Johnston - Beetlejuice

Americans love control. One of the reasons we as a culture fear death because it is something that we cannot control. Americans tend to forget, whether purposefully or not, that death is inevitable. In the film, Beetlejuice, Burton turns the thought of death from something that people dread to something that they laugh at. For instance, in the scene with the waiting room. The waiting room in Beetlejuice is eerily similar to the ones that we wait countless hours in every year, but instead of being filled with sick people, this waiting room is filled with people who are dead. From a shark attack victim, to a magician's assistant who's trick obviously went wrong, to a man who seems to have choked on a bone. Burton does not accept the reality of death, instead he turns it into something that people can relate to.

Another way Burton rejects the idea of death is with the Maitlands. Typically in movies, death is seen as the end, but for the Maitlands, it is just the beginning. Throughout the film they continue to interact with Lydia as if they were alive. In the end of the story, Lydia comes home after school and Adam and Barbara ask her questions about her day and about her grades like any parent would. From this scene you get the feeling that the Maitlands are living somewhat of a "normal" life even though a girl discussing her daily events with dead people is anything but normal.

Death is seen as an anathema by our culture because we do not want to believe that everything that we do in life is for nothing. Take for instance someone who is a surgeon. Their parents spent thousands of dollars every year for them to attend college and eventually medical school. They will spend anywhere between 8 to 15 years in school in order to work in this profession. Then once they have a job as a surgeon they will spend 50-60 hours working in a hospital leaving minimal time for family. If they choose to have kids, they will spend thousands of dollars on their children's education just like their own parents did. The reason the American culture vehemently dislikes the thought of death is because we don't want to believe that we spend the majority of our lives either going to school or working just to have none of it matter once we die.