“Not Vincent Price”: Horrific Masculine Crisis in the Films of Tim Burton
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
San Francisco State University
In partial fulfillment of
The Requirements for
The degree
Master of Arts
In
Cinema Studies
by
Derek Andrew Domike
San Francisco, California
May, 2009
Copyright by
Derek Andrew Domike
2009
CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read Not Vincent Price: Horrific Masculine Crisis in the Films of Tim Burton by Derek Andrew Domike, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requests for the degree: Master of Arts in Cinema Studies at San Francisco State University.
______
Aaron Kerner
Professor of Cinema
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Jenny Lau
Professor of Cinema
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Jennifer Hammett
Professor of Cinema
NOT VINCENT PRICE: HORIFFIC MASCULINE CRISIS IN THE FIMS OF TIM BURTON
Derek Andrew Domike
San Francisco, California
2009
[FIND ABSTRACT]
I certify that the abstract is a correct representation of the contents of this thesis
______
Chair, Thesis CommitteeDate
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my family and friends, especially Michelle Sanchez, for their love and support, and for the guidance and assistance of my colleagues and committee. Without them, none of this would be possible.
I would also like to thank Tim Burton for such rich texts to explore, and for those theorists who came before me who inspire me daily.
This thesis was written first as an examination of a particularly idiosyncratic director whose films have received little critical discourse, as well as in examination of the masochistic aesthetic and looking for other varieties of visual pleasure.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………1
“Pleasure in the Displeasurable: The Masochistic Aesthetic and Tim Burton”………………3
“The Years, No Doubt, Have Changed Me…”………………………………………………..9
“I, Too, Am Strange and Unusual”…………………………………………………………..16
“We Don’t Have A Permit. Run!” (The Masochistic-Abject Space)……………………….22
Concluding Statements……………………………………………………………………....29
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………....31
1
“His mother said, ‘You’re not possessed, and you’re not almost dead.’
These games that you play are all in your head.
You’re not Vincent Price, you’re Vincent Malloy
You’re not tormented or insane, you’re just a young boy.”
- Vincent (Burton, 1982)
Tim Burton’s filmography is, first and foremost, highly idiosyncratic but has, thusfar, received little in the way of theoretical attention. Beginning as an animation student at Cal Arts, his stop-motion animation work eventually led to feature films (his first feature length film being 1984’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure) and continuing on to the present, his most recent film being 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
From his earliest directorial work to Todd, Burton’s work, despite covering disparate material, produces a powerful discourse on the nature and development of masculinity. This focuses, particularly, on the transition from childhood to adulthood, and on emotionally stunted man-children who have in one way or another rejected traditional cultural mores, to their social or narrative detriment. Abjection, the grotesque, and a masochistic aesthetic all inform Burton’s filmic discourse and appropriately distort and reject his protagonists. These influences may stem from Burton’s influence from the horror genre (in particular the monster movie subgenre),) and contribute to creating a discourse on the discourse textual architecture that informs the paradigm of masculinity, in particular the conflict between growing up versus attempting to stay a child. This is a masculinitye that is, at its essence, simultaneously enforced in dominant norms but highly questioning of it and is inevitably recompensed into the heteronormative family structure.
For the purposes of my studies, I will be focusing on three of Burton’s films, from different points in his career: Beetlejuice (1988),)Ed Wood (1994,), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007.). This trend is not as evidentweaker but nevertheless still present in some of Burton’s more franchise-based or science fiction fare (Planet of the Apes [2001,],Mars Attack [1996], and both Batman and Batman Returns [1988 and 1992, respectively,], in particular both contain some elements of what I discuss.). But in these films, from disparate points in Burton’s directing career, contain the most poignant examples of the general trends of this masculine crisis.
And it is indeed a crisis, for this masculinity is one drawn through the curious masochistic pleasures drawn in abjection. Masochism is first and foremost, in all its permutations, a pleasure derived in punishment of transgression of the (paternal) Law, a kind of transgression that the abject itself is similarly concerned with. It stands to reason that some instances exist where masochistic pleasures are also themselves abject.
In examining the narrative relationship between abjection and masochism within these particular examples, I hope to show examples of a larger trend, a larger resistance against seemingly inescapable forces (adulthood and adulthood’s inevitable result, death.)
Pleasure in the Displeasurable: The Masochistic Aesthetic and Tim Burton
WBut first, what is Tim Burton’s aesthetic and is it masochistic?
The discussion of this particular kind of masochistic aesthetic has its roots in Gilles DeleLuze, working against Freud’s “A Child is Being Beaten Essay,” in contrast to Masoch’s “Venus in Furs.” Carol Clover, in her “Eye of Horror” chapter inofMen Women and Chainsaws goes into details about applying this [what is “this” – a masochistic aesthetic?] aesthetic to horror, the slasher subgenre in particular, and Gaylyn Studlar’s In The Realm of Pleasure makes similar arguments looking in particular at the films of Marlenea Dietrich-leading films of Josef Von Sternberg.
The relationship between the abject and this particular masochistic mode, which proposes a desire to reintegrate with this pre-Oedipal oral mother, might seem somewhat contradictory. Abjection is a phenomenon primarily concerned with anxiety about the solidarity of the self, and dissolution thereof might seem at odds with the desire for reintegration that this masochism proposes. But, although not entirely logical, these seemingly conflicting desires (solidarity versus incorporation) can exist side-by-side, even as the masochistic subject might desire incorporation;, there is a reluctance, to some extent, a resistance, which lies in this abject compulsiondesire to separate.
It is worth repeating and reinforcing the idea that Tim Burton’s filmography is not as much horror as influenced by horror. They are arguably better described as “horror masquerading as…” another genre:(comedy, biopic, and musical for Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, and Sweeney Todd respectively. The one Burton film that seems to have nodoes not fit neatly into any one genre hybridity is his 1997 Sleepy Hollow.)
Barring the simple syllogism –(assuming Tim Burton has a horror-influenced aesthetic, and accepting Clover’s argument that horror i’s influenced byrooted in masochism, and thus drawing the concludingsion that Tim Burton has aemploys a masochisticm-influenced aesthetic,) which holds true on a basic logistical level, – one can also see the importance of suffering in Burton’s work. Suffering is important both in the physical acts of pain perpetrated, but also in the social suffering of the outcast protagonists. Although at times highly pleasurable for purely aesthetic reasons, there is a certain schadenfreude that permeates Burton’s work, as we watch people suffer (many of whom we want to see suffer).) Although that desire may initially seem sadistic (and in fact might be a more traditional view of spectatorship in Burton’s films),) this is not a purely sadistic gaze of scopophilic pleasure in the suffering of others. It is not assumed here that Burton’s films are not totally without sadism, but that it is not the principal device at work. Pleasure comes here from the suffering of those characters who we identify with, and from their eventual punishment. Tim Burton’s protagonists typically do not win in the traditional sense of the term, and none of these characters have any real victory (the titular lead for Beetlejuice is prevented from performing the transgressive act of staying permanently in the living world and forced to live as he was from the beginning, essentially trapped between the worlds of the dead and the living,[1], Sweeney Todd is murdered, and Ed Wood is resigned to a postscript of alcoholism and eventual death).)
An aspect Clover in particular zeroes in one as a feature of the horror narrative, the compulsion to repeat, to “retell the same stories decade after decade, sequel after sequel – stories that are often age-old and close to worldwide to begin with” has its routes in a psychological process “Wiederholungszwang,” which is defined by Laplanche and Pontalis as an “ungovernable process originating in the unconscious…” where a person “deliverately places himself in distressing situations, thereby repeating an old [but unremembered] experience” (p78.) Clover notes that Wiederholungszwang “thus has its roots in unpleasure.”[citation] Laplanche and Potalis, note that Wiederholungszwang has its roots in historical suffering – a suffering that has more or less been sexualized as “erotogenic masochism.”[citation]
Burton himself has a strong compulsion to repeat, often retreading onreturning to previous properties (barring his shorts, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, all of his other projects are based on pre-existing properties,), as well an upcoming project like a remake of a short film Burton made while still in art school (Frankenweenie.). With that in mind, perhaps the masochistic, as traditionally rooted in a genre and relying on a condition often linked therein, can then almost assuredly influence his aesthetic.
But we must be careful not to confuse our terms. Masochism has been defined and redefined by various scholars. Laplanche and Pontalis, as psychoanalysts and disciples of Freud, are more interested in what Silverman terms “feminine masochism,” which is rooted primarily in Freud’s “A Child is Being Beaten” essay, and the (male) masochistic subject’s dream of being his mother being beaten and achieving pleasure by first becoming the father beating the mother and (according to Freud) identifying with the mother. Deleuze’s theory, grounded in the original Masoch novels (like Venus in Furs,), instead does not discuss identification with the mother, but, rather, a fear of Selfhood being devoured by the “oral mother.” The relationship between (male) child and mother does not lie as much on identification as it does on desire for her, a desire that is forbidden and is supposed to be resolved but can permeate other aspects of the psyche, as it does in this instance. The masochistic oral mother here is not castrated and remains a central figure of authority, unlike the post-Oedipal mother who is deemed subservient to the patriarchy.
This physical resemblance Todd and Beetlejuice share (which will be touched on in a subsequent section),) also calls to mind Burton’s own appearance (pale with frayed hair.) This kind of commonality might show some kind of link between filmmaker and protagonist, again fitting into the highly subjective nature of the kind of masochistic and abject power plays at work here. Similar to Ed Wood, who struggles (and fails) to make the kind of movies he wants to make in an uncaring Hollywood, these films could also be seen to be a vindication of the freewheeling individualistic artist. However, even keeping in mind that spirit, it is never the place for these artists to overcome their obstacles. There is no real victory for Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Todd, or any other Burton protagonist other than the most temporary. The victory for them, and for the audience as well, seems grounded in the pleasure achieved struggling, in failing, the narratives are essentially boundless and exist primarily to showcase the warped protagonists and their own challenges.
In examining this kind of pleasure in displeasure, we can also see the highlights of a visual pleasure rooted not in scopophilia and sadism, as traditionally asserted, but rather in exhibitionistic spectacle. The hierarchy of the gaze, men as bearers of the gaze looking at women, seems to break down. The male characters in Burton’s films, for all their spectacle (singing, joking, wearing drag, etc.) are, as appropriate to masochism, soliciting the gaze and calling to attention their loss and meaning from the Otherlack. There are examples in each film of the traditional scopophilic power dynamic where a female character is positioned aswoman looking into the scene of the transgression, of the site of the future problem. In Beetlejuice, Lydia stares in with her camera into the open attic window, although both the Maitlands (and by extension the audience) are unsure at first if she sees anything. Shortly thereafter they see an ad on the TV for Beetlejuice’s “freelance bio-exorcism” services. For Ed Wood, when Dolores goes to check for her sweater, we do no’t so much see her looking directly at Wood, but an interesting subversion. Wood is in bed, facing the audience, while Dolores is behind him in the sweater. As she looks away, Wood looks towards us, staring out in terror at the thought of being discovered. In Sweeney Todd there’s the crazed beggar woman, staring at the smoke coming from Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, muttering to herself and screaming for something to be done. The feminine presence here is one that is gazing on the masculine, and on the horrific events related to the masculine;, it is not something of scopophilic pleasure but rather a look of horror.
Carol Clover writes about the use of eyes in horror films: “the eye of horror works both ways. It may penetrate, but it is also penetrated… The open eye of horror is far more often an eye on the defense than an eye on the offense.” (Clover, 104.). It is a vulnerable eye threatened, one that could be gouged out or attacked. It is also an inquisitive eye, one that is injured by what it has seen. Burton’s work tends to avoid physical attacks on the eye, so the latter idea seems to be the dominant one.
This mechanic is interestingly subverted in shot-reverse-shot eye on action, a typical central focus of the gaze. The male protagonists in Burton’s films are often looking away. Some good examples of this include in Ed Wood when Wood describes first meeting Bela Lugosi, in Sweeney Todd where they first begin planning their plot (and spend their time looking at, and considering to prepare, men for their meat pies,), and in Beetlejuice when Lydia goes looking for Beetlejuice in the graveyard. There are other examples as well, as if the narrative is desperately trying to create or preserve any hint of the gaze that might possibly exist. There is a nervousness about the gaze, and often it’s the women who are doing the looking.
“The Years, No Doubt, Have Changed Me…”
- Sweeny Todd, Sweeney Todd
The presence of the grotesque is a consistent feature in Burton’s films, no surprise given his influence of horror in his work, and thus the presence of monsters and the monstrous, a gateway to the grotesque. There are two kinds of phenomenon at play here: the first is the straightforward physical grotesqueness in its literal sense with hybrid characters sharing both realistic and fantastical elements, a trend more noticeable amongst Burton’s outcast protagonists. However, in the world of the filmic text, the grotesque permeates every element, elements which instill a sort of terror and dread into even the characters designated “normal” characters. Of the two types of the grotesque that [FIRST NAME] Dorrian outlines, combination applies primarily tofor the protagonists (as mentioned in terms of hybridity),) however, distortion will play a part for both the normal and the abnormal alike.
Beetlejuice’s hybridity stems from his relationship between the living and the dead, but, barring in addition to his blatant and explicit grotesqueness as a walking corpse, there are other elements at work. He seems the most capable of interacting in both the worlds of the living and the dead;, in fact, he’s the only character to actually speak with both living and dead characters. Also, through his highly ritualized linguistic summoning, he is able to physically transition from the world of the dead to the world of the living, a feat that seems to be extremely difficult for other characters. For example, the Maitlands in their one attempt near the end of the film seem to disintegrate from their normal non-decayed appearances to brittle cadavers, while Beetlejuice is never worse for wear. This also plays into the other living dead displaying some distortion of the body reminisecentreminiscent of how they died, visible markers of death like open still red wounds, charred bodies, shrunken heads, or having the same shark that ate a scuba diver still consuming his body save for his feet. In these displays of hybridity, Beetlejuice shows his grotesque nature.
Ed Wood’s grotesqueness primarily applies through his transvestitism, exhibiting traits of both genders in one, and although identifying as male, still enjoying wearing women’s clothing (often to the shock and dismay of many of those around him).) In this way, he might seem a literal representative of the Oral Mother, but it falls into more masochistic grounds. Wood’s pleasure in transvestitism seems to come to him from all the ways Silverman discusses the masochist’s pleasure. Similarly, Wood’s general circle of friends seems something of a menagerie of freaks and rejects, with a literal transsexual (Bunny Breckenridge, although he spoke often about the procedure but never began it),) and people who had otherwise been fringe elements of the Hollywood scene (tThe Amazing Criswell, and at the time long out of favor Bela Lugosi.). They are a group of symbolic “monsters” (in the sense of the social acceptance) making monster movies.