#verionica sawyer

[sparklyshapeshifter]

More Heathers: The Musical (2014) thoughts - Freeze Your Brain

TW: Discussion of child abuse, neglect, self harm and self destructive tendencies, suicide, and murder.

The song ‘Freeze Your Brain’ is the fourth song in the Heathers soundtrack, and is sung from the perspective of Jason Dean (JD) and Veronica Sawyer. It rather unsubtly lays out JD’s backstory and current motivations, and fucking slaps. It is one of the most iconic and memorable songs for a reason! Freeze Your Brain makes no secret of the fact that it is exposition. The first line is literally ‘I’ve been through ten high schools, they start to get blurry.’ It is not hiding the fact that it is telling more than it is showing. But it doesn’t feel wrong, because JD is an edgy teenager trauma dumping on his new girlfriend, and that fits his character! He chides Veronica for being naïve (’You’re planning your future / Veronica Sawyer / You’ll go to some college / And marry a lawyer / But the sky’s gonna hurt when it falls / So you better start building some walls’), despite the fact that they are at a similar age, and that Veronica is also mildly cynical to the world (as shown in the intro song, Beautiful). This shows us that JD feels like he knows more than her, most like due to feeling mature for his age thanks to having to take care of himself for several years, presumably due to neglect from his father. JD’s life is constantly unstable due to his living circumstances. JD and his father move a lot (’My dad keeps two suitcases packed in the den / So it’s only a matter of when’), and so JD doesn’t have the time or willingness to make connections with other people. This is also what presumably causes him to feel that only himself and Veronica are worth anything, as other people are merely faces that enter and leave his life. In short, great setup for his later overvaluing of himself and Veronica, and motivation for murder! I also find it interesting how this foreshadowing is a form of showing in a song that is otherwise about telling. His living circumstances may also be an example of neglect and/or child abuse, although this is slightly vague. The canonical info is just that his mother is dead, meaning JD and his father have to work harder to fill that gap; however, the implication of them moving a lot, JD cooking, and having to learn how to pay rent is that his father is not fulfilling all of JD’s needs, whether from working long hours or from other issues. My interpretation of this is that this constitutes neglect, even if JD’s father was otherwise a good parent! JD’s unhealthy thought processes, self-harm, and later actions also make sense if we assume that his circumstances resulted in trauma and possibly one or more cluster b personality disorders (note that people with cluster b personality disorders are not inherently evil abusers, but rather a result of unstable childhoods). It’s unclear when his mother died and his current lifestyle started though, so it’s hard to make assumptions. The 7/11 and the slushies they sell there are a form of stability for JD. He finds comfort in the fact that the chain store is found all over the US, and therefore that no matter where he moves, he can trust that there will be one there. This is repeatedly stated throughout the song, as a clear parallel to how the rest of his life is constantly changing,  The namesake of the song, his use of 7/11 slushies as a form of self harm (as he repeatedly states that drinking the ice-cold drink provides pain and numbness), is super interesting to me. JD states that he uses it as an alternative to more severe actions (’When the voice in your head / Says you’re better off dead / Don’t open a vein / Just freeze your brain’ ‘Happiness comes when everything numbs / Who needs cocaine?’). I think it’s also interesting how his constant advocation for abusing the drink could tie back into his feeling of superiority; unlike people who do drugs or cut themselves, he drinks slushies despite the urge to do worse, and he talks about it with this self-aware ironical and superior tone. This is mostly speculation based off of the tone of voice this particular JD sings with though, and may not be supported entirely by the lyrics. I also wonder if the writers of both the original movie and the musical were aware of the impact this scene would have on fans. Unfortunately, a lot of edgy teens took this song as more of an aspirational or self-reflective thing instead of the shortcut to JD’s characterisation it acts as. It’s one of the most popular songs to make animatics to as far as I can tell, although it might be beaten by Beautiful and Dead Girl Walking (Reprise). It definitely helped JD to soar in popularity, as the tragedy of his backstory provides an out for people to excuse or ignore his rather questionable actions as well as the murder, even though in the song itself he is encouraging Veronica to join him in his favourite form of self-harm. Overall, it’s a good song that does what it set out to do really effectively, and lives in my head rent free. It sets the bar high for the rest of the soundtrack, and helps JD’s later actions feel like something out of a tragedy instead of just a comedy.

[levis-step-stool]

Y’all know what scares me? My love of the ever problematic, borderline sociopathic JD from Heathers. Like to the point where I’m like, obsessed with slushees. What can I say? Our love is God.

[a-simple-gaywitch]

Ask fry for Connor watching you play verionica sawyer?

Connor thinks you look stunning in blue. At first he was a bit jealous watching you perform Dead Girl Walking, but when he found out the guy playing JD was married, he calmed down significantly. He was a bit shaken up when he saw Meant To Be Yours for the first time and made sure to leave so many kisses up and down your body when the show was over. 

[kirazombie101]

A good friend of mine asked me to draw Verionica Sawyer from Heathers. I decide to go with the musical instead of the movie. Hope you like it!