Fox is making a TV show about disenchanted teenagers killing their classmates? That’s right: apparently a TV adaptation of the 1988 cult classic, Heathers, is currently in development. According to Variety, main writer Mark Rizzo “is still kicking around ideas on how to update Heathers 20 years after the film became a favorite among the underground set. But the characters from the movie are all expected to be there.”

For those who haven’t seen it: Back in 1988, before either Winona Ryder or Christian Slater stepped on the wrong side of the law, they starred together in Heathers, a movie that made killing your friends funny. Winona played a reluctant popular girl, who secretly hates the uber-bitchy members of her clique. When she meets dark, brooding, homicidal Christian, together they off said girls, and mask the deaths as suicides. (Bonus angsty tidbit: In 2007, Slater announced that he had fallen for Ryder on the Heathers set, and carried a torch for her ever since).

These days, a teen comedy about killing one’s classmates feels a bit gauche. Case in point: In Mean Girls, basically a Heathers remake, Lindsay Lohan’s character barely allows herself to joke that her evil ex-friend, Regina, dies after accidentally getting hit by a bus.

It’s hard to imagine how Heathers will stand up to serialization, and how the movie’s dark humor will work on prime time. But Fox’s adaptation begs the question: In a post-Columbine world, can a movie about killing your classmates translate to the small screen? I have my doubts.

Tags: Christian Slater, Fox, Heathers, Winona Ryder

Katie Roiphe’s recent essay for DoubleX, on the narcotic effects of new motherhood, has generated quite a bit of heat in the blogosphere, with posts piling up from the New York Times’ "Idea of the Day" blog, from Jezebel, and from the Atlantic’s "Daily Dish," among others. I’ve been trying to keep up with the avalanche of comments on all these sites—and ours—and it’s a task that has proven fascinating and enervating in equal measures.

Yesterday afternoon, Salon’s Broadsheet published a roundtable on Roiphe’s piece. If you can stand to hear a little more on the subject, I highly recommend it—I think it’s the most balanced, thoughtful discussion I’ve come across so far. And the format—six short, self-contained essays—helps clarify and distill some of the thorny issues the piece and the subsequent debate has raised.

Tags: broadsheet, katie roiphe, salon

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Today we introduce DoubleX’s new book of the week feature. Each Friday, we will let you know about a book that turns us on in some way. It could be a book we love, a book that infuriates us, or a book that’s rich or exciting or eccentric or moronic in some interesting way. Usually, it will be a new book that just came out or is about to be published. Sometime it may be a classic or a classic reissued that seems suddenly relevant. Of course, we would love suggestions from you. Please send to doublex.slate@gmail.com.

Today’s recommendation is Lorrie Moore’s A Gate At the Stairs. This is a full-hearted recommendation, no fury. I have long admired Moore for her collections of short stories, in which she can perfectly capture a moment or mood. Moore is particularly good on disappointment, failed potential, and longing. Her novels, however, have always felt like short stories stretched thin. Not this one, though. Tassie Keltjin, the college-age heroine, is a familiar Moore type, alienated from both the ambitions and rebellions of her peers in her small, liberal arts college. It’s when she becomes nanny to a middle-aged couple with an adopted child that she learns about disappointment on a larger scale. Tassie, who narrates the novel, sounds too middle-aged herself sometimes. But Moore slows down her usual short story moments and makes the heartbreak real.

Tags: A Gate at the Stairs, DoubleX Book of the Week, Lorrie Moore

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Torie, you are right that Jaycee Dugard's story is utterly flabbergasting. How to make sense of a case of Stockholm Syndrome that's this long-lasting? (Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped; now she's 29.) And also this extreme—she had two children, now 11 and 15 themselves, with her kidnapper. I've never read anything about Elizabeth Smart or the teenage boy you mention, Shawn Hornbeck, that helped me make sense of their parallel stories, either. And it's the victims, not the perpetrators, I can't help focusing on. They are the mystery. My question now seems like the obvious one for parents: Would an 11-year-old girl have to be especially vulnerable to fall prey to such a psychological as well as physical snare? Or could this happen to a normal kid? And how real a phenomenon is Stockholm Syndrome to begin with?

Photo by El Dorado County Sheriff via Getty Images.

Tags: Jaycee Dugard, kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome

Ann Friedman of Feministing has written a fine review/analysis of Arianne Cohen’s new book Tall: A Celebration of Life From on High. Ann is tall. And technically, so am I, at 5’9". So I love the idea that, as Friedman writes:

Much of the book focuses on the undeniable advantages that come with being tall—I'd venture to call it height supremacist, even. Because height is a product of not just genetics but good childhood nutrition, there's a strong correlation between height and intelligence, and therefore height and wealth.

Yes, I suppose milk does “do a body good.” But it’s an interesting suggestion that “nurture” can amplify or suppress what I’d thought to be mostly genetic predetermination. This opens a Pandora’s box for tinker-happy parents, especially given widespread social beliefs about the gender dynamics of height, and the disadvantages that accrue to tall women:

Cohen describes how, as early as age 8, she was offered the option of taking estrogen to stunt her growth so she would not reach her projected height of 6'5". This practice developed in response to parents' fears their daughters would not be able to find a husband if they grew too tall. Cohen said no to the estrogen, and today she's 6'3". It was a good choice—growth-stunting estrogen has been linked to fertility problems later in life. Yet some doctors continue to prescribe this "treatment" for tallness. A 2002 survey of 411 endocrinologists found 137 still offered height-reduction treatments. How fucking archaic is that? Cohen writes, "In the United States boys are rarely treated, because height is considered beneficial."

Though I spent my ‘tween years in a steady hunch—the better to hear my wee male classmates—the idea of taking hormonal treatments to squelch normal growth seems medieval. In the intervening years, I have learned to straighten up and enjoy my stature, and to be honest, now yearn for an extra inch or three. Perhaps Alicia Silverstone’s classic “just say no to coffee” line from Clueless still resonates. (Sidenote: What happened to Stacey Dash?)

Friedman walks through the interesting relationships of women to height, and tall women to social beliefs they might not even recognize as disordered. As in, “I'm 6'1", and I'm at the cut-off height. I don't know if I would feel as confident if I were 6'5”." Replace “height” with “weight” and you see how this sneaky prejudice would be completely unacceptable if it pertained to other social and physical differences.

However, if it’s testosterone that correlates to height, are there social benefits to the masculine traits that height might suggest? I don’t mean to suppose that male tendencies are always beneficial (it’s men, Feministing writes, who “don't like being looked down on by a woman,” and find tall women less attractive), but if height imports confidence, security, and liberation from high heels, I’d call it a fair trade.

Cohen’s book no doubt reveals all—but even anecdotal evidence suggests this might be the case. Take one scene in the charming Julie and Julia, in which Julia Child and her (equally tall) sister laud their height as a free pass out of convention and surburban mores. Though Child once asks her husband Paul, quite fearfully, “What if you hadn’t loved me?” I suspect, had Julia Child been 5’6” and not 6’3”, you might not have Mastering the Art of French Cooking on shelves today.

Tags: arianne cohen, dating, estrogen, genetics, height, social prejudice, tall women, testosterone

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Michael Vick trotted back onto the preseason field for the Philadelphia Eagles last night to a partial standing ovation in his first game since he got out of federal prison after serving a 19-month sentence for his infamous dogfighting crimes. The NFL is handling Vick's return gingerly, though, giving him game-by-game conditional approval to play rather than reinstating him for the regular season. I buy the argment that Vick did his time and doesn't necessarily merit more punishment from the league. He's already missed two seasons. And I think I'm not just saying that because he was a star quarterback and the Eagles are my home team.

Instead, what bothers me is the contrast between the care the NFL is taking about Vick because he hurt dogs compared to its relative indifference when football players commit crimes against women. In 1994, in the days after O.J. Simpson was charged with murdering Nicole Brown, the Washington Post did an exhaustive review and found 141 football players, 56 pros, and 85 college athletes who'd been reported to the cops for violence toward women in the previous five years. "The three-month review also found allegations by victims and prosecutors that football players were given preferential treatment—sometimes by judges, sometimes by police—and that NFL and club executives were reluctant to discipline athletes who committed crimes that did not directly affect the business of professional football," Post reporter Bill Brubaker wrote. This was in contrast to the college teams, who tended to take battering charges more seriously. Since then, some pro teams have instituted workshops about domestic violence. But the drumbeat of players who beat their wives and girlfriends goes on. And we hear a lot less about it from the NFL than we do about Michael Vick.

Photogrpah of a Michael Vick supporter by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images.

Tags: dogfighting, domestic violence, football, michael vick, national football league, philadelphia eagles