This reading of the film is spot-on, I think.
(Class of '87.)
Class of 85 and Breakfast Club reflected my school pretty well. This one was too surreal for me to quite identify with but I enjoyed it a lot. I too liked Lizard’s take on it.
As a high school teacher, one thing that is really notable is how much this varies from year to year: In my school, class of 07 was cliquey as hell, class of 08 not at all.
The biggest divide in my school is the “AP Kids” vs the “Regular kids”–it’s almost two schools: we have a really strong AP program floating on top of an adequate-but-not-great inner city school. This is the product of our location: we are in a really nice area (houses around the school start at half a million), but, of course, many of those kids are in private school. But we have some, and their super-involved parents are probably the reason we have such a good program–they care. And there is a high corelation with race here: most of the “neighborhood kids” are white. But because we have a good program, we pull up a lot of non-neighborhood but smart and hardworking kids into the AP program, and they are racially diverse as anything. So we have “AP kids”–about half of which are white and wealthy, and half of which are minority and poor, and “regular kids” which are universally poor and almost universally minority and which is a pretty transient population: cliques don’t really dolidify because people move a lot. There is a racial component in how kids group up, but it isn’t overwhelming. Among the AP kids, as I said above, it really seems to vary by year.
Way different in the western burb of Glen Ellyn, where there were cliques starting in 2d grade or so.
Was at its worst in jr. high where the “populars” ruled the roost. Much better in HS where there are so many cliques that just about everyone can fit into one, and not being in any particular clique bears little stigma. But there are the populars, jocks, emos, stoners, thugs, skaters, to name a few.
We have a far smaller percentage of black students than you have in Evanston, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how “color-blind” my kids are compared to my upbringing in the 60s-70s.
Class of 78.
My eldest son is 10, and will be starting fifth grade in August. I’ve been heartened by how colorblind the kids his age seem to be - white, black, Asian, Arab, Indian, Latino, whatever - doesn’t seem to matter to him or to the great majority of his peers. He’s in an excellent, integrated school system, and most if not all of the kids are just there to learn and play, not to indulge in racial politics.
Tomato, tomahto.
Well, I have to say that whilst Evanston does have a very serious racial divide, there were certainly cliques when I was there, within the racial groups - theatre, various sports, bible study, straight-edge, &c. There was a certain fluidity there, though: in my year the valedictorian was also the captain of the swim team for example. Racial lines were more rigid.
ETHS Class of 2000
Mean Girls was also set there - I don’t know if that was intended as a response to Hughes, but if not it’s a funny coincidence.
I saw Heathers while I was in high school (class of 2000) and thought it was on target. In some ways, I wonder if I didn’t really get what they were saying at the time, but Lizard is dead on.
I forgot to meantion ‘Mean Girls’ - the funny thing about that was, they set it in Evanston, but the racial makeup of the school resembled other schools in the area much more than ETHS. But the movie was still hilarious and weirdly accurate in its own sort of way.
Ah, I haven’t seen Mean Girls. I’ll check it out. But to bring this 'round full circle, apparently Mean Girls was directed by the brother of the guy who wrote Heathers!
At the time, I thought it was the greatest movie ever. I rewatched it last year and still loved it, but I now recognize that it’s a pretty uneven movie.
The weirdest thing was seeing the young Ryder and Slater again. Damn, so much wasted potential…
(class of '89)
No, if you want to see the same movie only slightly more contemporary, watch Jawbreaker. It’s missing the charm of croquet though.
I thought high school was all about cheerleader-offs nowadays.
Mild bump:
Daniel Waters has a new movie called Sex and Death 101, the world premiere of which I got to see a few days ago at the Seattle film fest. It’s not as good as Heathers but it’s the best thing he’s done since that one.
Simon Baker is in the process of settling down with his fiancee when he gets a mysterious email containing a list of names: the first part of the list is all the women he’s slept with up to that point, ending with his fiancee…
And then the list continues. With like 60 more names.
To say more would spoil some pretty good surprises. It’s got a good cast, including Patton Oswalt in a small scene-stealing role, plus Mindy Cohn (yes, her) as Simon’s executive assistant. Female lead is Winona Ryder, playing a very… interesting character.
Fun, breezy, occasionally sexy, and pretty consistently funny. And it’s got a good ending. Worth a look.
P.S. Daniel Waters was in attendance for the premiere, and before the movie started he got on the mike and basically apologized for his career between Heathers and this new movie. 
Way to bury the lead; this is all you have to say.
I just got from vacation and watched Heathers two times during the week. It is a truly brilliant movie with outstanding acting even from the minor characters. The main roles speak for themselves but if I told you that the small town police said “Let’s Roll!” when they hurt the gunshots that killed Kurt and Ram in a fake double suicide homosexual plot, it may seem like a stupid line but the way that it was delivered had me in hysterics. There are lots of touches like that plus it was probably one of the most brilliant screenplays in history in terms of catch-phrases and comedic lines.
I thought that the setting was dated a little but not at all in theme or overall comedy value. I think it is a comedy for the ages and I fins that I can’t be great friends with anyone that can’t quite get Heathers. My mother is a successful comedic speaker and author and she didnt understand it at all when I asked her to watch it with me. I lost a lot of respect for her that day because the whole thing seems obviously brilliant to me and so many others yet there are others that can’t see at all like a terminal case of colorblindness.