In celebration of Tim Burton’s return to making (mostly competent) movies, I recently checked out 1988’s Beetlejuice. Burton has long been one of my all-time favorite filmmakers around, and revisiting his second feature film turned out to be a huge blast. Not only was it every bit as fun and unique as it’s ever been (not to mention impeccably casted thanks to appearances from Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Gena Davis, and Alec Baldwin), but it also turned out to be a much more thoughtful film than I expected too! To the point where it got me thinking about gentrification of all things! So today, I’ll be exploring that. We’ll talk gentrification, Disneyfication, and all the ways that Tim Burton’s fun little Halloween flick evokes those subjects through its writing, storytelling, and visuals! Oh, and there are citations too! There isn’t any Jenna Ortega or Monica Bellucci, though. That’s for the follow up to this, I guess.
#timburton #beetlejuice #videoessay
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - The Beetlegist of Beetlejuice04:56 - A Primer on Gentrification
09:07 - The Deetz vs Maitland’s kerfuffle of ’88 (Story and themes)
19:10 - How Beetlejuice Visually Communicates Gentrification
23:16 - Come Together (feat. Lydia)
27:57 - Conclusion
29:42 - Sign Off/Citations
Special Thanks/Patrons:
Piotr Nowacki
Skelly
Vance
Research/Citations/Further reading:
• Does gentrification reduce crime? - Christopher Palmer, Praq Pathak, David Autor (cepr.org)
• Does Gentrification Lower Crime: A Look at Granger-Casuality in Washington D.C. - Will Lawrence (The Park Place Economist, Volume 21)
• Gun violence spills into new neighborhoods as gentrification displaces drug crime, according to WVU study - Micaela Morrissette (WVU Today)
• Gun violence rate higher in gentrified neighborhoods, study finds - Cecilia Nowell (The Guardian)
• Disney's Economic Impact in Florida (Disney Connect)
• This Is What Happens After a Neighborhood Gets Gentrified - Richard Florida (The Atlantic)
• Beetlejuice: A Metaphor for Gentrification (duronchavis.com)
• Bio-Exorcism and Class War (gittlitz.substack.com)
• I Watched ‘Beetlejuice’ for the First Time. I Have Questions—14 of Them. - Miles Surrey (The Ringer)
• We Need to Change How We Think About Gentrification - Lindsay M. Miller (National Civic League)
• Stanford professor’s study finds gentrification disproportionately affects minorities - Sandra Feder (Standford Report)
• Exclusive: New Report Shows Gentrifiers Use Police to Terrorize Communities of Color—Without Even Calling 911 - Anne Branigan (The Root)
• They Played Dominoes Outside Their Apartment For Decades. Then The White People Moved In And Police Started Showing Up. - Lam Thuy Vo (Buzzfeed News)
• Burton on Burton (Tim Burton)
• Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not - Steven D. Levitt (Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 18, Number 1—Winter 2004)
• The Poverty on Disney’s Doorstep - Kalena Thomhave (The American Project)
• Homeless at the Gates of Disney World - Max Holleran (New Republic)
• Gun violence spills into new neighborhoods as gentrification displaces drug crime, according to WVU study - Zachary Porreca (WVUToday)
• The Bifurcated City - Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox (City Journal)
• 5 Ways the Coronavirus Has Changed Suburban Real Estate - Lisa Prevost (The New York Times)
• Disneyfication - Merriam Webster’s Dictionary
Socials:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/niche_caesar
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/nichecaesar
Media Obscura and Glaring Admissions (Podcast): https://pod.link/themediaobscura
Guppy Falls (eBook): https://a.co/d/isBwHfu