The film Heathers uses the psychological ideas of conformity, antisocial personality disorder, and humanistic perspective to portray the tragic events surrounding Veronica Sawyer.
Throughout Heathers, various characters make tragic mistakes by conforming to society, rather than questioning the practicality of the situation. Veronica Sawyer is the first to do this, as she desires to join the Heather and move up in social hierarchy. To appease the Heathers and not cause social distress, Veronica finds herself emotionally sabotaging others. Although she knows that her actions are wrong, she is compelled to do as the Heathers wish as a result of the forces of groupthink. Groupthink, researched by Irving Janis, describes the systematic error that …show more content…
Because Heathers revolves around a snowballing of homicide, it is necessary for at least one of the characters to be deeply psychologically disturbed. JD fills this role and doubles as Veronica's love interest in the beginning of the film. As an individual, JD is gregarious and persuasive, a trait that is common amongst those who have antisocial personality disorder. In addition to this, he has no empathy for those who suffer, which allows him to murder various individuals without feeling any remorse at all. From a combination of JD's persuasive personality and Veronica's susceptibility to groupthink, she follows his immoral actions and partners along with him in his vengeance against the popular students. JD's antisocial personality disorder is so severe that he even attempts to kill Veronica even after expressing the love that he felt for her. JD goes even farther, however, when he plans on bombing the student section during a basketball game. At this point he has no specific target of who he wants to hurt, JD only wants to see others die and feel pain. JD's antisocial personality disorder is what allows for the snowball of tragedy to occur within