Hasty- Beetlejuice

               As a consumer country, America survives off technology for the majority of it's knowledge. There are so many different types of technology within easy reach. Everywhere you look both children and adults have a laptop, iPad, and/or iPhone in their hands. In under a minute we can find out almost any piece of information at anytime we desire. All someone needs is to go to Google and ask a question. One can find out things from how to solve a complex math problem, how to do your own laundry, or how to bake a batch of rainbow cupcakes. The general problem with this extremely accessible way of finding information is that once Americans are faced with something unknown, something that cannot even be found on the all-knowing Google, it's scary. Due to this familiar feeling for Americans to be able to grasp knowledge so quickly, death has become an anathema. Death has become something Americans naturally avoid and block out of their minds.
           Even Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice, which ironically has a majority of dead characters, avoids the reality of death. The dead characters in this film come too close to life for Burton's viewers to truly see them as dead. Life seems to be found more through death than actual life itself. For instance, in life the Maitland's were a dull couple in love who could not have a child. They lived in a sleepy town in Connecticut and, quite frankly, they were not anything beyond ordinary or special. But in death the Maitland's became more lively, they developed a larger personality, and in a way they took in Lydia as their own child. Beetlejuice gives the impression that through death, one can find the things that they would typically find in their lifetime.
            Another way in which this film makes death rather life-like is through Lydia. Before having the Maitland's in her life, she was a depressed and dark teenager with a hairstyle that defies the laws of gravity. When speaking about her life Lydia stated, "My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room." By being strange and unusual, Lydia has the ability to see the Maitland's even though they are dead. Over the course of the film she develops a close relationship with this couple and progressively becomes brighter in personality. Rather than staying lonely and suicidal as she was in the beginning of the film, she finds a happiness through this relationship with a dead couple. Death allowed Lydia to have a life- leaving Burton's viewers with a less than realistic view of death.