Edward Scissorhands Comparison

Laarni Lorenzo

Professor Tobias

English 20C: TR 9:40-11am

19 April 2008

Tim Burton’s 1990’s classic Edward Scissorhands is a movie that features Edward, a man made by a scientist clashing with a middle class American family in a bright, picturesque neighborhood. It is a film that portrays a highly stereotypical and exaggerated life of American suburbia and those that live in this community. It is however changed when Edward (played by Johnny Depp) comes into the picture. Edward is unlike any of the people he encounters with within the film. In fact he is a man created with inhuman features, particularly his scissor-like hands. Tim Burton’s movie is in essence about a lone man that has the characteristics of a human however is see as ‘inhuman’ like that of a ‘robotic machine man’ with qualities that outcasts him from American society. Edward Scissorhands is portrayed as someone not of human nature in that his appearance creates a spectacle among the people of the candy-colored neighborhood, his mental capacity to do things and limited and considered different and unique, as well as his ability to process his emotions are like that of perhaps a robotic machine.

Edward Scissorhands was not only half man but was a mechanical being perceived to be monstrous and promote fear and harm to people. We are first introduced to Edward when Peg, wife, mother, and Avon representative goes against the fluff of her neighborhood and visits Edward’s house above the dark and gloomy hill. Edward is at first timid and scared but somewhat wears off when Peg invited him to live with her and her family. The monstrosity of his appearance is what Peg finds to be a potential for her own business—the Avon Company. Her use of makeup is seen as a ‘cover up’ for the inhumanism or beast within. She does this perhaps to hide what he actually looks like, to look more like them, human. The perfect picturesque suburb is not disturbed with Edward’s presence in their community. It is their...