Well, we finally have an answer about Lydia Deetz’s birth mother
Many of us wondered what the deal was with Lydia Deetz’s (Winona Ryder) mother in the original Beetlejuice movie. When Lydia moves to Connecticut with her father and step mother, there isn’t really any information given to us about her birth mother. Is she in New York? Is she dead?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice spoilers ahead!
By the end of the movie, Lydia finds happiness with the Maitlands, and I always thought that her sadness came from losing her mother and her father remarrying. It would make sense. It is very upsetting when you parents get divorced, but Lydia does have a different kind of darkness to her that feels very much like a girl grieving. Still, the movie never said either way what the deal was with her birth mother.
So that is probably why, when I went to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and heard Lydia say something about how her mother was still alive back then, I was a little shocked and confused. In a conversation about Astrid (Jenna Ortega), Delia (Catherine O’Hara) says something about Lydia’s mother, and Lydia responds by revealing that her mother was alive. At least that’s how I read the moment.
That’s about the only bit of information we get on the situation. It left me puzzled. “Wait, I thought her mother died,” I thought to myself in the movie theater. Why? Because the musical made an entire thing about it.
The musical clearly made some choices
I don’t dislike Beetlejuice the musical, but I think it was missing the weird energy that made the movie so iconic. But the one song that I do remember and like listening to is called “Dead Mom.” A huge part of Lydia’s storyline in the musical is about how she misses her mother, and that fuels her hatred of Delia and the situation she’s in.
Remembering the movie now, it is certainly a choice to take this leap when we don’t know whether or not Lydia’s mom is actually dead. So in the musical Beetlejuice, they made the decision that Lydia’s mother was, in fact, dead. There is an entire song about it.
Part of me wonders if the decision to have Lydia say something about her mom was because of this song. Whatever the reason, I guess we at least have an answer as to whether Emily Deetz was alive and well when her daughter decided that ghosts would make better parents than her own. And Lydia wasn’t completely wrong in that decision!
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