Prevost-BettleJuice

 

 

John Morgan a Canadian Philospher once said, "Our North American death system, … is the result of our limited exposure, which is a result of our high life expectancy, … but in many ways, our life is no different from that of the peasant in the 14th century. The peasant missed a fully human life because he or she was inundated with death. We do not live fully because we reject death." We view death as an event that only comes along with old age, factors that play into this logic are modern medicine, life expectancy, and industrialization. Another key role in why we believe death is such a one in a million chance statistic are because of movies, the "it won't happen to me" state of mind, and media. Firstly, movies act in as if death is brutal, but fast, revocable, easily resolved and I'm sure that there is a very slim to no chance that you will be kidnapped and put inside a life-size jigsaw puzzle. Movies alter or perspective of death, it may make us teary for 60-90 seconds, but ultimately no one ever says their favorite part of a movie was when that girl died.

 

Our country is more so worried with what is going in the living's lives and keeps society more so caught up on what is happening at every second of every day, that we are to pre-occupied to even bother with death. We are more aware of what celebrities wear to award shows, than the leading cause of death in our country. Death is merely a joke in America becuase it is taken so lightly, and we are only expected to grieve during the scheduled services, and only expected to cry or mourn behind close doors.

 

In Bettlejuice, the entire movie is based off death, but not in a grieving type situation. It is normally being pegged as a comical gesture in which actual dead people are still going about their normal pre-death lives. For example, the very beginnning of the movie when the Maitland's return home exactly after we watched them plummet off of a bridge in their car. They casually walk into their home nearly seconds after as if it were a daily ritual. Another example where death is casually glanced over in the movie is, where the Maitland's are trying to scare the Deetzes walking around in sheets and screeching like ghosts, Lydia justs laughs it offs and trys to pull the sheets away to see if they were hideous, but is disappointed with the fact they look normal. This just shows how death is not taken seriously unless it is actually gruesome and horrific.