Beetlejuice (1988) (with Jingan Young)

Episode 51 travels back to the late-1980s to look closely at Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988), a film that uses stop-motion, practical effects, prosthetics, make-up and bluescreen to complete its fantasy story of netherworlds, outsiderdom and life after death. Joining Chris and Alex is special guest Jingan Young, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and academic who is the editor of ‘Foreign Goods’ (the first collection of British Chinese plays published in the UK) and a regular contributor to The Guardian and Hong Kong Free Press, who has recently completed a PhD in Film Studies at King’s College London. Listen as they discuss the tonally abrasive qualities of Tim Burton’s film and its shifts into haunted house horror; narratives of conquest, and how this connects to Beetlejuice’s take on white privilege and U.S. national identity; Michael Keaton’s performance and the figure of the trickster; the racialised use of music and questions of neo-minstrelsy; and how the film’s satirical-political edge gives the animated fantasy a bit of extra bite.