America recently celebrated its 237 birthday on July 4 2013, making it one of the youngest countries in the world. Seeing that it is a relatively new country, it is no surprise that America has not yet incorporated the reality of death into its culture. While many older countries such as Mexico celebrate death and see it as an exciting journey into a new life, Americans view death as the end and therefore as something to be feared. Perhaps another reason Americans have such a pessimistic view on death is because it is used as a form of punishment in our society. As Ms. McCay mentioned, we as Americans seem to think that there should be a relationship between the way a person lives and the way a person dies. This explains why criminals who commit nasty crimes like murder are put on death row where they are subject to die from painful techniques such as electrocution and lethal injections.
I believe the reason why death anathema exists in American culture is because we fear what we do not know and instead of trying to understand it, we simply act as if it does not exist. In Tim Burton's film, Beetlejuice, Burton reflects America's view of death, by seeming to deny its existence. He does this by making it seem as if the dead live among us everyday, but instead of acknowledging and accepting the dead and integrating them into our culture, we choose to ignore the signs that they send us. In the scene where Lydia meets the Maitlands, she is able to see, hear, and interact with them as if they were live people. The Maitlands are confused by the fact that she is able to do this, but Lydia explains to them that anyone would be able to see the dead if they were willing to acknowledge and embrace the strange and unusual. In another scene, we learn from Lydia's father and stepmother that many people have a tendency to only see what they want to see and hear only what they want to hear. When Lydia takes a picture of Adam and Barbara floating around in their sheets and presents it to her parents, they brush it off and make comments about her unruly disposition and imagination. It is only when they believe that they have an opportunity to make money by turning their house into a haunted amusement park, that they start to believe Lydia. Burton also uses several other characters to make it seem as if life and death are not so different. Many of the characters in the world of the dead (including Beetlejuice) have lively personalities - they crack jokes and make it seems as if being dead is just as fun as being alive!
Your perspective of how since america is a relatively new country and doesn't incorporate death, is fascinating! I never thought about it that way or even realized how young America is in comparison to other countries. Another point i never thought of is the use of death as punishment in our society, i totally agree, it also plays into the fact that we as a country see death as a negative.
ReplyDeleteone point i completely agree with is that we fear death since we don't know what it brings. As living people we can't possibly know what lies ahead in the afterlife and Burton definitely plays on that in Beetlejuice with the Maitlands. He tried to create a way to bridge our society together with that which we don't understand, the afterlife. Really cool way of thinking of death anathema in America.