ATTACK! of the burton merchandising

Okay, so, third post, first in what I hope will be a series of ATTACK! posts, or info-rants. I begin by painting you a picture of a person: young, 14-16, average in looks, wash out dye in their hair, oversized zipped down sweatshirt, studded belt, average jeans, average shoes, skull cap, or "beanie" if you will, emblazened with a large jack skellington head. Yes, you are looking at a potential consumer of products from a suburban Hot Topic, and they are just dying for that matte black T shirt with Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter on it. Now I'm not Hatin' on Mr. Burton's film work, no no, you see, I love his films, but so much of this faux goth trend merchandise bastardizes a wonderful filmmaker in favor of a "cult" darling. Back to our little teen subject, He/She considers themselves a cult film lover, Nightmare before Christmas is their favorite movie, and Edward Scissorhands is a close second. Too bad these are no longer considered cult films, everyone's seen them, and loved them, and constantly references them in daily life. Nightmare wasn't even directed by Burton. I have considered myself one of his greatest fans, I saw Nightmare and Scissorhands before I started kindergarten, and loved them. However, His greatest, most "cult" films are often the ones I love most, and are his greatest cinematical achievements. Big Fish is simply amazing, as is Mars Attacks, but these astounding gems are lost amongst the fishnets and leather. Basically, mass marketing has skewed the view of one of the most interesting, if not over exposed filmmakers of our generation and so many films are lost to this idea of false cult worship, to the point where most of these die hard fans would stare at you in baffled wonder if you mentioned Burton's Batman Returns, arguably the most burtonesque film, or the atrocious reboot, Planet of The Apes.