Edward Scissorhands Discourses of Meaning

Tim Burton in his film “Edward Scissor Hands” communicates the dominant perspective that forcing others to conform to societal norms is a negative, paticurly when the focus is on someone who is marginalised through no fault to his own. In this instance, Edward is the brain-child of a well meaning inventor, however the Frankenstein sub-genre of film provides intertextuality that is wrong and irresponsible to play god with creation of life. Therefore, from the start, Edward is constructed as an other within a normality society. Although the intentions of those close to Edward are good, his destiny is to be marginalised. Burton constructs the discourse of Changing a person’s individuality is bad, Disabilities should not be ridiculed or discriminated and Taking advantage of those who are challenged are wrong. The audience is positioned to accept Burton’s dominant view-point by using technical and symbolic film code and successful techniques such as marginalisation, the binary opposition of good VS evil and intertextuality. This essay will further explore the discourses identified within the film and how the audience is positioned to accept Burton’s ultimate point-of-view.
The particular imagery associated from this film allows the viewer to see the discourse of changing a person form who they naturally are portrays to the audience the difficult question whether they should and in most instances like Edwards the answer is no. In this instance, Pegg Boggs Mother to the main character Kim, try’s to change Edwards’s outer appearance by giving Edward clothes that are the socially accepted ones and using make-up to hide scars which show identity and individuality to make Edward look acceptable to the social norm that she lives in. There is also happy and lively music in the background when Edwards’s environment is changed from a large dark mansion to a more socially accepted home to denote change is in the air. After the “make-over” Pegg shows Edward a full length mirror