Beetlejuice

// Beetlejuice // (1988) // Beetlejuice // (1988) is an American comedy horror fantasy film directed by Tim Burton. The plot revolves around a recently deceased young couple who become ghosts haunting their former home and an obnoxious, devious "bio- exorcist" named Betelgeuse from the underworld who tries to scare away the new inhabitants permanently.

There are several main characters in this film. For Barbara and Adam, when they became ghosts, at first they wanted the Deetzes out of their house because they wanted to keep their house as the way it was before they were dead. Later on throughout the film they wanted peace, they wanted the Deeztzes to stop messing using them and allow them to live happily together with them in the house. For Lydia she wanted to find peace, she wanted her family to care about her and understand her. She also wants her family to accept Barbara and Adam and allow them to live together with them. Lastly, for Beetlejuice, he just wants to be called so he can scare people and do bad things.

The main themes for this film are acceptance, understanding, equality, and conformity. For Barbara and Adam they need acceptance of the Deetzes family, in this case Tim Burton implies that the society needs to learn to accept people that are different. For Lydia she needs understanding and caring from her family. This shows that Lydia is also a metaphor or the unique and different people in the society that seeks understanding. For Beetlejuice, he needs a moral lesson, which in the end he gets one by his head being shrunk. This film also implies the theme of appearances vs. reality, a theme Tim Burton often shows within the body of his work. At first it seems like Barbara and Adam are scary because they are ghosts, but in the end the Deetzes family found them friendly and accepts them. And also, at first Barbara and Adam dislike the Deetzes but in the end they liked Lydia and learned to accept the family as well. At first the concept of ghosts living together happily with humans appears to be a crazy idea, but in the end, through acceptance and understanding, both the ghosts and the humans learn to accept each other and got to live together peacefully.

The last scene where the Deeztes and Barbara and Adam learn to accept and understand each other lives together happily is the scene that best exemplifies the theme. The scene starts when Lydia goes back home from school. The mis-en-scene in this scene is the clothing style and makeup of Lydia. Compared to her usual look, in this scene she looks more innocent and clean instead of gothic and dark. This shows conformity within the society. It shows that she also tried to understand and accept the normal that everyone embraces. The Editing in the scene is the short shots of the objects moving and making music, building up a joyful tone. Also when Lydia is dancing in the air, shadows of other ghosts appears and further emphasizes the idea of by accepting the different ones, the society will be a more happy and peaceful place for everyone. The sound in this scene is generally the cheerful music in the background that all the character dances to. It indicates happiness that is followed by understanding and acceptance. T he cinematography of this scene is the close-up shots of Barbara, Adam, and Lydia standing close together celebrating for Lydia getting an “A” on her math test. This shows that through acceptance and understanding, they all became closer friends. Later the long shot of everyone in the frame dancing shows conformity and acceptance, that different people get to spend joyful time together because they learned to accept each other. At last, the lighting of the scene is generally bright. The ghosts are no longer lit with shadows. This indicated conformity and acceptance as well.

Overall this film fits within Tim Burton's body of work, it conveys the theme of acceptance and understanding. It also implies the theme of appearances vs. reality as it did in //Edward Scissorhands(1990)//.