![]() ![]() The closer she gets, the more his antagonism shifts to seduction (“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you”). Her quest is Jareth’s (admittedly perverse) way of courting her. He transforms (or Sarah’s awareness of him transforms) from an adult blocking figure like the Wicked Stepmother (whose wickedness is shown by her absolutely dreadful crime: making Sarah babysit Toby), there only to antagonize her, to something far more dangerous. But just as Bowie is the lone adult in a world of puppets and children, Jareth is the lone sexually–aware creature in a world of sexless monsters. ![]() What exactly he wants from her is never clear the movie is much more interested in her refusal than the details of what it is she’s refusing. And his obsession with Sarah shifts steadily over the course of the movie from basic (campy, over the top) fairy–tale villainy toward romantic/erotic love. Jareth the Goblin King is both highly sexual (those pants leave nothing to the imagination) and highly queer (oh the eighties, oh the blue eyeshadow). But Labyrinth is also talking about the shift from childhood to adulthood on another level, the very uncomfortable level of sexuality. That’s a story about the change from childhood to adulthood at its most schematic level that same schematic applies to all kinds of children’s literature (just for one example, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden). Moving back a step, it’s about Sarah accepting responsibility for herself and her actions, and taking the first step away from utter self–absorption to awareness of and love for those who love her. On the simplest level, Labyrinth is about Sarah’s quest to rescue her baby brother Toby from the Goblin King. We’ll get back to that in a minute, because I actually want to start by taking about Jareth the Goblin King. And much of my love for Labyrinth is based on exactly that: the amazing things the movie does with puppets. I knew who Jim Henson was, and what he and his team were capable of doing. I rented it because I loved the Muppets, had seen The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas (1977), and every episode of The Muppet Show (1976–1981) I could find. ![]() I think I first saw Labyrinth on VHS, rented from a video store, when video stores were still new and awesome instead of almost extinct. Bowie, who was performing genderqueer and genderfluid decades before anyone came up with those words, part of me still thinks, and will always think, of him as “Oh yeah, that guy who played Jareth the Goblin King.” Honestly, to this day, even though I have a much broader, deeper, and more nuanced appreciation of Mr. Good times.) I had no idea who David Bowie was. (I hit menarche that year and was part of the first sixth grade class in my home town to move from the elementary school to what was still called junior high. When Labyrinth came out in 1986, I was 11 years old. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |