Dupuis: Voodoo Girl

Tim Burton Characters

Voodoo Girl shows Burton fear of being hurt by someone close to him because the girl cannot let anyone get close to her because of the pins in her heart. If someone got to close the pain would remind Burton or the Voodoo Girl in this instance to pull away because if the pin goes into her heart then she is basically dead. The pins could represent the pain Burton felt from his parents as a child. Parents are supposed to be the closest people to a child and Burton’s parents hurt him the most by rejecting him from, basically, birth. The pins were in put in Tim Burton’s heart by his parents and every time he would try to get close to them, they hurt him. Burton was just different as a child, like Voodoo Girl, nothing wrong with that, but because of the pins put in Burton by his parents he will never be able to love without pain because the pins will only push in further.

The reference to pins being a curse suggests that they were put in the Voodoo Girl by a magician, or archetypes. Being hurt by love is also an archetype. With love comes pain, which is a common thought among people, especially now-a-days with the divorce rate at 50 percent. Love completes pain like death completes life; I think this is how Burton views love, which is why he created Voodoo Girl.

I think the pins could also represent the outsider trying to be close with people. Like when Edward Scissorhands was trying to be a part of suburbia but people ended up rejecting him and hurting him because he was trying to get close or he hurt other people. When the outsider is trying to get close to people he just gets hurt because people keep rejecting him or sticking pins in his heart. This is represented in Voodoo Girl by all the zombie men that follow her around but end up hurting her when she tries to get close to them, like the outsider. I think Voodoo Girl represents the pain that comes with getting close to someone and the risk that they could, at any time, pull the pin out and destroy you. 

Dupuis: Mardi Gras

Dinosaur Float!

Honestly, I hate Mardi Gras, beads thrown at my face at outrageous speeds, people screaming in my ear, walking EVERYWHERE, and never a place to use the bathroom, but out of all the Mardi Gras I've been to, New Orleans is the best. Usually I hate having to stand for about an hour at parade, jumping up and down for a bead I could get for 50 cents, but something about these New Orleans parades just got to me this year. Maybe it was the beautiful floats or the personalized beads to match each float, but whatever it was, I had fun. I think people having fun because it is a long drum-roll until you catch those beads that you were screaming for, for the past half hour. Even when you catch one, you get greedy and just want more and the drum-roll begins again. It is like when the Joker is throwing money at the people of Gotham and talking about their greed. And the people throwing the beads know they are torturing the people below but that is what is fun for them, they are the tricksters of the Mardi Gras world, that is why they wear masks. Like when Beetlejuice takes advantage of the Maitlands because he knows they will do anything to get the living (beads) out of their house (in their hands).  I never understand what happens when you catch that one bead and then you just want more, I guess it just makes you feel good about yourself, like somehow you earned those beads and no one takes them from you...until the person next to you says the beads were going to go to them until you stole them, and then they try to take them from you. Even then, it is a weird bonding experience with you and  your friends, because you know next year at Mardi Gras you will be saying, "Remember last year when that crazy person tried to take my beads from me!"
I just think the tradition of Mardi Gras has been ruined. Originally Mardi Gras is about letting loose before we have to give up things for Lent, but now it has become a marketing scheme. You need money to but the beads for the float; you need money for the float; you even need at least ten dollars to pee in a business on the parade route. I just think the Mardi Gras tradition has strayed from what it used to be, or maybe I do not enjoy it because I am not Catholic and do not give anything up for Lent. But maybe I do not like it just because I do not like parties.

Dupuis: Fairytales and Edward

Beauty and Beast

The world from the view of a child can seem trustworthy and magical because of the reoccurring fairy tale lessons they learn that become an absolute truth to them. Childhood is a precious time for learning, but these false fairy tales really teach children nothing about the world today. The world in which we know today is cruel. Good does not always triumph over evil. The guy does not always get the girl, etc. But everyone in society knows these stories, so we all know the morals that these stories teach us. If that’s true, then, where do they go when we get older?

Childhood is a time to be creative and different but as we get older, society teaches us that we should not be that way anymore. Modern society just sees childhood as phases that everyone eventually grows out of, and then they conform, like they are supposed to. But Edward Scissorhands can’t conform. He will never be able to leave this stage of life because creativity is all he has that makes him a part of the community, for a while. But eventually, the community decides that he can’t live here because he will never be able to conform to their standards. He can never be finished. This apparently beautiful, perfect town rejects him because he will never be normal. The town’s flaw is programmed into every mind of the residents. They take on look at him and see a monster that does not match their pretty, bright houses, and their cookie-cutter lifestyle. The town violates the moral code that every fairy tale teaches every child, to accept everyone for who they are, unless they do bad things. But Edward never does anything bad; he doesn't seek out harm on other people. He just wants their acceptance, but they are unable to give him that because they see him as bad due to his lack of hands. He just like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, no one accepts him because he looks like a monster, but on the inside he just wants someone to love him for who he is.