History HarsherInHindsight / Heathers

** Furthermore, as of 2015, any cancer jokes thrown towards a character played by Doherty become even ''less'', uh... amusing after [[http://people.com/celebrity/how-shannen-doherty-is-bravely-battling-cancer-in-her-own-words/revealing-her-illness she was diagnosed with cancer]] (''breast'' cancer, but ''still''). It ended up [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jun/08/shannen-doherty-beverly-hills-90210-star-reveals-breast-cancer-has-spread-to-her-brain reaching her brain]].

** Furthermore, as of 2015, any cancer jokes thrown towards a character played by Doherty become even ''less'', uh... amusing after [[http://people.com/celebrity/how-shannen-doherty-is-bravely-battling-cancer-in-her-own-words/revealing-her-illness she was diagnosed with cancer]] (''breast'' cancer, but ''still'').

** To start, J.D. is eerily similar to the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in a number of ways. Harris filled his diary with the same kind of antisocial ranting that J.D. spouts throughout the film, and J.D.'s prediction that his actions would become a generational touchstone, the "Film/{{Woodstock}} of TheEighties", mirrors the impact that Columbine had on society, particularly with how it ignited a widespread debate over school bullying and youth depression. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:J.D. also wears a [[BadassLongcoat black trench coat]], rigs up the school with bombs, and kills himself, just like the Columbine killers. (The only reason the bombs at Columbine High School [[WheresTheKaboom failed to detonate]] was because of poor worksmanship on them. Harris and Klebold planned to kill over 250 people and top the Oklahoma City bombing, and had they done a better job wiring the timers, they likely would have gotten their wish.)]]

* The character Peter Dawson prays he will never commit suicide. His actor, Jeremy Applegate, committed suicide on March 23, 2000.

** To start, J.D. is eerily similar to the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in a number of ways. Harris filled
his diary with the same kind of antisocial ranting that J.D. spouts throughout the film, and J.D.'s prediction that his actions would become a generational touchstone, the "Film/{{Woodstock}} of TheEighties", mirrors the impact that Columbine had on society, particularly with how it ignited a widespread debate over school bullying and youth depression. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:J.D. also wears a [[BadassLongcoat black trench coat]], rigs up the school with bombs, and kills himself, just like the Columbine killers. (The only reason the bombs at Columbine High School [[WheresTheKaboom failed to detonate]] was because of poor worksmanship on them. Harris and Klebold planned to kill over 250 people and top the Oklahoma City bombing, and had they done a better job wiring the timers, they likely would have gotten their wish.)]]

** To start, J.D. is eerily similar to the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in a number of ways. Harris filled with his diary with the same kind of antisocial ranting that J.D. spouts throughout the film, and J.D.'s prediction that his actions would become a generational touchstone, the "Film/{{Woodstock}} of TheEighties", mirrors the impact that Columbine had on society, particularly with how it ignited a widespread debate over school bullying and youth depression. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:J.D. also wears a [[BadassLongcoat black trench coat]], rigs up the school with bombs, and kills himself, just like the Columbine killers. (The only reason the bombs at Columbine High School [[WheresTheKaboom failed to detonate]] was because of poor worksmanship on them. Harris and Klebold planned to kill over 250 people and top the Oklahoma City bombing, and had they done a better job wiring the timers, they likely would have gotten their wish.)]]

** Columbine proved only to be the first high-profile case in what has become a disturbingly regular pattern of mass school shootings: a low simmer of small incidents every month in which only one or two people die or get injured, occasionally boiling over into a mass killing roughly once every year or two, whereupon there is a great public outpouring of grief but very little materially changes. In a bitter irony, the 2018 TV reboot ''itself'' was delayed because of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which it would've premiered only weeks after.

* The idea of white, upper-middle class high school students committing mass suicide wasn't even necessarily absurd when the movie was made -- in the movie's own DVD commentary, screenwriter Daniel Waters notes that Plano, Texas, a [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas suburb]] notorious for being an archetypal, upper-middle class StepfordSuburbia, was once known as [[https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1983/december/why-plano/ the suicide capital of America.]]

* For one thing, there's ''the entire central plot'' of the film. When ''Heathers'' was made, the humor came from the ''absurdity'' of the idea of white, upper-middle class high school students killing each other. Then, the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} school shooting happened and sucked the darkly hilarious fun right out of the movie.

** Furthermore, as of 2015, any cancer jokes thrown towards a character played by Doherty become even ''less'', uh... [[http://people.com/celebrity/how-shannen-doherty-is-bravely-battling-cancer-in-her-own-words/revealing-her-illness amusing.]]

** To start, J.D. is eerily similar to the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in a number of ways. Harris filled with his diary with the same kind of antisocial ranting that J.D. spouts throughout the film, and J.D.'s prediction that his actions would become a generational touchstone, the "Film/{{Woodstock}} of TheEighties", mirrors the impact that Columbine had on society, particularly with how it ignited a widespread debate over school bullying and youth depression. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:J.D. also wears a [[BadassLongcoat black trench coat]], rigs up the school with bombs, and kills himself, just like the Columbine killers. (The only reason the bombs at Columbine High School [[WheresTheKaboom failed to detonate]] was because of poor worksmanship on them; they planned to kill over 250 people and top the Oklahoma City bombing, and had they done a better job wiring the timers, they likely would have gotten their wish.)]]

* For one thing, there's ''the entire central plot'' of the film. When ''Heathers'' was made, the humor came from the ''absurdity'' of the idea of white, upper-middle class high school students killing each other. Then, the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} school shooting happened and sucked the darkly hilarious fun right out of the movie. The fact that Eric Harris specifically [[spoiler:rigged up his school with bombs and]] filled his diary with the same anti-society ranting that J.D. spouts only makes it worse. Both of the Columbine killers wore dark trench coats eerily similar to what J.D. wore in the final scene. And, of course, [[spoiler:they both killed themselves after their massacre, as did J.D.]]

** It's worth noting as well that society has evolved greatly on mental illness and depression, particularly in teenagers, and suicides are known to (or at least feared to) trigger cascades of subsequent suicides and that a suicide is only the sad ending to a long and painful struggle that can be entirely invisible even to close friends and family.