Love em or hate em, morals in media make recipients feel good about what they just imbibed. Tim Burton, like George Lucas and the Grimm brothers before him, knows this well enough to build one of the greatest cult followings of the generation.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is the story of Jack Skellington, the ruler of Halloween Town, and his mid-life crisis. He starts his quest for self fulfillment feeling misunderstoond and desperately needing the yin to his skeleton yang. Two things that appear in the plot to fill this void. Sally, a patchwork doll who pines after Jack in the shadows of her mad-scientist creator, and Christmastown, the place he finds and recognizes as his cuddly antithesis.
Having found this wonderful thing, this thing Jack knows will complete him.
The quest engulfs not only all of Halloweentown, where all the goblins and vampires must suddenly make Christmas toys and trees instead of scary what-have-yous, but the real world of humans as well.
Sally sees this and points out:
Sally: You don't look like yourself at all
But, our confused hero doesn't see the danger in this. Instead he chirps:
Jack: I know, isn't it wonderful?
Christmas goes horribly and Jack gets bombed out of the sky.
Suddenly, the musical turns from fun romp to kunstleroman. Jack sings to himself, and his ghost hound, about trying new things. This time the experiment ended horror-fully, and isn't that ironic since, well, he is the king of horror?
The nightmare is over. Jack emerges from his experience knowing exactly who he is, what his part in the human world is, and how he must now carry on.
Moral: Be yourself.
Though this moral is stridently sung at teens through High School Musical and other Disney sorts of things, they all hinge on one aesthetic: Prettiness.
What makes Nightmare a behemoth in the world is its unique aesthetic. It's dark and gritty like early Alan Moore comics. Its viewers attach to the aesthetic first and are then hypnotized by sympathy for both Jack and Sally, and finally fulfilled by the moral.
It does not dissapoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment