Quintessential gothic director Tim Burton is back with a sequel to Beetlejuice (1988) – the film that launched Winona Ryder to stardom as iconic goth girl Lydia Deetz. In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ryder reprises her role alongside new goth girl on the block Jenna Ortega, allowing an unusual insight into how the goth girl has been interpreted by different generations.
As one of the first overtly goth characters to appear in a mainstream film, Lydia Deetz’s style had a huge impact on alternative teens in the late 1980s. Beetlejuice was released the same year as another goth horror comedy – Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Compared with Cassandra Peterson’s equally iconic but outrageously sexual gothic vamp, Lydia was an attainable role model. She was the goth next-door: cute, stylish, sympathetic and not overtly sexualised.
Every element of Lydia’s look was memorable: the spiky fringe, the backcombed up-do, the giant broad-brimmed black sunhat, the black mourning veil, the red tulle wedding dress, the SLR camera as accessory.
