Lake - Is what you see, what you get?

In Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton sets up the film where a grandmother is telling her granddaughter a bedtime story.  This allows the story of Edward to be told in a fairy tale type fashion because that is exactly what it is to Kim, a fairy tale, even though the story might be slightly twisted to the listener.  The fact that she has such strong ties to both the story and Edward in her old age shows how much she loved and loves Edward.  The film begins and ends with this "after the fact" view and helps set up and further explain the plot.

Although Edward is different in terms of appearance and social skills, he is arguably the purest and kindest character in the movie.  This seems to be a common theme for Burton because in both of the Batman films, Beetlejuice, and now Edward Scissorhands, the character that Burton wants the viewer to view as "good" comes from a dark place or embraces the "dark" lifestyle.  Similarly, the brighter and more robust characters are naturally evil.  This further proves Burton's cynical view of the world.  Batman comes from a very dark and sad childhood, but utilizes the cards he was dealt to make something of himself and become a force for good in a community that desperately needed it, similar to Tim Burton.  On the contrary, Batman's opposition is a bright, in your face character who attempts to manipulate his way to glory.  He has a very bright white face and is dressed in very bright, festive attire.  In Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder's character starts the movie as a very dark, misunderstood girl who feels disconnected from her family.  It isn't until the end where she finds a family that she truly loves and is loved by, that she loses her dark and mysterious appearance and starts to look like a "normal girl."  Whatever that is.  Edward is dark and different but he is a pure, lost soul attempting to find a normal life and a family that was taken from him.  In the suburban town the story takes place in, the houses are all colorful pastels, but the people who fill them are selfish gossiping housewives and the poor saps that married them.  Burton is trying to convey the message that books should be based on the content of the story, not the cover.  Burton himself feels out of place and misunderstood and it is blatantly obvious in most of his films.

Garcia-Ruiz, Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands is much like a traditional fairytale except it is not entirely like the Disney fairytales most of us know of. Tim Burton closely relates and grasps ideas from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Frankenstein is a European tale that tells the story of an inventor and his creation, the monster. Just like Edward Scissorhands, Edward is seen like the monster at some point in the film and is isolated once again by the people he was beginning to get comfortable with. Burton took the idea of a European novel and created this suburban American setting for the film. The town is set around the 50s where men worked and women stayed home as housewives. This could relate to fairytales in the way that men are seen strong and warrior like and the women are the princesses. The castle that Edward lives in is very specific like a haunted house in a fairytale. There’s a scene where Peg goes into the house looking for someone to sell her Avon products and she becomes a bit terrified by the emptiness and machinery inside the house. It makes the house seem almost haunted until later in the film Peg finds Edward in the house. 

The people in the film are very stereotypical; Burton mixes generations between Edward, the adults, and the teens. When Edward first comes into the town he becomes an object of sympathy just like the monster in Frankenstein. The town is more than what it seems; there are pastel colored exterior and interior homes and the people around seem to be friendly, united, and perfect. Burton digs deep in this town and throughout the film the audience realizes that there are many flaws to the people living in the town. They’re immoral and ignorant towards the different and artistically creative. There are a few scenes in the film where the audience see snow fall. In the end of the film the grandmother is finishing telling the story and she talks about the snow with a magical explanation. In most fairytales there’s always a magical explanation as to how or why the environment looks the way it does. The film does keep Burtonesque tradition with the gothic castle and the way that Edward is dressed in the beginning and end of the film.