Oh yay, I have an excuse to talk about Bud Dean.
Bud Dean and JD's relationship was so important to the overall characterization of JD that Christian Slater got the part because he was the only person who really understood what Dan Waters was getting at with it (and because Winona Ryder outright refused to consider any other option). In an interview with The Evening Standard in 2007, Slater said of his father (Michael Hawkins of Ryan's Hope fame), that he was the 'mediator between those two lunatics' (his father and his mother, casting executive Mary Jo Slater) until they divorced when he was five. He also said his father was tempermental and was at the time recently diagnosed as schizophrenic. In 1990, he told The Globe and Mail, "My father has a lot of personality, a lot of different personalities, too, so having him around as a role model was influential for my performance in Heathers."
He's also the only adult that shows any form of competency; he is the richest, with a successful company; he is able to get his way in court, successfully getting the court to rule in his favor over the Save The Memorial Oak Tree society; he is the father of destruction; he is emblematic of power in the Heathers commentary of it, using social prestige and force to get his way.
In his first appearance, he's dressed in red, the color of power and of the status quo. He is filmed from below, so he imposes down on us, and takes up the whole screen. He is, far and away, the highest on the pyramid in this movie.
In John Ross Bowie's book Heathers, Bud Dean is also an example of the paradoxes and inversions that help make it a successful satire, not only of teen movies, but of Reaganite society. He is a representations of Dan Waters' deep-seated aversion to authority. In Bowie's book, he says this moment is also significant because it's the one of the few times Waters and Lehmann sell out a joke to show some integrity (the other being Martha's suicide). The role reversal between JD and Bud Dean is also meant as a parallel to the Sawyers ("Because you're an idiot, Dad"). At the Sawyers' residence, the parents are going through the motions of being a parent, and not really paying attention to their daughter; at the Deans, things are wearing thin, and it's a bit of a battle for control between them. One that JD isn't winning, for the record.
In the director's commentary for Heathers, Dan Waters says he was tired of movies putting too much of an adult-oriented, self-fellating focus on the parents in a story ostensibly supposed to be about teens. This was supposed to be indicative of this feeling: JD's actions aren't really influenced by his dad. But if that's what Dan intended, he contradicts himself a lot about it - or it could be commentary on how young people think they're not being influenced by their surroundings, but they are.
JD's father being a land developer who blows up things to build over them with new things is meant as a reference to the Antichrist, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3:
Let no one in any way deceive or entrap you, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first [that is, the great rebellion, the abandonment of the faith by professed Christians], and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction [the Antichrist, the one who is destined to be destroyed],
When JD plans to blow up his high school, he doesn't do it based on some well-developed knowledge of demolition and pyrotechnics. He does what his father did. I also think this is an interesting moment of revelation for Veronica, where she's finally able to blame the right person, and not just the person hurting her and that she sees the bad parts of JD as reflections of his father.
And, obviously, his life isn't completely devoid of influence from his father, even ignoring all of these. He's been to seven different high schools alone, all across the United States, severely impacting his ability to make friends or make an identity for himself beyond being someone nobody wants to mess with. (Which is meant to be a parody of cool guys in 80s movies, by the way.) Also, him going to seven high schools is meant as a reference to the 7th circle of hell, which punishes: Murderers, tyrants, suicide victims, those who recklessly destroy their lives with wealth, and blasphemers.
When you look at Heathers from being a story on the cycles of violence and the violence of hierarchy, Bud Dean's role also becomes quite clear. In the movie (with several lines in the shooting script cut out), when Bud Dean comes in to gloat over his success in demolishing the Golden Oaks building and JD divulges a bit more about his mother's suicide, it becomes pretty clear that even though JD isn't the guy on top of the food chain either, and he's also just lashing out due to the cycle of violence. In the 2nd revised draft, this is made even more clear by having him echo Veronica's confrontation with Heather Chandler after the Remington party (and Veronica's confrontation with Heather Chandler about bullying Martha).
Which is to say, just like how Heather Chandler isn't the top of the food chain - she is subordinate to David's power as a man and an adult - JD is subordinate to his father's power as a wealthy man who is his father. Both react to these feelings of powerlessness by trying to regain a sense of control by subordinating someone they have power over - in both cases, this is Veronica.
Okay, so that's, like, the textual critical analysis stuff, but this more of the headcanons and inferences section of it.
I think the common headcanons about him are that he's a a pretty abusive controlling father (mostly informed by his characterization in the musical, which I am...so not a fan of, but I don't mind the headcanons that come from it), but I think it's a little more complex than this.
Mrs Dean killed herserlf by stepping into a library in Texas two minutes before it blew up. In an analysis by @blueinkedfrost, they posit that:
She committed suicide in a way where Bud pulled the trigger on her. I read that as a metaphor that he drove her to suicide.
Which, certainly, based on everything else about him, is not shocking. He is also speaks very crudely about the women of the Save the Golden Oaks Memorial Society, calling them "withered bitches", which implies at least a little bit of misogyny on his part, while also gloating about how it's "great to be alive." Which is ironic, since both his wife and son commit suicide.
Anyway, a lot of people take all of this as proof that he's definitely physically abusive, and for the record, he probably was, as corporal punishment was pretty common back in the 80s and also JD clearly thinks force and violence is a good form of punishment (and also, that bad behavior needs to be punished directly). He also says that "Nobody loves him", which even if Bud Dean does love his son (and I think he does, for reasons I'll explain in a bit), he clearly doesn't feel that way.
(Also, Dan Waters in the directer's commentary joked about how people take JD's lines in the boiler room way too seriously as his motivation for doing what he's trying to do, but he was just kind of saying whatever shit came to mind. I do think he felt unloved though, due to the deleted putting-gun-in-mouth scene while also lashing out by not being able to get his way for the first time in his life, as a rich young white man, which is definitely commentary Dan Waters would've wanted to make.)
I see a lot of people using the fact that he's dragging his son around as evidence to him being an abusive parent. And, to be fair, that is bad parenting. (Such obviously bad parenting that it's crazy they had Veronica doing that shit to her own daughter in the Heathers 2010 pilot episode script.) But there is literally no reason to be doing this. With how often JD is transferring high schools and how much trouble that would cause both of them, there is no reason JD wouldn't just be staying with a relative as he prioritizes work over his son. It's a choice for him to have his son go with him, and I think it's because he does love him, just not in a healthy way. (Oh, look! Like father, like son again!) He wants him around, and not just as a hand around the house. Again, the Deans are the richest people in the movie. He doesn't need him to be there when he can hire help to keep his house for him.
I think this scene makes it pretty obvious he wants to be involved in his son's life but that it's strained. Bud Dean cares about work and likes to feel big and powerful, even at the expense of his son (and probably his wife). JD clearly blames Bud Dean for his mother's death. They clearly impose roles on each other to be the person they want them to be.
I also don't think enough people consider that he never remarried, even though he's described as a successful business man, very wealthy and very handsome. He could obviously remarry if he really wanted to, and he chooses not to. There is a picture of Mrs Dean on the living room coffee table. He probably did drive her to suicide (or, at least, was too focused on work to notice her struggling), but he did love her. Honestly, you could probably argue JD's reaction to Veronica's "suicide" was a mirror reaction to Bud Dean's reaction to Mrs. Dean. He really did love her, but not in a healthy way.
Just like JD copied Bud Dean's bombs without any real consideration about the situation and the way it differed from his, he copied the way Bud Dean went through the world - the way Bud Dean loved him, the way Bud Dean loved his wife. The cycle of violence.
In the "Heathers as Social Satire" portion of Bowie's book, he says:
The point isn't that kids are killing each other in this movie, or that the adults "don't get it," but that it's far more disturbing: It's that people kill each other all the time in real life, and that the bonds of empathy are troublingly thin.
Also in Heathers 2010 - which isn't canon, so it doesn't matter - Bud Dean blames Veronica for what happened to JD, which implies some level of care about the matter. And that's technically true. The director's commentary confirmed that he would have never gone onto kill people if there hadn't been someone there to help encourage it.
Anyway, that's all. This is wayyyy to long, but I have a lot of thoughts on Bud Dean and JD. Obviously.
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