Edward Scissorhands and My Hands

Edward is a soft-spoken and compliant man, childlike and generous with his skills. We never do learn why he has scissors for hands, an absurdly impractical choice for limbs. Though he can’t pick up silverware or touch his face without cutting himself, he is masterful at grooming dogs, cutting hair, and topiary. When he’s introduced to suburbia by a kind family woman, people are intrigued by him, but the interest quickly morphs into fear. Eventually, he is forced to fake his own death and retreat back to the sad solitude of the mansion on the hill where he’ll remain, carving art into ice for the rest of his life. It’s a sad fate, but not entirely unexpected. The story is a reminder of cruelty and its consequences.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from watching Edward Scissorhands for the first time recently, but I was awed. This leather-clad or perhaps leather-skinned, pale-faced, goth creature with metal shears for fingers is a character I see myself in.

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At rest, my hands may appear to be like most other hands. I have ten fingers and ten fingernails, usually painted by someone else with pink gel polish. For the first ten or so years of my life, my hands were just hands. Until they weren’t.

I was not the first person to notice my shaking. I sometimes wonder if no one had pointed out the tremor of my hands, whether I would have noticed it at all. While moving, my hands trembled and shook slightly, but it was my normalcy; and even as the intensity of the shaking increased, it never bothered me. It did, however, bother witnesses.

For as long as I can remember, my shaking has been part of me. And for as long as I can remember, my shaking has made people uncomfortable. At the age of nine, I was diagnosed with Essential Tremor, a progressive neurological disorder that causes tremors in the hands, legs, voice, head, and other parts of the body, primarily when “in action.” My shaking occurs most notably when I use my hands. I’ve sat awkwardly at dinner tables as eyes follow my spoon’s erratic path to my mouth. I’m all too familiar with the looks of concern I get when reaching for cash in my wallet or counting change at a cash register. Sometimes the looks communicate judgment. My tremor opens a world of imagination for strangers. 

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There is a scene in the film where Edward is seated at the dinner table with the rest of his new family. We see him pick up a pea and we watch intently as he slowly tries to bring it to his mouth. Right as we think he might succeed, it slips out of his grip. He tries again with the same result.

Like Edward, I’ve struggled with utensils and bringing a cup to my mouth. I’ve scratched myself in the face and poked my eyes while attempting to apply makeup. Over the years, whatever control I had has worsened. The tremor has moved to affect my voice and legs as well. Sometimes I speak only in vibrato. Sometimes my legs buckle on staircases. I’m an earthquake in human form, ever-rattling, unstable, and a danger to glass objects everywhere.

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There’s a scene in the film where, while Edward carves a sculpture out of ice, Winona Ryder’s character, Kim, dances in the snow-like debris that rains down on her, mesmerized by the magic byproduct of his creation. While everyone else is focused on what Edward can do for them, Kim revels in the beauty of the unintentional. This is where the love lies.

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I was a kid who loved creating. I loved art of any kind, using my hands to make something, anything. Even as my hands betrayed my direction, I still continued on with my efforts. In school, my pencil-holding form was criticized for being incorrect. I couldn’t hold scissors the way I was meant to, their intended grip not strong enough to support the chaos of my hands. When I did hold scissors, I feared cutting myself.

A few times a year, my school’s art teacher selected a few students’ work to display in a showcase at the local art gallery. I watched students get picked time and time again to have their work displayed. Mine was never picked.

I gave up art in middle school. I got tired of being scolded for doing something wrong, consistently corrected for how a tool sat clumsily in my hand. Pottery was a nightmare. I couldn’t make a pinch pot if my life depended on it. Any clay in my hands was doomed to collapse by one unpredictable movement. When it came time for home economics, the sewing unit nearly took me out. My gym teacher didn’t believe that I physically couldn’t juggle. Yes, juggling was part of my public-school gym class curriculum. 

Eventually I accepted my fate; I was not meant for making.

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I’m not the first person to see a metaphor of disability in the story, but Edward Scissorhands is the closest representation I’ve seen to my own disability on screen. It’s somewhat absurd. How could I possibly identify so greatly with the mythical protagonist of a gothic romance fantasy?

Edward does not retire his art. He moves fluidly from shrub art to cutting hair, and of course, ice sculptures. I admire his commitment to creating, how he continues to make beautiful contributions to a world that does not treat him so beautifully. I’d like to be like that: undeterred from the making of art, even as the form changes. But the film is fictional, and I don’t have scissors for hands.

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There are a few moments throughout the film where we see Edward wiggling his finger-blades, either in excitement or else. We don’t really know why he does it. The movement reminds me of my own overcompensation, how I make my hands dance intentionally to distract from the unintentional. It’s something I’ve started doing without much of a realization that I’m doing it. When I know my hands are being watched, I wave and rotate them in a soft but exaggerated motion. I flutter them side to side, pantomime a snapping motion. I’m convinced this will fool people into thinking that the movement is something I’m doing on purpose. Perhaps they’ll think it’s a symbol of self-expression, or deliberate fidgeting. But the truth is that I’m tired of people thinking there’s something wrong with me. I’m tired of people making assumptions based on what they think is wrong with me, and even though I might not always like to admit it, I’m tired of something being wrong with me.

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It is frustrating to live in a body that can’t do what you ask it to, what it’s supposed to. We see the look of discouragement on Edward’s face every time he accidentally slices himself open. But we also laugh along with some of the moments of mishap and discovery: when he’s startled and punctures the waterbed, when he figures out his blades can double as skewers for kabobs, or when he’s forced to drink his whisky with a straw. His existence is not without tragedy, but it is also not without triumph. He is loved by Kim, not in spite of his difference but because of it. She isn’t afraid of his potential to hurt her. She isn’t afraid. This is something we can learn from. I can learn from this.

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Danielle Shorr (she/her) is an MFA alum and professor of disability rhetoric and creative writing at Chapman University. Winner of the Touchstone Literary Magazine Debut Prize in Nonfiction, a finalist for the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Non-fiction, and nominee for The Pushcart Prize 2022 & 2023 and Best of the Net 2022 & 2023, her work has appeared in The Florida Review, Driftwood Press, The New Orleans Review and others. @danielleshorr