Tim Burton and the Creative Trickster: A Case Study of Three Films

Most people would agree that Tim Burton’s films exhibit a signature visual style. They also feature variations on themes and characters related to his attraction to (some would say obsession with) loners and misfits and the macabre mixed with humor. But a less obvious theme also informs much of his work, one that concerns an age-old “archetype” known as the trickster. Many of Burton’s films feature either a trickster-like character and/or other trickster elements. Such characters include Beetlejuice, Jack Skellington, and Edward Bloom. In addition, many of Burton’s films feature an inversion of mainstream values, a central characteristic of tricksters and trickster tales. For example, in Corpse Bride (2005) the Land of the Dead is more colorful and “animated” than the Land of the Living, and the surreal but somewhat menacing underground world of Alice in Wonderland (2010) is full of tricky inversions. I am not suggesting that the trickster is a uniformly universal figure or an archetype in the Jungian sense. Rather, the trickster can be seen variously as a person or character, as a narrative function within the story, and/or, in its broadest sense, as a story-telling technique that pervades an entire film. Thus, a number of Burton’s films act as meta-tricksters, inverting or confounding a variety of cultural categories. And in his struggle to create innovation within the confines of mainstream cinema, Burton himself often embodies (or endeavors to embody) a trickster-like role.