Heathers, Put to the Test

 The film I’m choosing to review for this assignment, is Daniel Water’s 1988 movie, Heathers. 

This movie actually, throughout different scenes in the movie passes both tests, the different Heathers talk to each other about many things, most of which are admittedly vapid, but are not about boys. In the movie there are three girls named Heather, who are secondary characters, and the fourth member of their high school clique is the main character, Veronica. Who as the main focus of the movie passed the Mako Mori test. She has her own narrative, backstory, and complete perspective throughout the movie, that at points involves a man, but does not revolve around him, and in the end she leads to his demise. 

Thinking on the parameters of these different tests to asses how biased/gender based movies are, I noticed that a lot of these tests have rules that revolve around the female members of the cast, or lack there of. And if I were to make my own test I would do so a little differently. 

1: Is there an equal presence of male/female characters?

2: Do the character’s relationships hinge on romance/sex between the sexes?

3: Are there characters throughout the movie that are purely to further the theme of sexualization and not relevant in any other capacity? 

ie-Don Jon, the numerous woman in the start of the film, that you see have sex with the male character, then have nothing else to do with the movie, having no actual weight to the story. 

Looking at the test I’ve come up with, I could probably add more if I thought about it long enough, and in all honesty, I’ll probably never be happy with it, and I’m not sure if all movies will eventually pass any test like this, but it is interesting to see the portrayal of different people based off of such trivial details, like gender in the media.