I have watched Beetlejuice countless times. The classic 1988 dark comedy from Tim Burton is so beloved that it garnered a sequel 36 years later, and has a cult-like following of fans who worship Lydia Deetz, can quote all of Catherine O’Hara’s iconic lines (“I will go insane, and I will take you with me!”), and dress as Beetlejuice and his merry cast of characters every year for Halloween. But look, every movie has a villain, and while it seems like Beetlejuice would be the most awful one in this movie — he does try and marry Lydia against her will, after all — I’m going to be real honest: There’s one villain in Beetlejuice, and it’s Jane, the realtor.
Even with the sandworm, the ghost with the most, and Otho conducting a seancé and exploiting Adam and Barbara so they disintegrate right in front of everyone, nobody is more ghoulish than Jane. She’s a minor character — so minor, in fact, that you might have trouble placing who I’m talking about — but she’s so wretched that even little me watching this movie when I was 6 and 7 knew she was bad news.
If you need a refresher, we see Jane in the first few minutes of the movie when she shows up, uninvited, to Adam and Barbara Maitland’s home just as they’re beginning their sweet staycation. She practically barges in, ruining their alone time, to be a pest. She wants to know if they’re ready to sell their house (the house they love, by the way, and are literally staying in for a week’s vacation because they want to piddle around and do all the house things) because she’s already sent pictures to people. “Please don’t send pictures of our house to people,” Barbara has to tell this woman, and Jane still doesn’t miss a beat.
Instead of apologizing for overstepping her bounds, she doubles down, insisting that Barbara and Adam really don’t even need this house because it’s more “for a family.” And Barbara and Adam don’t have kids.
Yikes, right?
It gets worse. By how Barbara reacts (and later tells Adam), it’s clear the Maitlands want children… that they’d love to have a bunch of little babies running up and down those stairs, knocking Jane down with their joy like golden retriever puppies. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t happened for them yet, and the most ghoulish part of all is that, clearly, Jane knows this. As soon as she says the home is meant more for a family and she sees Barbara’s face, she tries to backtrack, insisting she didn’t mean it like that, the whole fake drill.
Who does that? At this point, it’s common knowledge not to ask someone when they’re going to have babies or how their family planning is going. But to straight-up insist someone sell their beloved home — so that she can get a commission! — because they don’t have babies in it is just grotesque. I didn’t like this woman when I was a kid, but rewatching as an adult makes it even more horrific. Like, who the hell does she think she is?
Give me a million sandworms crashing through my front door before I have to spend a minute of my time with Jane. Take this mean-spirited, greedy, awful woman and fling her into the waiting room with that shrunken head guy. Because even after acting like a horrific person, she has the absolute gall to sell the house within moments of the Maitlands’ funeral. And then this woman lies! She tells the Deetzes that she single-handedly decorated the home, as if we didn’t see Barbara with wallpaper, all excited to feather her nest like she already has. Honestly, I’d love to see Beetlejuice go knock things around in her house for a while, maybe shrink her down to the size of the model and let her find her own way out.
Jane would be an MLM #BossQueen in today’s age. She’d be the one offering you supplements after you’ve lost your job, trying to convince you that your infertility could be solved by doing ads for some green drink on Instagram. She’s fake and a liar and makes you feel bad about yourself, all while portraying herself as some delightful lady who’s friends with everyone.
Feed her to the sandworm. Let her float around in purgatory behind that creepy door. Make her be Otho’s assistant where he can humiliate a worthy target every single day.
The movie should really just be called Jane. She’s the most terrifying part.
