In which I gush over beetlejuice’s suit for too many paragraphs
Ok kiddies, enough talk about ship wars, time to do up a thing I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while
If you’ve peeked at my side blog you may already know this, but outside of being a slut for our resident dirty boi I’m a cosplayer and proffesional costumer, so I care Way too much about what characters are wearing and Brightman Beej’s costume is just.. it’s so exquisite and I need to gush about it
At first glance, it may seem like it’s just a recreation of the suit as it’s always been but there are a lot of beautiful subtle details that really make this version shine. Let’s look at the other versions for comparison
Let’s start with Keaton. It’s worth remembering that ketaon’s beetlejuice does *not* wear this suit for a lot of screentime (he actually doesnt have a lot of screentime in the film but even percentage wise). He oscillates wildly into lots of different looks, this is just the one that’s become the most iconic and for good reason. In the film hes specifically wearing this when lydia finally frees him and he raises hell. This is the most well kept hes been in the entire movie to this point, so it gives off kind of a huckster showman/used car salesman vibe. Peep the 37 watches hes wearing for some reason lol. It’s still dirty and dusty, but in comparison to Brightman Beej it’s pretty pristine. This beetlejuice is much more confident and, for lack of a better word, more polished
Now let’s look at animated Beej. The cartoon is really what solidified the idea of the striped suit as being his default outfit. He still wears other outfits when they’re doing a specialized thing or when he shapeshifts into other people like Betty juice, but 99 percent of the time hes a stripey boi. Still with very clean and defined lines.
This is also where purple gets more definitively added to his color scheme. Keaton has the purple around his eyes but that’s pretty much it, animated bj has the addition of the snazzy magenta shirt, plus his skin being purple. This locks in the bj color palette of black, white, purple, and green
Now let’s talk about this little gremlin
Musical meetlejuice is in many ways a cross pollination of his 2 dads. He gets the green hair tint from Keaton, and the subtle purples in his makeup from cartoon beej. But he also has a lot that’s only his
Look again at the stripes on keaton’s suit
Now look at the fabric for Broadway beej
The stripes are dirty, grungy, irregular. His suit is dirtier, there are rips and hanging strings. Brightman beej is a much more insecure, messy character and his stripes reflect this. It gives off a vibe that’s more anarchic punk than showman.
Also look at the difference in fit between the 2 suits. The jacket is less fitted on brightman and the sleeves are so long that in some positions they almost hang over his hands. Combine this with the nail polish, brightman having a baby face (hes also like 10 years younger than Keaton was when he took the role) and it all adds up to make him a more youthful. He looks like a little boy in his dads clothes, which he basically is character wise lol
Another really interesting thing I noticed when watching the boot (its nft and I’m not posting caps from it again and causing another issue lol) is a really neat element they added. Obviously brightman cant do the same level of changes in live theater, and initially I thought it was a trick of the lighting but then I saw this snap of the costume designs and it confirmed it to me
His costume changes color a few times throughout the show! Most of the time his tie and hair is green, but when hes on the roof during invisible reprise (ie when hes sad) that color shifts to purple, and when hes being a full on evil bastard at the exorcism it switches to a red color. He literally wears his feelings on his sleeve and it really beautifully illustrates what a sensitive little puppydog he is.
I just…. guys I love this costume design so dang much
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