Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about Beetlejuice

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 55

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I myself am strange and unusual.

On today’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily shares her thoughts about the ghost with the most: Beetlejuice. The Tim Burton film is aesthetically gorgeous, unapologetically bizarre, and legitimately funny–but the character of Beetlejuice relies on sexual predation to indicate his awfulness and Michael Keaton’s performance is so sleazily charming that audiences revered the creep. It’s a shame that we remembered the villain, since the film does offer a positive message about rejecting zero-sum thinking and introduced an entire generation of viewers to activist and musician Harry Belafonte.

Put on your headphones, turn on the juice, and see what shakes loose!

TW: Discussion of sexual predation of minors and sexual assault and suicidal ideation

Mentioned in this episode:

Emily's article about Beetlejuice

https://www.fastcompany.com/91189134/the-hidden-money-lessons-in-beetlejuice

Deep Thoughts about Nightmare on Elm Street

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Speaker 1:

The movie's teaching us to reject zero-sum thinking.

Speaker 2:

What others might deem stupid shit. You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. We're sisters, tracy and Emily, collectively known as the Guy Girls. Every week, we take turns re-watching, researching and reconsidering beloved media and sharing what we learn. Come overthink with us and if you get value from the show, please consider supporting us. You can become a patron on Patreon or send us a one-time tip through Ko-fi. Both links are in the show notes and thanks.

Speaker 1:

I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1988 tim burton film beetlejuice with my sister, tracy guy decker, and with you. Let's dive in, tracy. Tell me, what do you know or remember about beetlejuice?

Speaker 2:

I, I mean, my biggest recollection is just like how it made me feel that's what people say, right, that's what everybody says. But I but actually I remember enjoying it quite a lot. And so in my head, very hip couple with a goth daughter move into an old house that was owned by very square husband and wife who died in a car accident. They liked trains, he liked trains and they didn't like trains he had.

Speaker 1:

He had a model of the town, but it wasn't.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't a uh yeah I remember all right, all right, you'll get to your, it's your. It'll be your turn in a minute. It's my turn right now.

Speaker 2:

You can correct me after. Look, we fact check here on ABC. Correct me after. So right, so there's a big old, like scale model of town in the attic. These two very square people do not like the changes that the new owners are making to their house and they try to haunt them away. And it's laughable, it doesn't work. And so they get help from Beetlejuice, who's Michael Keaton in, like white makeup, like white makeup, and uh, it's like terrifying but hilarious and eventually sort of much to everyone's surprise and somewhat chagrin. There's sort of this like how can the dead and the living live together or cohabit, I suppose, since the dead aren't living?

Speaker 2:

Winona Ryder, as the goth daughter, always stuck with me. I have an affinity for Winona. I don't she and I are. I think she's a little older than I am, but I she is definitely a little older than I am, but I always like imagine that if somebody ever made the movie of my life that Winona would play me, and so I have this affinity for her from just throughout her career. So she's, she sort of stayed with me with her, like pointy bangs and just dissatisfaction with her very hip, very pretentious parents. So that's what I got.

Speaker 2:

I mean in my head it's really just like absurdist cartoon and. I have not done any analysis whatsoever to like look deeper. It's just kind of silly. So that's what I got. Why are we talking about this today?

Speaker 1:

so there's the like kind of crass answer, which is that the sequel, 36 years in the making, has just come out, Right.

Speaker 2:

Beetlejuice, beetlejuice, yes.

Speaker 1:

So that's what reminded me of it and why I decided to talk about it. But then this was. I'm not going to say it was a formative movie for me, but it was for friends of mine and it was one I truly enjoyed and it fits so squarely within my whimsical, within edge sensibilities. So the absolute bonkers nature of it really was something I just loved, and so I have a longstanding affinity for Tim Burton that I don't know that he deserves, in part because of this movie. So it was one I know I watched over and over and over again. Like you, I believe that Winona Ryder would play me in the biopic of my life.

Speaker 2:

Well, she would have had a lot of work to do if she was playing both of us. I know Surely we would be in each other's movies.

Speaker 1:

But you know, like I am you in a wig, so like it would be like the parent trap. That was like that really stuck with me. Her character really stuck with me. Like they never say exactly how old she is but Winona Ryder was 16 when the film was made. So, uh, so she's a kid, so there's like the kid aspect of it and the kid being in the know on stuff that the grownups don't know or understand was really, um, pretty great. That felt good.

Speaker 1:

But then you also got to feel like you were cheering on the underdog which is the dead couple, because they don't mean any harm to the living. They just don't want their house completely gutted. They spent so much time working on it, working on it, and so it's like there's a lot in there that you get this like toehold in to feel like you know how you would react in that situation, because you feel for the Maitlands that's the name of the dead couple. You feel for Lydia Winona Ryder's character. You can laugh at the excesses and ridiculousness of her way too hip parents while also kind of admiring their style, like it's awful, but it is amazingly awful.

Speaker 2:

It's really like comprehensive is my recollection too Like it's not just like a touch here, it's like a like they commit yeah yeah, so, um, the first night in the house I remember noticing this as a kid the first night in the house.

Speaker 1:

So, uh, delia deets is the is the living wife played by katherine o'hara, right, who is just an underappreciated talent.

Speaker 2:

She's amazing. I mean, she's really amazing yeah.

Speaker 1:

So the very first night they're eating Chinese food on like the Maitland's old furniture, so like they've just moved in there's like it's not their house yet. And she is dressed to the nines, wearing a headband made out of black gloves headband made out of black gloves and like it's just like I want to be her.

Speaker 1:

There's a point later where Jeffrey Jones, who plays Charles Dietz, the husband, has a red sweater with like white snowflakes on it and he's wearing it one point and then later in the movie, delia is wearing them as pants with suspenders, like it's a it's a sweater that she's got her legs through the arms.

Speaker 2:

That's cool.

Speaker 1:

So, like just just I, I, I would love to be able to commit like that, yeah, that Delia does, even though they're really kind of not great. I would love to be able to commit like that, yeah, the way that Delia does, even though they're really kind of not great to Lydia. I have a great deal of nostalgia for this movie. I really, really enjoyed the just bonkers aspects of it. You know we'll get to the use of Harry Belafonte's Deo Right, and it's just fun, fun and only a little bit scary. But enough that if you're nine years old in 1988, it's deliciously scary and then it becomes a Halloween staple through the years, that sort of thing. So that's why I really wanted to dig into it, revisiting it. I'm feeling a little bit like I did with Nightmare on Elm Street, which is we remember the wrong things about the movie. So let me give you like a synopsis. You did a pretty good job of giving us an idea of what the movie is about, but just a little more detail.

Speaker 1:

We meet Barbara and Adam Maitland, young married couple, in I think it's called winter river Connecticut or winter Springs, something like that the very beginning of the movie. It's the first day of their vacation and they're going to have a staycation to work on their home because they are like, not renovating but they're fixing up this gorgeous old like farmhouse I guess it would be. So they run into town to pick something up and on the way home they swerve to avoid a dog and their car goes into. They're on a bridge, the car goes through the bridge it's one of those covered bridges into the river and of course the dog is fine. So they come home.

Speaker 1:

The next scene and things are odd the fireplace turns on and they're like we didn't leave a fire going and then Barbara's fingers catch fire. Adam says okay, I'm going to go retrace our steps because I don't remember how we got back from the river. And he goes out the front door. He's gone for like a second and Barbara. Barbara pulls him back in and she says you're gone for two hours and for him it was just a few seconds and it's this weird sandy landscape and there is this like sandworm with two mouths. A la Dune, yes, yes. And Barbara has been exploring the house in the time that he's been gone and has found there is now a book called the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, which when Adam reads it. He goes Handbook for the Recently Diseased which, watching it now, I'm realizing it's kind of important that they're not the smartest people.

Speaker 2:

And they don't realize, so they don't realize they're dead. They had not realized they're dead.

Speaker 1:

This is what convinces them that and they can't see themselves in the mirror. So they are like okay, well, you know, we'll make the best of it. You know we can't leave the house, but this is our favorite place in the world and we're with each other. Their friend, jane, sells the house to the Dietz family. Charles Dietz, played by Jeffrey Jones, who he was Mr Rooney in Ferris Bueller, and he is a former real estate investor type from New York who has had some sort of unspecified emotional or mental breakdown and so needs to go live in the country to relax, and so he's the one who is pushing for this.

Speaker 1:

His wife, delia Dietz, who is an artist, a sculptor and very high strung, played by Catherine O'Hara, and then his daughter, lydia. Now, delia is not Lydia's mother, she's her stepmother, but we never find out the backstory of what happened. Friend, slash butler, slash con artist, slash Rasputin type Otho, played by Glenn Shaddix, I believe is his name who is like helps her with interior decorating, but he's always talking about like oh yeah, I used to do that too. Oh yeah, I used to do that too about everything.

Speaker 2:

And he's like flamboyantly gay. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

So they move in and the Maitlands are like, well, okay, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, we'll just live with it. And then Delia immediately starts like saying we got to tear this out, we got to tear this out. There's a point where she's like you know, we can fix this. You know little gasoline blowtorch, no problem. Which I think is how I want to respond to any problems going in my life, moving forward. So the Maitlands lock themselves in the attic, which is where Adam's model of the town is, and they have been trying to read the handbook for the recently deceased but it reads like stereo instructions and have not been able to make heads or tails of it. But something that Adam Red said in case of an emergency, draw a door. And so he draws a door on the wall of the attic. They knock and they go into whatever the main bureaucracy is of the afterlife, where they are told they end up in a waiting room and everyone there has their copy of the handbook for the recently deceased and everyone has no patience with them for not understanding the rules of the afterlife. They say, okay, you're going to need to see your caseworker, juno. They are like kind of going through all these different weird places in the afterlife. And they finally go through a door and Adam says, wow, this place keeps getting weirder and weirder. And then they realize they're actually back at their home. They have been gone for three months because time works differently. So their caseworker, juno, meets them there. So Delia has completely remodeled the house. It's 80s-tastic.

Speaker 1:

And so Juno tells them look, you need to scare them, haunt them. They had tried before, but nobody sees them, except for Lydia, seems to. So they ask they had seen an advertisement for Beetlejuice spelled like the star, so Betelgeuse. They say well, what about him? He could help us. And Juno says no, no, no, he used to be my assistant. He's awful. Like, the way that you get him to come to you is call his name three times, but don't do it because he's more than you can handle. So she encourages them to go back to basics. So they, they steal some sheets and try to do this sheet ghost thing. Lydia takes pictures of them in the in the sheets. She thinks it's her parents, like doing something kinky yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then she sees that there are no feet. Yeah, I remember that's how she's convinced they're actually ghosts yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so they end up chatting with each other and they like they befriend lydia, who really needs a friend because her, her parents aren't awful. They just don't listen to her. So they decide, okay, you know, the sheets weren't working. They were like, okay, we'll try Beetlejuice. They call his name three times and they end up in the model, which is where Beetlejuice has been staying, and they meet him there. He immediately tries to kiss Barbara and like it's so gross. And then, like Barbara and Adam are like, okay, this is not okay. They like pull away and Beetlejuice has gotten a stick and is lifting up Barbara's skirt to look under it. It's so gross. Yucky makes it very clear like this is kind of like what we were talking about with baby herman in roger rabbit, where like it's supposed to be completely unacceptable but it's still played for laughs well, and also, like there are, there are ways to make his behavior completely unacceptable that don't involve sexual harassment yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Or assault, if he tried to kiss her, yeah so they're like, okay, we're not, we're not working with this guy, and they're like we can do this ourselves. Now there's a through line uh, throughout you see the maitlands like listening to or dancing to harry balthafonte music, and so so that night the Beats are having a dinner party and Delia has served like looks like shrimp cocktails. So everyone has like these five shrimp in a bowl in front of them, and so they decide to haunt them by having everyone except for Lydia, because they don't want to hurt her, they don't want her scared or anything like that. They have everyone dancing and lip syncing along to deo. It starts off with like they're talking about things and uh, deal is like I don't want to talk about that, like what do you want to talk about? And she's like out of nowhere. And so then they, they. It's a masterful scene. And it ends with the only truly scary part, which is they all of their.

Speaker 2:

The shrimp cocktails are hands, yeah, and grab their hands and pull them down their faces.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I remember that.

Speaker 1:

And so Barbara and Adam are delighted. They go up to the attic. They're like any minute now we're going to see them running out screaming Any minute now. And instead Lydia's knocking on the attic. They're like any minute now we're going to see them running out screaming Any minute now. And instead Lydia's knocking on the attic door saying they want to talk to you because Charles is like we can make money on this because real estate investor. So Beetlejuice ends up coming to help them again after the dinner party where he makes the banister of the stairs, becomes a giant snake with Beetlejuice's head and he picks up Charles and drops him two stories. He's unhurt and Lydia gets mad at Barbara and Adam and says like why are you doing this? Stop, stop. So Barbara and Adam are very worried about Lydia Lydia at this point we see her writing a suicide note because she's just so unhappy and she likes Barbara and Adam so much she wants to be with them.

Speaker 1:

Oh, barbara and Adam have gone back to the afterlife bureaucracy to talk to Juno. And so she goes up to the attic and Beetlejuice is their miniature form in the model and he says, like she says she's looking for them. He's like well, if you help me get out, I'll help you find them. She's like you're trying to get out, I'm trying to get in, like the afterlife, and he's like, why? Well, I'm sure you have your reasons, but I'll give you a hand. You know, all you have to do is help me. And he does this charades thing because he cannot say his name, to tell people to say his name three times and showing that she's very savvy, like she, she figures out the charades, but like his desperation makes her like no, not a good idea, not gonna happen so adam and barbara come back.

Speaker 1:

They had put on these like scary faces, um, where adam had like pulled his nose forward and barbara had like pushed her eyes back and opened her mouth really, really wide, and her eyes are in the mouth. And they come back and like freaked Lydia out. And then they fix their faces and they talk to Lydia and they convince her like no, no, no, no. This is like things are not better after you're dead. You have just as many or more problems. And like no, you don't want to do this. And Barbara at this point has said to Adam like I know we're supposed to like scare the deets away, but I want to stay in the house with Lydia. I really like her and they've made it clear earlier on, before they died, that they'd been trying to have a family and like had been not been having luck and so like it's clear that they they want to have like this kind of sense of family together.

Speaker 1:

In the meantime, charles has called his former associate or boss for another dinner party because he wants to show off the ghosts as like a money-making opportunity. And they tell lydia bring the ghosts down. And they, they refuse to come down. And Otho says who has found the handbook for the deceased says I can do it. He says we just need something personal of theirs and the house still had their wedding clothes. So he lays that out and does a ritual from the handbook for the deceased, not knowing exactly what it's going to be. But basically they like re-inhabit their wedding clothes and then they start aging and like falling apart and Lydia's like no stop, you're hurting them and Otho doesn't know how to.

Speaker 1:

So Lydia goes to Beetlejuice, who is still miniature and in the model, and says like I need you to help them. He's like I will if you marry me. Yeah, it's really not clear. Like there's. There's like there's a suggestion at some point that that was like what he would need to do to stay on this side. But there's a point where he's talking to the Maitlands where he says like I'm not down with these people, like the only one I can I really feel it gets me is Edgar Allan Poe's daughter, meaning Lydia. And that's when Barbara's like we are not letting him anywhere near that little girl.

Speaker 2:

So they don't explain why he would want to get married. Like how could you even marry? Like what, like what it's what. Okay, all right, carry on. So she's like, I believe, pressing the button. I believe, button yes.

Speaker 1:

So she, she says, says Beetlejuice, three times he comes up he basically kills the, the, the boss and his wife, like it's not clear, but he like he does, he puts them on, like those like strong machines and like it's weird. And they strong machines, yeah, those like where you have a sledgehammer and like how strong are you?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, really you thought I would get that from the strong machine, like that's just a common parlance for that you remember the scene? I don't. It was 1988. Oh my goodness, all right, so he puts him on one of those carnival test your strength with the hammer things.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and basically knocks them through the ceiling and we never see them again, no idea what happens to them. He then reverses the aging of Adam and Barbara.

Speaker 2:

How does he have these powers? Do we know? Never explained, okay.

Speaker 1:

And then he's like, all right, I did what I said I would, now let's get married. And he brings in this like tiny little scary man to do the ceremony. He's like, oh, but we need witnesses to do the ceremony. He's like, oh, but we need witnesses. And he has two of Delia's statues come to life and then grab Delia and Charles and force them to sit and be witnesses. And then he changes, like magically changes his clothes and Lydia's, so she's now wearing a red wedding dress and he's wearing this maroon velvet suit. The Dietz parents don't know that. They need to say his name three times to banish him again. So lydia tries to and he covers her mouth and I won't let her talk. Adam tries to and he makes him tiny and sends him into the model. And barbara manages to say beetlejuice once and he makes her mouth a zipper. So she unzips her mouth and says it a second time and then he puts like a. It's an iron bar.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like a metal, metal thing With rivets.

Speaker 1:

Yeah At that point. Oh, and Adam, on the model there's a little model car that he gets in and he drives off the model onto the floor and into beetlejuice's foot and so he's getting annoyed and so he sends barbara outside into, like the sand worm realm which they call saturn. He speaks for because he can throw his voice. He speaks for lydia, saying that I do, and all of that, and the movie ends with barbara in her wedding gown riding the sandworm into the house from the ceiling and eating the sandworm, eats beetle juice and then the sandworm, like she, jumps off the sandworm, it goes back to sat and the two living and two dead married couples just kind of look at each other.

Speaker 1:

And the movie ends with several months later, lydia looks much happier, she's at a school for girls, is coming home and brings photos and some supplies to Adam so that he can keep working on his model, because there are things he can't see. There's a new town hall and so she's taking pictures of it so he can recreate it in the model. She tells Adam and Barbara that she did well on her math test and she's like, can I? And so they end up having her dance and then levitate to, to, oh gosh, what it's called jump sonora. It's another harry belfonte song. While she's doing that, you see delia and charles in the office. Charles is reading a book called the hand handbook for the living and the dead. So, and it's about living together, working together, and delia has a new sculpture which is Beetlejuice's head from when he was a snake, and so they've learned how to coexist. And then we see Beetlejuice in the waiting room of the afterlife bureaucracy generally making a nuisance of himself, and that's the end of the film.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay. So where do you want to start with this?

Speaker 1:

Well, let's start with it because I mentioned about the grossness of Beetlejuice. I remember this bothering me as a kid. Now, do you recall that there was a Beetlejuice cartoon, vaguely, and it was centered on Beetjuice and lydia, which makes sense because those are the most like memorable characters. Um, in part because of just like how they were looks wise, like you remember the spiky bangs and and like the all black black and the veils and stuff like that that Lydia wore. And you know, beetlejuice is an iconic character in terms of how he looks.

Speaker 1:

And then there is a lot of sleazy charm that Michael Keaton brings to the character of Beetlejuice. Like you love to be disgusted by him, but even as a kid I remember being like they are not friends. Like why is this? Why? Why is this cartoon about Ew, ew, I don't want Lydia in this cartoon. Like a cartoon about Beetlejuice Fine, you know so. So the shenanigans he gets up to, but like I don't like the idea of him and Lydia being friends. So I do want to talk about how we portray people that we're supposed to love, to hate, because that's what he's supposed to be. So there's the way he treats Barbara. There's a point where Juno the caseworker creates something called the Inferno Room, which is, as she calls it, a whorehouse in the model, with women there to distract Beetlejuice so that she can talk to Adam and Barbara. So we're supposed to be like, yeah, he's gross. But this movie spawned a cartoon and a musical and a sequel, and some of it has to do with, as I said, michael Keaton is like sleazily charming.

Speaker 1:

And they apparently just let him go nuts with ad-libbing, which as an entertainer that sounds delightful and they kept a bunch of it in there. And one of the funniest moments and I don't know if this is ad-libbed or in the script but Adam asks Beet, beetlejuice, like what are your qualifications? And all of a sudden you can hear because, uh, michael keaton puts on this kind of like scratchy voice mostly, but he sounds like michael keaton. He's like well, I studied at juilliard before getting an mba at the college of wharton and like. And then slowly devolves into like I lived through the Black Plague and had a really good time and I've seen the Exorcist 167 times and so that immediate swift to I switched to I studied at Juilliard in that very like civilized voice.

Speaker 1:

Compared to what he was like, that's hilarious. But why are we okay with what like? I don't necessarily have a problem with making a character we love to hate, but why do we love him so much that we hold on to him? That he's who we dress up as and you know like. I'm asking this question and I know the answer it's because he's fun and because that is like. He gets to chew the scenery while Gina Davis, who plays Barbara, and Alec Baldwin, who plays Adam, have to play the straight man.

Speaker 2:

I wonder if the question is actually for movie makers, is for Tim Burton and Michael Keaton himself, if he was responsible for a lot of this, which is that if we're making a character that we know is going to be one that we love to hate, can we try to sort of make their Abhorrent behavior Not based in misogyny?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because we have to know that this character, who people love to hate, is going to be emulated and so, like, make him burp, make him fart, make him curse, make him, you know, like call, even call people stupid names, like you know, doo, doo, head or whatever, like there are things that when the kid emulates it, it's, you know, inappropriate, whatever, but not damaging, not poison to to I was going to say 50% of the population, but a hundred percent of the population Cause, when we dehumanize others, then we ourselves are dehumanized, right, and so I think that to me, that's really what the bigger question like you already know the answer of why we love the that's not the question. The question is like how can we keep loving to hate these chewing the scenery characters who have a certain charisma, without continuing to trade in misogyny, mm-hmm, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's making light of sexual assault. And now I mean, this is a nearly 40-year-old movie and in 1988, if you look, like Geena Davis being treated like that was the price of being female Living, yeah, and like at that time that was the way the world worked, like we were taught that, like this is just how it is. And here's the thing that I think is really interesting. So I love to be efficient. I write a regular column for Fast Company and I will occasionally write pop culture articles for them where it's like hidden money messages in Ghostbusters, hidden money messages in Christmas movies, that sort of thing. And so, because I know I was going be watching Beetlejuice and the movie the new movie was coming out, I pitched them like hidden money messages and Beetlejuice. So I just wrote that yesterday. We're recording this and I'll include a link in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that we talked about, that I talked about one of the hidden messages is that you don't, you can reject the rules that don't work for you. Meaning there's actually a point where Barbara says like I don't want to haunt them, I don't want to do this anymore, and Adam says well, honey, I think we have to. We've done, like it's too late, and she said well then can't we rebel or something? And that's like the kernel of how it comes to pass at the end that there is a handbook for the living and the deceased. Because she refuses to accept what we see as like this is just how it is what everyone tells them. This is just how it is. This is just how it is.

Speaker 1:

And so in the article, that I wrote I was talking about like, basically, what this means is the movie is teaching us to reject zero sum thinking that the only way for things to work is for them to get the deets out of the house. And Barbara, because she recognizes there's something that, like, she cares about that house, she cares about Adam, she cares about all of these things, but she cares about Lydia more. And once she realizes, like I don't want to do anything that's going to hurt this child and I want to spend time with her, I can figure out a way that's going to work for everyone. That allows your imagination to start thinking of other options and like, refusing to accept the like binary thinking or even just the construct that you're given. So you saying that, or talking about the fact that we were given this construct that unwanted male attention is the price of being female. We can reject that.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, and even like I think you're sort of saying, like in the context of, you know, the late eighties, like someone who looks like Gina Davis, that's, it was, it was normal, and I I don't dispute that the thing that specifically about this film and the way that you just have reminded me of the plot, that is bothersome to me that I really want to hold marrying Lydia, because while late 80s, someone who looks like Geena Davis okay, fine, she was 16. We don't know how old the character was, but Winona Ryder was 16. And that was not just accepted, that kind of sexual attention for a teenager.

Speaker 2:

I mean we've talked on deep thoughts before about how it was just sort of like. You know, I've got two teenagers at home. I don't even know what film that was that we talked about that that was just like like normal, like I think that was any hall hot talk. Oh, but the combination of the misogyny which was widespread and normalized with this predation of a child because a 16 year old is a child.

Speaker 1:

Well, and Gina Davis, barbara keeps referring to her as a little girl, which I I remembered that as a kid being like she's not a little girl Because I was, I was nine, right, and I was just like she's a big kid Watching it. Now, as a 45-year-old, I'm more understanding of where that's coming from. Like where that and some of it has to do with like she's very protective of Lydia, to do with like she's very protective of lydia. Like as soon as beetlejuice says like yeah, edgar allen poe's daughter there she's like we are keeping him away from her.

Speaker 2:

So I guess there's something then too, in the storytelling of it that what I'm saying. Actually, the movie acknowledges that this is a child. Yes, this is is unacceptable. Yes, and still, tim Burton, like there are ways that you could have sort of raised the stakes, even by putting Lydia in danger, potentially. Mm-hmm, it didn't involve sexual predation, yeah Right, I mean, he killed the boss with the strength machine.

Speaker 1:

That's what it's called from now on.

Speaker 2:

So like, which is not sexual at all, like there are ways that we could have activated Barbara's maternal instincts to protect this kid that did not involve sexually objectifying her, sexualizing her. It feels like a shortcut, and it feels so dangerous in this character that nobody can say for certain that something's going to take off. Obviously, yeah. And you're creating this antihero with this really charismatic, very talented actor to add sexual predation of a child into his story arc. Shame on you. Mm-hmm, shame on you story arc Shame on you, shame on you.

Speaker 1:

I'm just going to say this and leave it there, because I don't really think there's anything to add to this. But do you know that Jeffrey Jones, the actor who played Rooney and who plays Charles Dietz, is a child sexual predator?

Speaker 2:

I did not know that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So like I put that aside when watching this film Because it was not known At least not Like I don't even know if it was like a well-kept secret or anything like that. But the world that creates Beetlejuice marrying a 16 year old is the same world where Jeffrey Jones is able to do what he does or did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Before we move on to the next thing I want to talk about, I do just want to mention the movie passes the Bechdel test very well, very easily. So Barbara and her friend Jane, who's the real estate agent, talk about the house and other things. Barbara and Lydia talk about all kinds of stuff. Delia and Lydia talk to each other. The dinner guests talk to Delia. There's a number of fully formed as much as you can be fully formed in a weird movie like this.

Speaker 2:

female characters and just a quick reminder Bechdel test is that there are at least two female characters. They both have names and they talk to each other about something other than a man.

Speaker 1:

I also want to report that my nearly 11 year old child has started saying like, oh, and it's good because it passes the Bechdel test about things that he's watching, but he couldn't remember what it was called at first. He's like I think it passes the PG test and I'm like I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, you do mom, there's two girls and they both have names. I was like, oh honey, that's not what it's called.

Speaker 2:

PG test pg test.

Speaker 1:

So so, so like. Props to, to, to tim burton and the, the writers, the, the, the movie for that um, and props to all of the actresses who brought the characters to life, because they did a fantastic job. So so we've got that. I do want to talk about, though, even though there is not a single non-white character, I believe, Is Juno white? Yes, oh, okay, there are some of the dead folks.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And at the very end there is a kind of racist joke. There is one of the running gags about the bureaucratic office waiting room is there's a guy with a shrunken head Right who's dressed like a safari hunter, oh, uh-huh, and honestly they use some sort of Muppet head and I love that little guy's muppet head like, and like his, his expressions, like because this is back when everything was still analog yeah, yeah, it was a real world effect, um, and like they did a fabulous job with him. He's like I love that guy, but when beetlejuice is in the waiting room at the very end, the one of the other jokes is that like you take a number and they call your number and so they're, the numbers are like 17 million and so Beetlejuice is sitting between the guy with the shrunken head and a man dressed in a very stereotypically African.

Speaker 2:

Oh, he's meant to be the quote. Unquote savage who shrunk the guy's head.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And so Beetlejuice notices that the African man is holding a number four, whereas Beetlejuice's number is like 17 million whatever, and so he distracts him and switches their numbers, and so the African man sprinkles something on his head and shrinks Beetlejuice's head. So not great and par for the course for the time.

Speaker 2:

In 88, for sure yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I want to talk about race, actually about using harry belafonte's music, so the script. Originally they were going to use the song. If I didn't care by the ink spots, it's like a 50s song which you would recognize it if you heard it, but it's very mellow. And then the song at the end that Lydia dances to was going to be when a man Loves a Woman, and it was Catherine O'Hara who suggested how about Calypso music? Just because it would be fun, music, just because they it would be fun. And, um, jeffrey jones, he suggested several calypso songs, including deo, and they reached out to harry belafonte. They sent him the script. He's like this is weird, but okay, he was delighted to have them do it and getting the rights to the songs with belafonte's permission I mean like they would have had to get his permission anyway. But purchasing the rights was very inexpensive. It was like $300 per song.

Speaker 2:

As like a one-time royalty.

Speaker 1:

It's the permission, Not the one-time royalty, but the permission to use it. I think this is very hazy, my understanding of this. But to get permission to use a song you have to pay for it, in the same way that if a theater company wants to put on a play, they have to pay for permission for the play.

Speaker 2:

But then every time it's played. Isn't there then an additional royalty?

Speaker 1:

Yes, but I think that's back end, so like after yeah, yeah, so like harry balafonte definitely got money from the fact that that, from from the use of this, this, uh, 600 bucks, no, no, no. What I mean is like when the movie took off, some portion of that went to Harry Belafonte, yeah, okay, now here's the reason why I bring this up. I was very, very surprised to learn that Harry Belafonte was an activist. Yeah, I knew that, and the reason I was surprised to hear it is because all I knew of him was the Banana Boat song from Beetlejuice and he gave permission, so I don't want to like in any way take away from his agency and he actually embraced it as an opportunity for people to learn more about his advocacy and I think that is fantastic.

Speaker 1:

What I want to talk about is the meaning of his songs in a film that's basically about gentrification. But what if it happened to white people? So you know, the Deo is based on Jamaican songs that the men who were unloading banana boats would be singing.

Speaker 2:

It's a call, and response song to help make this grueling work go better.

Speaker 1:

And then you know, come, mr Tallyman, tally me a banana. Daylight come, and we want to go home.

Speaker 1:

It's like they'd be working overnight and then waiting for the boss to come up to count how many bananas they'd done so that they'd get their pay and go home. And so we have these extraordinarily wealthy New Yorkers, the Dietzes, and also the wealthy Maitlands. Like, we don't really know much about them. We know that Adam owns a hardware store, but they own this giant house in Connecticut which has never been a cheap place to live. And so the dichotomy of this song that was created as a call and response work song and sung by a man who was an advocate for civil rights and for the rights of people who are oppressed, it's, it's very interesting. Now, that was not intentional. I mean, like they had other songs in mind. They decided to do this in part because it was going to be so bizarre, like that was the point. It was going to be bizarre and, honestly, the fact that the Maitlands we hear them listening to Harry Belafonte throughout, so they're clearly fans of his music and so that kind of creates a through line that does suggest that there's, like you know, the politics of the Maitlands, and so it can kind of give some shape to that instead of it just being bizarre.

Speaker 1:

Like this is not exactly cultural appropriation by having white ladies sing Black man's music or sing along to it, but this article compared it to Madonna and voguing. Voguing was a specific dance move that was created by queer communities of color in the 80s and Madonna made it huge when she made her song Vogue. And the article was talking about how you could talk to two of her backup dancers and one of them saying this is the greatest thing that she could have ever possibly done for the queer community. And this was a backup dancer who danced for her and another one who danced for her. Saying like this was appropriation.

Speaker 1:

She didn't have the right. So like it's never entirely clear With these sorts of things. Like, just as Harry Belafonte Embraced this and said this is an opportunity For people to hear my music and learn more about me, and they did, at the same time, the visual of like white women dancing to these songs, like privileged white women, because it's the, it's the privileged Dietz family not that the Maitlands aren't also privileged, but the privileged Dietz family who are who are singing these is it's singing these is it's.

Speaker 1:

There's tension there, um, and it's worth noting. It's worth noting that tension. It's worth thinking about. How do we navigate these sorts of questions, especially when this film is so lily, white, um, and, as I said, so many pieces of media that are about something bad happening is like, imagine this bad thing that already happens, but it was white people it happened to. I mean, that's, that's what Handmaid's Tale is, and you know the Maitland's response to the Dietz's renovating their home is like, oh, what if gentrification happened to nice white people?

Speaker 2:

I don't have a whole lot to add. I hear the tension that you're pointing to and I think it is. I'm glad that you've pointed out it's definitely worth noting. It's also important to note that Belafonte signed off on it.

Speaker 1:

And I do not in any way want to take away from his agency and in a lot of ways I think he was right Like I would not have known who he was without that scene in Beetlejuice, and so when I found out that he was an activist, that sent me to learning so much more, that would not have been possible yeah, not just his agency, but also his activism and the man was very active.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think he was an activist first and an artist.

Speaker 1:

second yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

He also had Jewish roots, by the way. I'm not sure if you knew that I was reading about him.

Speaker 1:

Like, actually he felt a little bit like an imposter in singing Deo because he felt like he wasn't Jamaican enough. Yeah, deo. Because he felt like he wasn't jamaican enough, yeah, um, in part because of his jewish roots and and like he was very much american and that he came from everywhere, right, right yeah, no, but he was on.

Speaker 2:

The like. If you watch some movies about the civil rights movement, like if you watch ava davernay's selma, like there's a moment where martin luther king says to one of his advisors can we get harry here?

Speaker 1:

that's who they're talking about yeah, yeah, and you know that's. I think that's part of what makes his legacy well. I feel like he was embodying what I was talking about with, like the the movie teaches us, which is reject, zero sum thinking. Because, like, if he looked at it as zero sum thinking, like, oh, you want, like this pretty white lady, to be singing my song, like, no, that's not what I do he was able to be like, no, this can be mutually beneficial. Like it might cause some tension in terms of what this you know what the message of the movie is and what the message of my music is, but it might send people my way, which is always good, and particularly people who are watching this movie, who are not necessarily the people who would look me up on their own Right right.

Speaker 1:

He passed away past five years or so, I think, at age like 93. Past five years or so, I think, at age like 93,. He lived a long and glorious life and may his memory be a blessing, and I have no doubt it will be. So I don't want to in any way take away from how forward thinking he was in so many ways, including in like saying like this movie is weird, sure, have my music Right, but it does bring up some tension. That I think is worth noting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any other insights that you wanted to make sure that you share before we wrap up.

Speaker 1:

Just want to say like this movie does hold up in a lot of ways. It is still a lot of fun, it is still very tightly written, it is still just visually gorgeous and very, very funny. Like there's a point where Catherine O'Hara like she gets so many good lines, um, she's like they're dead. It's a little late to be neurotic. I mean just a number of just funny lines that are lovely, and so I think that that is really worth revisiting and I think it's still very enjoyable. It's just a matter of recognizing the discomfort of the things that don't hit right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So let me see if I can reflect back to you some of the things that I heard. So this film passes Bechdel easily. There's way more than two named characters and many conversations between named women who are not about men. So that's awesome and the the sort of thesis, if you will, if we underline the thesis at least, uh, as your, your reading of it is that we get to reject the rules that don't work for us, particularly when those rules trade in zero-sum thinking and that ultimately, like win-win-win and mutually beneficial and it's not pie kind of abundance thinking, is not just okay but rewarded, it's good, it's an outcome that we, we should be looking for. So that's, that's the thesis and that's I would put in the positive category as we analyze this movie in the negative category. But the sleaze trades not just in misogyny, which we don't forgive, but we contextualize, knowing in 1988, it was just the culture, right, the way that you put it was that when you look like Geena Davis, then male attention is the cost of living, and so that's there. One might expect, even if one doesn't accept it, one can expect.

Speaker 2:

It is also this sexual attention directed at Winona Ryder's character, lydia, who is around 16. And that piece feels unnecessary. Not that she is some sort of danger. Some sort of threat to her was necessary for the storytelling because we needed barbara's maternal instinct to be activated. We needed this there to be stakes. There had to be stakes beyond just the house and so storytelling some sort of threat to Lydia actually was necessary. It did not need to be sexual predation of this disgusting, much older man and that's the thing that I think we can hold Tim Burton to account for and especially underscored by the, by the presence of uh what's his name?

Speaker 1:

Jeffrey Jones.

Speaker 2:

Jeffrey Jones, the actor who played the dad in this movie, who, the actor himself, is guilty of child sexual assault. I understand, uh, from from you. So the fact that we have this actor who's guilty of this in this film that used child sexual, the sexual attention um directed at a child, as the threat, like it's the resonance is right there, the consequences are right there, baked into the movie based on the cast, so that's worth noting. I think there are some interesting meta questions that come up with this film that also were in our conversation about Nightmare on Elm Street, about and you named this from the very beginning that we maybe held onto. The wrong thing is the way that you put it, but I think the way that I would frame it as the piece of like, as this project is like for us as a culture to start asking ourselves how can we more responsibly create antiheroes, because they're gonna keep being created, like we're gonna still enjoy, like loving to hate the baddie. So if we're gonna do that, like let's be more strategic, like let's not trade in the kinds of ideology and and rhetoric that continues to victimize the most vulnerable. So that's sort of like the meta-societal question that I think is coming up.

Speaker 2:

Another meta-societal question that you pointed to right at the end was thinking about cultural appropriation and, uh, particularly in the use of harry belfonte's music through the I mean katherine o'hara's uh, delia singing this song that was written as a work song, for you know the grueling labor of um Jamaican banana, um growers and harvesters, who you know, so that I can have my breakfast like they're breaking their backs and and or, and now we've got this image of Delia um singing this. That entertained you know, you and me, as a nine and a 12 year old respectively, and there's tension in that, and it's worth noting the tension there in the ways that the different pieces of culture from different cultures, like then, blended here for the entertainment of the relatively affluent, through the characters of very affluent and explicitly white, notably Harry Belafonte gave his permission. He was like, yeah, I mean weird, but I right, and so I think that's worth noting. And it's worth noting that his strategy worked to a certain extent, because here we are talking about his amazing activism and advocacy in 2024 as two white suburban moms because of his music in this movie. So he was right, it worked, um, we, the place that we landed, that you landed, is that in many ways, this film really holds up.

Speaker 2:

There's things that remain super funny. The writing is still good, the visuals are amazing, which is not surprising, since it's a Tim Burton property. That's always a priority for him, so I'm interested and excited to see what this, 36 years later, sequel, how this turns out.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I forgot, in thinking about the guy that we love to hate the cartoon, that you remember, that I have very vague memories of, but the fact that we sort of took this relationship of this baddie we love to hate, who was not lydia's friend, he was her harasser, uh abuser, like would be, like he want to be sexual assault violator, and then we turned it into a kid's show. Come on, america, let's do better. Yeah, yeah, what else did I forget? Did I forget anything else?

Speaker 1:

Um, just the, the the fact that, like if you take a bird's eye view this, this film is about gentrifying Right, but like, what if it happened to white folks? Right?

Speaker 2:

Dead white folks yeah, dead white folks. Right, so we get. So this is an opportunity for us to get all upset that this gentrification is happening to dead white folks yeah, when it's happening right now in cities across America to living black and brown folks.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah. There is an excellent novel called when no One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole about. It's a horror novel about gentrification. I love horror and this was actually a little too scary for me. I will say it's because when something actually could happen it makes me more frightened. When it's been like a Freddy Krueger type thing where it's like clearly this is made up so like, I can feel deliciously scared, Whereas when Noah is watching like was so plausible that I was just like I can't handle this.

Speaker 2:

You know, you recommended that to me like a year and a half ago and I started reading it and I noped out. It was too scary for me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, reading it and I I noped out, it was too scary for me, yeah, so, um, I just want to hold that up as a an excellent example of like the true horror of gentrification. It, the book, got me thinking about things that just hadn't occurred to me to worry about. Cool.

Speaker 2:

So next week it's my turn again and I'm going back to a kid's movie that I wasn't quite a kid for the little mermaid. So this is one that, like, I loved so much I was a teenager when it came out and I loved it so, so, so, so much. And then, like 20 years later, somebody was like she gave up her voice for a man and I was like, oh no, and I like avoided it for a long time and I wouldn't let my daughter watch it. So I'm, I'm I'm looking forward to kind of going back and looking at what is and isn't there and also at the ways in which the trans community has used this film to sort as as an allegory, to kind of that I'm hoping will redeem it for me to some extent. So, but we'll find out next time. And then, interesting, we're going to stay under the sea after little mermaid and go to jaws I know yeah, did we do that?

Speaker 2:

on purpose I was looking at the schedule this morning and I was like, oh, we're going from ariel to jaw, okay, all right bye girls, it's our, it's our aquatic season I guess so I guess like the blue period for mango under the sea?

Speaker 2:

man under the sea? All right, well, I look forward to that. I'll see you next time. I'm see you next time. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guy girls mediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy, but don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?