Why is ‘Beetlejuice’ named after a star?
Tim Burton’s weird but sometimes wonderful 1980s cult movie Beetlejuice was originally entitled “Betelgeuse” by its screenwriters. Pronounced the same way, just with a more complicated spelling for English-speaking audiences that director Burton decided needed simplifying.
The reason for this quirky name? Well, apart from it sounding like a spookily catchy title for a horror picture, Betelgeuse is the name of a real star. To be more specific, it’s a large star in the constellation of Orion and one of the ten shiniest stars we can see in the sky at night.
A bright idea for a character’s name; you’d have to agree. It trips off the tongue (three times if you’d like to meet him in person), and its backstory takes light years to tell. So, the perfect moniker for some great, celestial being.
But for a mischievous ghost calling himself a bio-exorcist because his job is to exorcise the living from their home on behalf of other ghosts? This hardly seems like a character befitting such a grandiose title. Then why did the writers call him Betelgeuse?
An ancient myth or silly joke?
According to Greco-Roman mythology, as transcribed by Arab authors, Betelgeuse represented the shoulder, and possibly the arm and the hand, of the gigantic divinity Orion, famous for his hunting prowess and desire to kill every animal on earth. Because Betelgeuse is also a reddish star, the Romans associated it with war, too, as well as the circle of life.
Could it be that the original screenwriters of Beetlejuice, Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson, intended the character’s name to be some kind of reference to hunting or death, based on mythological tradition? They chose a very vague way to make the association if so, and this allusion would be totally out of step with the movie’s campy, gothic humour.
Indeed, McDowell expressed surprise that no one had even picked on an astronomical basis for the film’s title and its eponymous character’s name. Apparently, we weren’t supposed to get it.
It seems more likely that he and Wilson simply have a passing interest in star-gazing and found something funny about the star’s name that they could use to reflect a motif of the character. Betelgeuse’s name needs to be said aloud repeatedly in order to appear. But it’s difficult for anyone to say his name correctly as it’s spelt (Betelgeuse) – or to spell it correctly as it’s said (Beet-le-juice). This confusion between the two, accentuated by the movie title being spelt differently from the character’s name, could just be part of the fun.
The question is, though, is it part of the fun we had watching the film? Or part of the fun had at our expense by its writers and director?
