Martha Dunnstock
So the last time I got out of a depression bender, after relistening to Heathers the 32nd time, I had an urge to write about how I personally related more to Heather McNamara in Act 2 than I did for Martha Dunnstock. I have NO IDEA what happened to that post or how it was received as I never checked up on it after that. But I just got out of another one and realized some more shit about Heathers and Martha as a character and now wish to write about it again, so here it fucking goes:
My previous post had to do with the fact that I found McNamara more compelling than I did Martha because I felt McNamara had more depth to her struggle and issue through the story than Martha did. Despite the fact that Martha is an objectively better person than McNamara, her motives and personality just felt harder to grasp for me, even though I assumed I’d like her more. I realized JUST NOW that it was fucking intentional. The entire point of Heather McNamara is to show you that popular girls really CAN have feelings and don’t deserve the horrible shit Veronica and JD were doing. McNamara is written to have more depth and to show you the consequences of a “suicide” on those emotional insecure people who were close to those who died.
Martha, on the other hand, isn’t SUPPOSED to be the one you connect with emotionally. Martha’s reasoning for jumping off a fucking bridge is supposed to be that she’s sad that the guy she was “dating” in KINDERGARTEN, who had been nothing but horrible to her since then, had “killed himself”. Martha had no reason to feel an actual emotional connection to Kurt. He was an asshole. The only reason she liked him was because he was nice to her ONCE.
When I wrote about this previously what I didn’t understand yet is that Martha’s connection to the deaths is MEANT to be less personal and founded because she represents a different type of teenager in the whole “reaction to a suicide” situation. McNamara represented those who could also commit suicide for founded, grief based reasons that have to do with actually being close to those who died. Martha represents the teenagers who might commit suicide following another major one just because she’s an emotionally insecure teenager. Martha’s reasons aren’t supposed to be founded and understandable because when you’re a teenager, emotions just AREN’T always founded and understandable. As a character, Martha is simply meant to function differently. She’s supposed to display for Veronica that there are truly innocent people who are suffering because of what she did.
And with that I would like to apologize to Martha Dunstock. Because while I didn’t understand before, and still don’t understand now, I do now understand that I was never meant to “get” your feelings. Because you actually represented those moments where other people “just wouldn’t get” what you were feeling, as so many of us experienced in our teenage years.
