Everett
"Heathers" is back -- but the TV adaptation of the '80s cult classing isn't necessarily being welcomed back with open arms.
Shortly after Paramount released the red band trailer for the upcoming series Thursday, Perez Hilton called it "politically incorrect as f-ck," while A.V. Club was shocked to see the series aim to restore "the white, slim and heterosexual" to the top of the teenage food chain.
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View Story"The end result, where conventionally pretty Veronica Sawyer (Grace Victoria Cox) and her bad-boy boyfriend JD Dean (James Scully) systematically pick off the 'unconventional' popular kids one by one, ends up playing more like a conservative fantasy of restoring the white, slim, and heterosexual to their proper place atop the teenage hierarchy than any sort of trenchant commentary on 21st-century teen culture," A.V. Club water Katie Rife wrote in an article with the headline, "Paramount Network's Heathers makes its damage known in baffling new trailer."
Many weighing in on Twitter took issue with the status quo character taking revenge against the marginalized.
"So the 'Heathers' reboot is about the pretty, cisgender, white, heterosexual couple killing the queers and big girls," the blogging duo Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez tweeted.
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View StoryBut amid all of the backlash, showrunner Jason Micallef is still sticking to his gut and defending his decision to change the way the Heathers will be viewed.
"The main thing to really take away is I don't view the Heathers as the villains," Micallef told Entertainment Weekly. "The three Heathers are incredibly powerful and ruling the school; they're the people you would want to be. In the original film, the Heathers were the ones I always loved, and it's the same with the series. The Heathers are the aspirational characters."
Micallef continued to remind EW who the real villain is, but the rest of Twitter took the trailer at face value.
Sooo... they're doing a remake of Heathers which flips it around so the liberal LGBT diversity kids are eeevil popular bullies who need to be stopped by the cool pretty white kids. 2018, folks! Taking your rebel heroes and making them an alt-right wet dream. https://t.co/ilIgCYFReA
@Twoflower
Realizing the Heathers tv adaptation is going to have a white straight couple killing marginalized characters because the white straight people see themselves as the victims AND we're supposed to side with the white straight people. pic.twitter.com/bysm09mzPs
@JustPlainTweets
bye i can't stop thinking about how someone greenlit a “heathers but the minorities are the shitty kids” show in 2018
@xochipiIli
So ... the #Heathers reboot is about the pretty cisgender white het couple killing the queers and big girls?
@tomandlorenzo
I have not actually seen Heathers but making the Heathers a gang of marginalized kids ragging on a pretty blond chick for looking too "Banana Republic" seems counterintuitive to what i thought Heathers was supposed to be about https://t.co/YFh4HEVZnX
@vqnerdballs
Sooo... they're doing a remake of Heathers which flips it around so the liberal LGBT diversity kids are eeevil popular bullies who need to be stopped by the cool pretty white kids. 2018, folks! Taking your rebel heroes and making them an alt-right wet dream. https://t.co/ilIgCYFReA
@Twoflower
So I have literally never seen #heathers a day in my life but like this new thing I see STINKS of reverse bigotry. They make a plus sized girl, a gay kid, and a WoC the villains while the traditional looking boy and girl are the bullied ones... yeah pic.twitter.com/J0KrOZAdRc
@agentfitz777
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hate the heathers tv reboot
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