Bitch-slapping: How girls are taught to hate each other

If you're a fan of the movie "Heathers" (and I know I am), then you know pure, unadulterated girl hate. The movie is brilliant on a number of levels. It's wickedly funny, ironic (before irony "belonged" to the hipsters) and killer in its cleverness.

It's also the meanest mean girl movie ever. It was about frenemies before frenemies was a thing.

If you haven't seen it before, stop reading now and go watch it on Netflix. (I almost said "rent it," but the last time I rented that movie, it was on VHS).

The Heathers are a trio of the bitchiest bitches to ever walk the halls of high school. Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) is the lead Heather, and her new "friend," Veronica (Winona Ryder in her best role this side of "Girl, Interrupted") decides to take her down. Veronica just wants to take her down a few notches, but her new boyfriend, J.D. (Christian Slater), has different ideas. More homicidal ideas that have to do with orange juice and drain cleaner. But, as we learn, you chop off the head of one Heather, another Heather's head grows up into that place.

"Heathers" was a favorite of mine back in high school. I was a junior when it came out (1988) and had seen the nasty side of high school and junior high long enough to know that although the characters were caricatures, there was enough realness to them to make the story resonate. Who didn't daydream of getting perfect revenge on the kids who treated us like crap?

"HA! Take that, Michelle! Choke on this, Jennifer!" (I'm not calling out anyone in particular from my past; these were just really popular names in the 80s.)

"Heathers" is an extreme example of girl-on-girl hate. But it does demonstrate the fine line between being close with your friends and keeping your enemies closer.

It also shows that you should never date Christian Slater, unless he's in "Pump Up the Volume."

But "Heathers" isn't the only mean girl movie from the 80s. "Pretty in Pink" has some bitchy gym class girls who are mean to Andie and her friend. In "Say Anything ..." Diane (Ione Skye) kept so much to herself in high school that the other kids thought she was a snob. She doesn't develop any female friends throughout the movie; it's all about her and Lloyd (John Cusack).

"The Breakfast Club" is the antithesis to this. Claire (Molly Ringwald) and Allison (Ally Sheedy) start out wanting anything to do with each other then end up connecting by the end of the movie. It might be on an acquaintance level, but it still gives us some hope. There are also some good girl friendships in "A Nightmare on Elm Street," but then most of them get killed in gruesome ways, including by rolling around the ceiling of a room and leaving a trail of blood.

Of course, in a lot of 80s movies, girls are mostly eye-candy and playthings for the boys ("Porky's," "Private Resort," "Hot Dog: The Movie" and other fine classics). Honestly, if it wasn't for John Hughes and Molly Ringwald, 80s movies would have been nearly all guy-driven.

If you check out this IMDb list of 80s teen movies, there are very few of them with female leads. "Risky Business," "The Outsiders," "Heaven Help Us," "Revenge of the Nerds," anything with the Coreys, "Better Off Dead," "Soul Man," "Dead Poets Society" (a personal favorite), "Teen Wolf," etc.

I hope the trend is changing. We have more movies now with strong female leads (it's even a category on Netflix). There are more movies and TV shows with female friends with strong bonds. In the 80s, there was an omnipresent theme of "must get the girl." It's even in "The Goonies," and that movie is all about a pirate adventure.

It's no wonder girls get their claws out with each other. We've been taught via the entertainment world that a boy or a man is the prize. Even if we didn't know there was a prize to be had. Of course it's the boy and not a successful project or great job. Yes, you can argue that the real prize is love. That's a nice thought, but that's where the story usually ends. When, really, the story is much bigger.

My love/hate relationship with John Cusack

The other day I was lamenting the lack of romance in the world. Actually, I was complaining to my husband that movies and pop songs are liars and that romance is dead.

It all started with our 8-year-old daughter. She was listening to Bruno Mars' song "Just the Way You Are" over and over and over, when suddenly she got this dreamy look in her eyes. In a mushy and ethereal voice, she said:

"I can't wait to have a boyfriend ..."

(I added the ellipsis to emphasize the dreaminess of it.) Ah, to be young, hopeful and naive. As the soul-crushing mother that I am, I immediately told her that real-life boyfriends are nothing like that catchy and quite wonderful song. I've also been informing her since kindergarten that boys don't get interested in girls as soon as girls get interested in boys.

Part of me felt like a jerk. Who was I to crush my sweet daughter's innocent dreams? Her mother, that's who. Her mother who was once a starry-eyed teen and tween who "learned" about love from 80s movies and two happily-married parents. How was I supposed to negotiate hormones and crushes with those as my examples? It's no wonder I didn't date anyone seriously until college.

What does this have to do with John Cusack? A lot. As I bitched to my husband that night (and, let's face it, it was bitching), I came to the realization that 80s movies lied to us all and made us believe in things that didn't exist. Case in point: Lloyd Dobler.

For those who don't know or remember, Lloyd Dobler was John Cusack's character in the movie Say Anything .... He was the guy who was so in love with Ione Skye's character Diane Court that he stood outside below her window, holding up a giant boombox* playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes."

If I had been a high school guy in 1989, I would have been pissed. How was any guy supposed to live up to that? At the the time, I was smitten. I was already a fan of John Cusack's since I saw him in The Sure Thing, Better Off Dead, Stand By Me and One Crazy Summer (more on those later). He often played the underdog, which was appealing in itself. (I was never one for the jock types.) But when he lifted that cassette-playing stereo in the air because he really, really cared, that was it.

#liferuiner before hashtags existed and number signs were still number signs.

So there's Lloyd Dobler, who didn't want to sell or buy anything processed or process anything sold or bought, who devoted his whole self to one girl. As romantic as it seemed then, it actually sounds pretty creepy now. But I still wish someone would have made a grand gesture like that for me once upon a time.

Not that there weren't gestures in my time. My husband used to make me mix CDs. My boyfriend in college wrote me a shoebox full of letters one summer (that was back before email and texting, you know, during the times of the Pony Express). They just weren't grand.

Maybe there's still hope for society, though. The youngsters of today are all about the grand. Choreographed wedding proposals, choreographed wedding party numbers, and promposals (seriously?). It's worthwhile to note that Bruno Mars songs are often part of these, too.

What do you think? Is romance dead on the vine or alive on Vine? Did 80s movies shape how you saw the world? And how's that working out for you? Let me know in the comments below.

-M.


Want to learn more about the location where that iconic scene from Say Anything... was filmed, check out iamnotastalker.com.


*Boombox - A larger-the-better portable music device powered by multiple "C" batteries or a cord that plugged into a power outlet. They transmitted things called radio stations and played cassette tapes, the popular predecessor of CDs and waaay before digital music.