Halloween is approaching, the summer breeze is turning cold and numbing, and a hauntingly beautiful season is upon us. This time extends beyond a season for Tim Burton’s drawing and directing brain, so it makes sense that Netflix chose him to direct the soon-to-be-released “Wednesday Addams” series.
For somebody who’s always been “a big monster-movie fan,” it comes as no surprise that Tim Burton’s career came to be based around an aesthetic that exposes, in his words (via RomaCinephilia interview) “the human element” in an outsider’s character by attaching a uniquely gothic and beautiful world onto them– this is better known as the internet-generated term “Burtonesque.”
Before I express what “went” wrong with Burton’s choices, it’s only fair to say that his visual style and consistency throughout the years has fostered beautiful results for generations. From classic movies like “Beetlejuice” (1988) and the first “Batman” movie (1989), to “Alice in Wonderland” (2010) and “Frankenweenie” (2012), Burton’s style is safely his own– it is immediately recognizable due to his imaginative ideas of jagged architectural towns, twisted trees, moodier colors, and more complex cartoon characters then seen before, echoing back to German Expressionism and his own experience.
I am a huge fan of his art because of his different take on childhood monster fantasies. His relationship to the concepts after “being an outsider” his whole life also adds to the likeability. However, building an attachment to his cinematic films does not equate to my current respect for him as a director. Yes. Burton added a dash of complexity to regular monsters, but as he ended Disney’s era of a strictly black-and-white view on monsters, he disclosed his otherwise black-and-white mindset on casting diversity.
I was disappointed after seeing trends and articles regarding his casting choices or lack thereof. I realized his conceptual creativity isn’t intended for me anymore. The ‘visionary’ world he was creating had either mainly white characters or that one POC villain, film after film. In his world, an outcast could only be white. Ken Page’s voice-acting role as the “Oogie Boogie” in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is one example of blatant ignorance hidden under the rug.
In a Bustle interview, Tim excused his casting choices by using “forced diversity” as the scapegoat: “I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct, like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black child.” Then he added, “I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.” This interview could be interpreted in so many ways and I have no way of knowing how he actually treats the cast behind doors. Nonetheless, I was shocked to see how many people ignore that this statement is racist, ignorant, and narrow-minded for a director of his power and influence. His confidence about his casting decisions implied that it’s intentional because, according to the interview, “things either call for things, or they don’t” in his world.
I could blame this on the 60s era he grew up in or on all the directors he looked up to including Federico Fellini and Mario Bava, but I thought great film directors were supposed to understand their audience in time and evolve to change the Hollywood narrative. To me, Burton’s stubborn viewpoint shows that he didn’t learn much from being an “outcast” during a hard childhood. He simply ended up doing the same to any potential POC actors who love his art.
The Burtonesque season approaches just as the director’s Netflix return does. It stars many Latinx leading roles including the iconic Jenna Ortega. “Wednesday is technically a Latina character, and that’s never been represented– I want that to be seen,” Jenny said in a recent interview. I have high hopes for this series but the question remains, is this a plan curated to save Tim’s legacy or a genuine approach toward change?