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This Wreckage

Proletkult 9 - The People's Beetlejuice w/ the Lit Crit Guy (PREVIEW)

This Wreckage

Sean KB and AP Andy

Arts, Music

4.2980 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2020

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Happy Mischief Night! Andy is joined by Jon the Lit Crit Guy to discuss Tim Burton's 1988 horror comedy BEETLEJUICE, well known for its titular imp and goth heroine, but far less for its themes of afterlife bureaucracy, rapacious capitalism, rural gentrification, and class conflict.

For the full episode and all other bonus material, support the show at https://www.patreon.com/theantifada

And to support Jon and his podcast, Horror Vanguard:

https://www.patreon.com/TheLitCritGuy

https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard

Read an accompanying essay about Beetlejuice, Rural Gentrification, and insurrection at: https://gittlitz.substack.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Beatle juice. It's Showtime.

0:05.0

So this is a guy who's literally a pedophile and Lydia becomes the, you know, everyone unites to save Lydia.

0:14.6

But he is, he has to be summoned again and again.

0:17.2

You have to say his name three times, but I think he's also invoked in other ways.

0:21.1

I think he is sort of the kind of spiritual personification of Delia's

0:27.1

transgressive arts and he is also this kind of mirror image of the finance capital that Charles invites into Winter River.

0:37.0

And so the haunting takes on a dual purpose. It's not only to save the

0:40.2

Maitland home from this tacky decor, but also to save the entire town. the possessing the family into singing Dio, this Harry Belafonte version of a song that was a standard of

0:58.5

Jamaican port workers packing bananas all night onto ships.

1:03.0

And the song is an appeal to their overseers.

1:07.0

Please, we're tired of working all night.

1:09.0

The sun is up.

1:10.0

Let us please go home.

1:12.0

Work all night on a drink a rum.

1:16.0

We like come when we want go.

1:20.0

Stap banana,

1:22.0

Billy morning come. So it's this very strong

1:33.0

proletarian message that kind of cast everything in the film into melodrama

1:38.0

and so the fact that this family and their finance

1:42.0

friends have been possessed isn't scary to them. They think it's fun and they

1:47.4

think well wow we can actually turn this house and this town into like a paranormal

1:52.3

amusement park. they want to

...

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