Editing Heathers (section)

==Critical reception==
=== Initial reviews ===
Writing in April 1989 for ''[[The Washington Post]]'', journalist [[Desson Thomson]] wrote that it "may be the nastiest, cruelest fun you can have without actually having to study law or gird leather products. If movies were food, ''Heathers'' would be a cynic's chocolate binge."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/heathersrhowe_a0b1f9.htm | title=Heathers | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=April 14, 1989 | access-date=October 7, 2014 | author=Howe, Desson}}</ref> ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' film critic [[Roger Ebert]] gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 and wrote that ''Heathers'' "is a morbid comedy about peer pressure in high school, about teenage suicide and about the deadliness of cliques that not only exclude but also maim and kill." While conceding its ability to provoke thought and shock, Ebert questioned how the mixed sensibility as a dark murder comedy and "cynical [[morality play]]" led to difficulty in understanding its point of view, while remarking that, "Adulthood could be defined as the process of learning to be shocked by things that do not shock teenagers, but that is not a notion that has occurred to Lehmann."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/heathers-1989 | title=Heathers | website=RogerEbert.com | date=March 31, 1989 | access-date=October 7, 2014 | author=Ebert, Roger}}</ref>

=== Retrospective responses ===
{{RT prose|{{RT data|score}}|{{RT data|average}}|{{RT data|count}}|Dark, cynical, and subversive, ''Heathers'' gently applies a chainsaw to the conventions of the high school movie—changing the game for teen comedies to follow.|ref=yes|access-date={{RT data|access date}}}} {{MC film|72|20|ref=yes|access-date=2024-08-06}}

Academics have likened ''Heathers'' to other films popular during the 1980s and early 1990s which characterized domestic youth narratives as part and parcel of the "[[culture war]]".<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Connors|first=Clare|title=The Hollywood Youth Narrative and the Family Values Campaign, 1980–1992|date=2005|chapter=Heathers, High School and the Conflict Between Democratic Values and Consumer Culture|degree=Ph.D.|page=201|chapter-url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/305453239/|publisher=[[University of Pittsburgh]]|id=Document No. 3192936|via=ProQuest Dissertations Publishing}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis|last=Hubbard|first=Christine Karen Reeves|title=Rebellion and Reconciliation: Social Psychology, Genre, and the Teen Film, 1980–1989|date=December 1996|chapter=The Teen Lifestyle Film|degree=Ph.D.|page=23|chapter-url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/304269863/|location=Denton, Texas|publisher=[[University of North Texas]]|id=Document No. 9714032|via=ProQuest Dissertations Publishing}}</ref>

Teen film scholar [[Timothy Shary]] posits ''Heathers'' as influential for the subsequent satirical engagement with the trope of popularity: "Heathers turns the otherwise serious high school business of popularity into a farce, and that is exactly what films of the '90s continued to do with the roles of popular female school characters. ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' (1992), ''[[Clueless]]'' (1995), ''[[Jawbreaker (film)|Jawbreaker]]'' and ''[[Election (1999 film)|Election]]'' (both 1999) all feature popular school girls who are at once dedicated to maintaining their accepted image but who struggle (or fail) to recognize the contradictions and ironies of their position. The films thereby become parodies of popularity, although only ''Clueless'' and ''Election'' offer the same wide social scope as ''Heathers''."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shary |first=Timothy |year=2002 |title=Generation multiplex: the image of youth in contemporary American cinema |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |isbn=978-0-292-77752-1 |edition=1st |location=Austin |page=65 }}</ref>

Waters created a specific set of slang and style of speech for the film, wanting to ensure that the language in the film would have "timeless" quality instead of just reflecting teen slang at the time.<ref name="vice">{{cite web |title=All the Drama That Nearly Kept 'Heathers' from Making It to Theaters |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/heathers-30th-anniversary-director-screenwriter-cast-interview/ |last=Kale |first=Sirin |date=August 6, 2018|website=Vice.com }}</ref> {{As of|2014}}, the film was among the most cited in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Oxford Dictionaries |title=This Word Is Toast: Slang From Cult Films |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/12/cult-film-slang-words-first-cited-in-the-oed-from-heathers-pulp-fiction-withnail-and-i-ghostbusters-blade-runner-spinal-tap.html |website=Slate Magazine |date=December 5, 2014|quote=''Heathers'' is a brilliantly quotable cult film, but did you know it is also one of the most frequently cited films in the OED...}}</ref>