I rewrote a number of fairy tales for H.o.p. when he was little.
Last night we watched “Edward Scissorhands” with him for the first time. I’d held off on watching it because I remembered best the last half of the film and worried it would be a bit intense for him, despite his love of Tim Burton and this tale being one of Tim Burton’s claymation movies done with human actors. But then we were looking for a film to watch, we’d had “Edward Scissorhands” for quite some time and hadn’t opened it, and I recollected the fairy tale quality of it and thought maybe the ending wasn’t as intense as I remembered it.
“Edward Scissorhands” was released in 1990 and despite my love for Tim Burton films I opted out on seeing this one for several years. I don’t remember exactly why now. I had been through the Punk revolution of the mid to late 70s, what I viewed as the crash and burn of the hippie culture of an older generation into the cynical, corporate and money and power focus of Disco. I was part of a discontented generation who had watched the late 60s, too young at the time to participate in what seemed the fairy tale as well as politically and socially significant journey of the older boomers, a world which had disintegrated by the time we became old enough to drive our cars into that horizon quest. Instead of a ticket for the freedom bus, we were handed the keys to “Taxi Driver” (1976) finishing off “Vanishing Point” (1971). Punk had availed our discontent with what felt a gritty, honest voice, and it had been hard to watch that political desperation and rage against the cynical status quo crash and burn into just another fashion option, a way for young teens to annoy their parents.
Which is one reason I didn’t see “Edward Scissorhands” for several years. Johnny Depp was dolled up in post punk make-up, hair and fashion leather punk fashion garb, make-up and hair. Yeah, I know, the costume was more goth but I looked on it as bastardized punk and wanted nothing to do with it. Punk was dead. Quit feeding on it.
When I did eventually see “Edward Scissorhands” I enjoyed it. But only saw it once. Then Marty picked up the DVD for me a year ago but I’d not opened it
Though I remember having liked “Edward Scissorhands” (up to a point), I don’t recollect what I picked up from the story. I don’t know if I thought of the suburban neighborhand blending at its end into the drive up to the castle-type mansion on the hill as surreal or if I thought, “Ah, yeah, we all grew up on fairy tales, most of us have that castle sitting at the edge of our collective suburban childhood. It is a real internal geography for many of us.”
Tim Burton is about my age and that’s how I saw the first half this time, the alienation of that mid to late 70s punk generation already present in late 60s suburbia, only this time we were given a kindly Avon lady who wouldn’t shrink from the scars, who’d try and help us cover them while still introducing us as fully lovable for what we were. And what a brave Avon lady too, in her Jackie O. pill box hat, venturing up the mansion stairs calling for whoever lives there to not be afraid of her, ignoring the desolation of the mansion after the beauty of its garden. She is the father of Beauty in the original tale combined with a little of Beauty herself. But here the Beast, who is also a Frankenstein’s monster, an Adam fashioned by a benevolent god who teaches him feelings over the etiquette acting job, must leave the security of his home and venture into the outside world and human society.
Leave a Reply