4.1 Tim Burton's Gothic Fantasy: Depicting Victorian Culture Through Animation and ParodyFilm adaptations based on particular works such as Time's Great Expectations Dickens is not the only means by which we gain insight into Victorian culture and society. Animated films such as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) represent the Victorian era through humor and exaggeration and reveal Burton's awareness of 19th-century English society. In his study Gothic Fantasy: The Films of Tim Burton, Edwin Page argues that Burton's films are not realistic in nature, but that, like fairy tales, they communicate through symbolic imagery, because they are about "things much deeper in our conscious and subconscious minds than most.” the films would dare to dig” (7). His films are considered personal and reflect black humor, as it combines elements of fairy tales, gothic, parody and grotesque. More importantly, Burton generally identifies with subordinate characters in horror films who express great melodramatic emotion and also finds himself "identifying with monsters rather than heroes, as monsters tended to show passion while the protagonists were relatively emotionless” (13). The monsters in his films symbolize the outsider and the alienated, a figure who challenges society and whose representation is almost always exaggerated. Significant examples from his many films include Edward in Edward Scissorhands (1990), the demonic Mrs. Lovett and the bloodthirsty barber in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), and the tragicomic and grotesque abandoned bride Emily in Corpse Bride (2005). .The major problem that runs through the film and which I will discuss in this chapter is that there are elements of the gothic, the grotesque and I...... middle of paper ......nt the bride abandoned Victorian era aim to subvert certain Victorian stereotypes and represent them through a postmodern vision. My goal in this chapter was to examine Emily as another Miss Havisham, as I believe that animated films are even more successful than adaptations because they parody and subvert certain Victorian stereotypes on a subconscious level. Burton succeeds in Corpse Bride in revealing traditionally criticized issues regarding Victorian society and in particular its attitude towards single women. As is the case in Burton's films, social messages always reach the audience through witty songs, dark humor and fairy tale elements. Unlike the rest of the films covered in my thesis, I believe that it is precisely this non-aggressive animation strategy that helps us digest the film's point about the plight of single women in the Victorian era...