ripped straight from speech to text i fear
Okay, so @possum-quesadilla and I were having this conversation earlier, but I feel like something that Beetlejuice the musical really dropped the ball on was the fact that like, we know how Lydia feels about death, we know how Beetlejuice feels about it.
But I feel like we didn't really get that same deep dive with Charles and Delia and the Maitlands. And I feel like Beetlejuice, as a media shines best when it's like an ensemble, when you get a little bit of everybody. Because if you focus too much on one character or two characters, the other characters start to like dull. And like, obviously the movie wasn't made with that in mind.
Like, I'm I'm happy that Beetlejuice gets to have more screentime and he gets to become like this new character, who has this nuance and his depth. And I'm glad Lydia gets to have nuance and depth. But I feel like that Charles could also have the same depth, if not more, because as much as Lydia is Emily's daughter, Charles is her husband. I feel like we should have gotten to know more about how he feels about her death beyond just, oh, I need a new lady. Oh, well, let's just move on and not talk about it.
I feel like the one of the flaws about the musical is that they turned what could have been a really nuanced conflict into something almost one-sided. Like, you can tell the show really wants you to side with Lydia despite the fact that Charles's side also has a lot of merit, if not more merit, because like he obviously dated Emily. He knew Emily for a long time. It's obviously hurting him to the point where he doesn't even want to talk about it. He just wants to move on and pretend it never happened. And I feel like that, the fact that the musical didn't elaborate on it besides just comedic quips and a rushed resolution is really just like a huge dropped ball.
Because I feel like if they really locked in, Charles and Lydia could have had the same nuance, the same depth. They could be on opposite sides, and us as the audience, we would have been able to be like, well, I see where Charles is coming from, but you know, Lydia has a good point, and yeah, Lydia has a good point, but Charles does too. I feel like they should have been equals in that sense, because they both lost a lot. Delia also could've acted as a mediator as her skills as a life coach would've came off as less of a joke because as much as I love Queen Delia, we all know damn well she wasn't taken seriously not one bit by anyone except for Charles.
And if I may go on a side tangent, the lack of spotlight given to characters that aren't Beetlejuice or Lydia (especially Charles) is instrumental to people within the fandom misunderstanding them. The amount of 'Beetlejuice returns' fics that paint Charles as this bitter man who [checks notes] doesn't dare to forgive Beetlejuice as quickly as the others for the sheer amount of danger and traumatizing experiences he brought her. How dare he be a good father! How dare he scrutinize a literal demon from hell! Like guys, Beetlejuice may have the sympathetic factor with his evident mental illnesses and his abusive mother, but he's still a demon from hell. He does coke. He kills people. He participates in orgies. He gaslights people. Charles is right to question him and give him a hard time. Outside of Beetlejuice hinself, I've noticed that Charles is the character given the most negative spotlight in fics and fan works which is so strange to me. He's not a perfect father, but he's not a horrible person. He's a man warped by his own pain, and that in itself is not a crime.
It would be great if they explored, if they explored in depth, how grief affects people in different ways. Like, yeah, they showed it, but like, it wasn't really enough. You know what I mean? Like for a musical that parades itself about being a show about death, it felt more like a show about death and not a show about death. Can you walk with me? Do you get what I'm saying here?
Like, I feel like if they just elaborated the rest of the main cast, it would've given the show more life. Take the Maitlands for example, we never really got to understand what death means to them. Like, sure, they had a little act and song at the beginning, but like, aside from that, they sort of just got shoved and turned into side characters. Which is still surreal to think about given that they were the main characters of the original film.
And like, yeah, Delia had her like one song, but like, again, we know how she feels about death the least. And I feel like that's a shame. I like the show, it's great, I love it. My favorite media between all three, but at the end of the day, it is essentially just the Beetlejuice and Lydia show. Like that's really exactly how it comes off, because those two are the main characters, and everyone else just gets pushed away. And it's like, maybe if this was like any other media, I wouldn't care, but for something like Beetlejuice where like everybody can shine, and everybody can truly be the main character of their own like musical, it just feels a little weird. You know what I mean?
