Jawbreaker Remains the Queer Black Sheep of Teen Comedies
Darren Stein’s dark comedy is a shiny, twisted example of camp done seriously.
Last summer, I threw on a purple and white tie-dyed dress, curled my hair, grabbed a candy-purple clutch, and headed to my favorite indie theater in Atlanta to see Jawbreaker on the big screen for the first time.
Writer-director Darren Stein was in attendance for a Q&A, with an unexpected guest: A pigeon had somehow made it into the theater. Do you know how hard it is to make this film more dramatic and absurd? Chaos Pigeon did, and he rose to the occasion.
I’ve loved Jawbreaker unironically since I was 13. It is utterly ridiculous, deliciously dark, and subversively queer in a way that no other 90’s teen movie bothered with. Then again, it was never meant to be a fun romp aimed at normies or the in-crowd. It was initially born as a horror movie before it morphed into a black comedy, lovingly made by and for the alternative crowd: theater geeks, goths who worried their parents, and girls who had a little too much agency and self-assurance for their age.
That’s the truly frightening thing about teenage girls: Halfway between kid and woman, they’ve never been more insecure — or more powerful. It’s a vicious combination.
I doubt Jawbreaker could be made in 2024. It may be full of standard teen movie tropes — a dramatic makeover that elevates one’s social caste, makeouts at the drive-in, goofy parents that hover, emotional acts of terrorism in the hallways — but the rest is fodder for a true crime tale played for laughs.
Courtney (Rose McGowan), Marcie (Julie Benz), and Julie (Rebecca Gayheart) prank-kidnap and accidentally murder their friend Liz on her 17th birthday. They not only cover up the crime with a fabricated tale of sexual assault, but they force innocent bystander Fern (Judy Greer) into their plot by remaking her in their image to buy her silence.
In rewatching this as an adult, I’m seeing that Jawbreaker may be camp in execution and horror at heart, but it’s also swimming in fantasy cues. Stein often mentions that this is his dream version of high school as a gay kid who loved drama: Heathers-inspired with a Frankenstein twist. The teen characters are, in grand 20th century tradition of getting away with mature themes, played by actors who are obviously adults.
The dialogue is cackle-worthy, but most of it lands because the cast plays everything to the cheap seats. (The way Rose McGowan devoured this role might’ve changed something in my brain chemistry.) I love that in imagining an otherwordly mean girl through a queer lens, Stein was inspired by the sensationalism of drag:
I really wanted Courtney to have a drag queen quality to her. No one like her can actually exist in high school but the terror and awe you can experience from these so called popular girls are very real. It was important to me that Courtney wasn’t just popular in a conventional sense.
Unconventional is one word for it. Interestingly, Courtney is an It Girl who doesn’t dress or behave for the male gaze — her interactions with resident jock Dane are whimsical at best and pitiful at worst — but almost always for the female gaze. Highly femme, adorned, dominant, and calculated, her look and aura projects an alpha vibe to every other girl. That’s half the work done immediately.
Like most of pop culture in the late ’90s, the look of Jawbreaker is high-contrast and in direct conversation with the heightened dark glamour of its story. For every set of frosted, jewel-toned outfits strutted down the hallway, there’s a swath of dark moodiness or a shock-laugh sequence evoking the likes of everything from Carrie to Edward Scissorhands.
On a related note, this film is a stellar example of casting as mood-setting. Every adult in this story is played by an actor ingrained in our memories from ’70s and ’80s films that are integral to Jawbreaker’s DNA. Carol Kane (When a Stranger Calls) as the assistant principal, Jeff Conaway (Grease) as Marcie’s sensitive father, and PJ Soles (Halloween) as Liz’s horrified mother would’ve been plenty. The real stroke of genius was casting Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) as Detective Vera Cruz: the only woman bad enough to see Courtney for the polished liar she is.
We can’t properly talk about Jawbreaker without mentioning its soundtrack, firmly on the gritty side of girly. Alongside now-anthemic tracks like Imperial Teen’s “Yoo Hoo” and Veruca Salt’s “Volcano Girls,” there’s a decent range of other pre-Y2K rock sounds, from the manic-spacey (Howie Beno & Cruella Deville’s “She Bop”) to greaser-chic (The Prissteens’ “Beat You Up”). Overlaying the staging of Liz’s body with “Let the Good Times Roll” is terrible and hysterical. And is it really a ‘90s teen flick if The Donnas aren’t involved?
As a cult film, Jawbreaker meets several tricky criteria between its bold style, sticky substance, and snarky fanbase. Even if it had managed to be a mainstream movie, it would still be an acquired taste. It’s not universally known or loved, but when a theater wants to show it, the response is raucous enough that costumes and custom drinks are required — and the director might just show up to partake in the debauchery with new and old fans alike.