The character development in Beetlejuice was majorly impacted by the storyline. Each person had their own special and diverse personalities. Some of them also developed different personalities. Lydia Deetz, Delia Deetz, and Charles Deetz had some of the biggest character changes by the end of the movie. Otho, Barbara Maitland, Adam Maitland, and Betelgeuse were all pretty static characters.
At the beginning of Beetlejuice, a young couple named Barbara and Adam Maitland lived in a small typical New England town. They owned a house they were renovating. Barbara was a kind, passionate, and considerate young woman who was in love with her husband, Adam. Adam was similar to his wife’s personality and cared very much for her. Soon the couple figured out they were dead because they couldn’t leave their house. They discovered a book called The Handbook For The Recently Deceased which showed them the rules for the recently deceased. They later found out that a family was moving into their house. They were both very upset about this and vowed to get rid of them. Barbara and Adam first try to scare them away with the typical sheets with the eyes cut out, but it doesn’t work. At first, they were very angry about the Deetz’s moving in but as the story went along they learned to live with each other and learn to work together. At the end of the movie, the Maitlands treat Lydia as their own child and accept the fact that the Deetzes live there because they want Lydia to stay. The Maitlands didn’t really change much by the end of the movie and were still compassionate and cared for each other.
The Deetzes started out as a snobby couple who moved from New York to the house where the Maitlands used to live. Delia was an aspiring artist who wants to remodel the house while Charles didn’t see the need to spend money on the house. Charles was a workaholic father who tried to live a peaceful country life but was too involved in his real estate company. Maxie, Charles’ business partner, constantly nagged him about the idea of an amusement park in the town. Delia got an interior designer named Otho to help her remodel the house. Lydia kept trying to convince her parents that there were ghosts living alongside them in the house but they didn’t believe her. Lydia’s parents didn’t believe her until a dinner party her stepmother was hosting. Delia wanted to impress her snobby friends so she got the help from Otho, the interior designer, and Lydia. Otho tried to summon the Maitlands from the grave but instead made the Maitlands rot away slowly as Delia was getting trapped by Betelgeuse in one of her art pieces. Charles only cared about making money off of the ghosts living in his house, but in the end, he finally acknowledged his family and life isn’t all about work and money. In the end, Delia got what she deserved for being an awful stepmother to Lydia. Charles actually changed into a good father who wasn’t all about working and money. He became more involved in Lydia’s life.
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Lydia had one of the biggest character developments in the movie. She started out being an “edgy”, gothic outcast and changed dramatically by the end of the movie. She had black hair, dark clothes, and the typical teenage attitude. Lydia was the daughter of Charles Deetz and the stepdaughter to Delia Deetz. Lydia had the evil stepmother and they didn’t get along. She soon realized that her family wasn’t the only one living there, she could see the Maitlands too. Lydia was the only one in the house that could see the Maitlands because she claims that she’s “strange and unusual” as well. In The Handbook For The Recently Deceased, it said that the living had to choose to see the dead. Since Lydia was a child anything was possible for her. Lydia and the Maitlands became good friends. Lydia later decided she wanted to be dead too but the Maitlands didn’t think it was a good idea. Lydia then tried to kill herself so she could be with the Maitlands all the time but she failed. She kept trying to tell her parents about the ghosts living in the house but they don’t believe her. Her parents care more about the house and money. It wasn’t until they really needed her when they acknowledged her and cared about her. When Otho brought back the Maitlands from the dead the only thing she could do was to go get Betelgeuse from the model town Adam made in the attic. Betelgeuse agreed to help but at a price; she had to marry him. She agreed just so she could save the Maitlands and then he helped the Maitlands and sent them away so they couldn’t ruin his plans. After Betelgeuse was out of the way the Maitlands and Deetz’ lived together in the house and her parents cared about her more and the Maitlands took Lydia in as their own child. Lydia went from a really strange and unusual girl to a really nice and sweet person. She became more confident and less shy in herself too.
Betelgeuse and Otho were very static characters who didn’t change much. They were both pretty self-centered and ruined a lot of things. Otho was a lot like Delia in the sense of the artistic and designer snob stereotype. One of them mentioned something about the supernatural and Bernard, Delia’s agent, replies with “Paranormal? Is that what they’re calling your type now?” (Beetlejuice, 1988) because Bernard was implying that Otho was supposedly gay. This was going into the homosexual stereotype of the time period. Betelgeuse didn’t change much at all. At the beginning of the movie, he was a manipulative, crude, and selfish ghost. He used the used car salesmen theme for his commercial for “bio-exorcist” business. Barbara called him for their help to get rid of the Deetz family but caused more chaos than help. When he met the Maitlands he was very loud and crude. He made certain jokes that were not very good. Later when he manipulates Lydia to setting him free so he can go supposedly help the Maitlands from rotting away. He only agreed to help Lydia if she married him because of an illegal alien. He terrorized the Deetz family and Otho. As Lydia and Betelgeuse were getting married, Barbara came in riding on the sandworm and eats Betelgeuse. In the last scene, it showed Betelgeuse in the waiting room to see a caseworker. He saw the woman next to him and her ticket said three and his is in the upper 9 million so he secretly switched their tickets. The office called his number and walks away. The lady then realized what had happened to her ticket and sees the guy next to her then shrinks his head. Betelgeuse was still and had a bad personality at the end of the movie and never really changed.
All of the people had some type of character development. Some changed more than others, but the ones who didn’t change still showed big personalities for each character. They all fit into certain stereotypes.
