put it together why Heather D no longer has the urge to purge. She really has to fall from grace to appreciate Veronica's loyalty. How they end up is perfect, but that one scene in the bathroom is all we get, Heather M's fate's up in the air as to whether she'll keep being a cheerleader or drop out, or where she was even going to college, if she'll graduate at all since she's failing math. Everything we know about her life doesn't become obvious until after Ram dies and she's out in the cold. Again, is she a Heather because she's named Heather, or because she's rich and a cheerleader that the principal would be willing to take half a day off in mourning her? She's got the right attitude to fuck with the eagles, she's got the right looks. But we don't see her and Heather C becoming friends over mutual interests, anymore than we see Heather D divorcing Martha Dunstock for the privilege of being socially powerful.

We don't need to see how the Heathers came to be to accept they just are, but I found it more interesting how there's little to bind them to each other outside of the names. Heather C would never be friends with a member of the geek squad, but she can obviously exploit Heather D and Veronica's desperation to be popular by throwing them a bone. Long as they both do as they’re told. Heather M's a sporto, she's already got social cache by dating someone on a team and being in a squad that would only employ preppy, pretty girls who'd look hot in a uniform, so Betty Finn and Martha are out. But you take all that away from Heather M and she essentially has nothing. I like that we're tricked into thinking she's about to take the helm and that Heather D would absolutely never. It makes Heather D's behavior more fun to watch. Shannon Doherty really did peak with this role, she's the best at doing meek and mild as well as mega bitch. My brother couldn't convince me to watch Heathers because he told me it's a movie where Brenda Walsh gets it in the neck. I saw it by the end of primary school, I don't even remember the first time I did see it, but it infected my brain on a level Breakfast Club hasn't managed to achieve. I watch it way more often than any of my favourite John Hughes movies, even at 12 I had this distinct impression people would never be fair and nice so why would I ever be? I did see it before I saw the Breakfast Club, with my mind, it makes way more sense for me to adore Heathers over the Breakfast Club.

I had to explain to someone on Twitter how Heathers is the ultimate anti-John Hughes movie. It paints a more realistic picture of social circumstances in high school compared to the Breakfast Club. I don't even believe we can get along in heaven, but really the sentiment JD's getting at is, we'll be equal when we're dead and buried. The one thing I could never buy was him killing everyone because he's so fundamentally unloved. He blows himself up realising Veronica's got the balls to really fix shit when he doesn't. There's a weird scene in one of the drafts of the script where everyone's at a heavenly prom, the punch bowl is full of liquid drainer, and all the students are dancing together and getting along, as per JD's dream. I like this isn't in the film, to be honest. I like the way it actually ends. It's more satisfying we never get to go to prom. We see kids pulling down Miss Phlegm's stupid banners while they run outside to see what happened. Comically, nobody cares about Veronica's state besides Heather D, who's naive to the truth Veronica really is about to knock her off her perch. She gets to make amends with Martha without consequence and ride off into the sunset. (I even realised Veronica can't call in a bomb threat to the cops without implicating herself in the murders. She has to play it the way she does to keep off the hook, and the truth dies with JD.)

Anyway, I had to get all that out there.

I want to add an addendum dedicated to Peter and how he's actually the worst character in the movie. I was thinking about the note scene with Miss Phlegm and how he realises Heather was dissatisfied with her life and he wasn't boring. Veronica obviously laughs since she knows the truth, but it only occurred to me he's happier believing he wasn't the problem, Heather being dead isn't an issue for him, plus he gets clout for having dated her, and winning her a rhino at the 4H club (I think this implied they were dating in junior high or much earlier in high school). We know everyone's relating to how her death affects them, there's no real sympathy for Heather, her death makes everyone seem more sympathetic. This movie doesn't get enough credit for the issues it did explore around suicide and everyone acting like they loved the deceased and were closer to them than they were, and how it makes them sad when they probably didn't care or genuinely wanted the person dead. But Peter probably spends the most time worrying about his own ass. He runs the food drive for cred in the year book, and hates Heather's death gets the front page while he's crammed in by the Taco Bell coupon. He's only worried about his college applications and getting Ivy League acceptance, he needs a VHS copy of the "love-in" on the TV for his Princeton application. He prays to God to never befall the same fate as Heather. Everything he does is in service to him and his application, or if he did win a million dollars, he can only think of it in terms how much he'd get after taxes, there's no mention of him doing anything wild or pointlessly noble with it. He's about as bad as Miss Phlegm, his agenda's awful. We see him hanging with another girl at the end, the pep rally has everyone "getting along" right before they're about to die. I just had a look at the Wiki entry on him and apparently he "cares" about Veronica getting double-teamed by Kurt and Ramm. He actually gives Veronica a lot of fake sympathy and he still finds the rumor amusing despite Veronica's disgust. Sadly, the actor later committed suicide so it's sad to think he probably identified with the subject matter without any meaningful acknowledgement. 

I could write hit pieces of sorts on most of the characters. I mean, Betty Finn and Martha Dunstock are the good guys. I like Veronica's stuck between those worlds and we don't know why she sacrificed one for the other, just that she regrets it completely. If it was ever a lesson in choosing the right friends and how easy it is to be influenced by assholes, you'd think more teenagers now would watch it. I don't know if the musical got them into the movie, the musical seems to be too invested in solving a problem of glorifying suicide by mistake, like Christian Slater's entirely to blame for the incel community existing. You weren't supposed to agree with him, once again you missed the point. (He didn't do the same thing in Pump up the Volume either but somehow Christian Slater's duffle jacket, proto-emo, sad boy 90s routine was misread by everyone). Weirdly, the Mean Girls musical movie (that nobody asked for) came out to a tepid response and of course people compared it to the Heathers musical and said the musical version was "better". I found someone's "oh dear" response and added I was annoyed the musical was trying to fix the thing that wasn't broken about it being perceived as satirising suicide itself, not the way the media and people react to it. We didn't need 13 Reasons Why.