this is stuff you like you can call me
Ursa and having short episodes is really
good but sometimes it means that you
have to leave things out so this is the
first in an intermittent sub series of
stuff you like called second look where
we will be going back and talking about
things that I've talked about already
the last time we looked at labyrinth we
used it as a jumping off point to talk
about the hero's journey and we talked
about harry potter and star wars and all
that kind of stuff as well but i have so
much more to say the blood it goeth
thusly Sarah bratty teenager wishes her
stepbrother away to the goblins and then
has 13 hours to run the labyrinth to get
him back she faces many challenges and
defeats the Goblin King marking her
giant steps towards maturity and
adulthood without losing the magic of
imagination and childhood now
adolescence presented as an
ever-changing confusing maze type
structure where the landmarks keep
changing the goalposts keep shifting and
you can never go back has some fairly
self-evident significance as does the
fact that Sarah's labyrinth experience
is tailor made for her by her and is
entirely about her whether the labyrinth
is a hundred percent real experience or
a chitty-chitty-bang-bang ask story
within a story or just a really trippy
dream she had it told hers Sarah's room
provides the ingredients for the
physical appearance at the labyrinth
like hoggle Jareth peach green dresses
serta domus the azure room but her mind
provides the emotional and mental
challenges the author of girls next door
once said to me that it's being confused
that helps Sarah through the labyrinth
and I think there's a lot of truth to
that it was an actual thing that
happened to her and the Goblin King is
real then she has him stumped because
nothing works she doesn't know who she
is and that means Jareth doesn't either
bribes don't work threats to work
childhood nostalgia doesn't work adult
debauchery doesn't work what will work
if the labyrinth is wholly Sarah's
creation it's just as confused about her
desires as she is Who am I is the
question that we ask the most during
adolescence and when we get older we
figure out that we never really know we
imagine that when we grow up we will
know exactly who we are
then we will know exactly how that means
we should act and think and be we
imagine that will find a box to put
ourselves into but even though labels
are useful they can never fully define
the infinite complexity that is a single
human being we are not numbers we are
free people what Sarah learns is that
she is a hero not a child not an adult
yet either but always a hero someone who
completes her quest and who does the
right thing someone who fights her way
to the castle through dangers untold and
hardships unnumbered and takes back the
child as an adolescent someone on the
edge of womanhood both the temptations
of childhood and the temptations of
adulthood are presented as ways of
getting her to leave her quest and both
of them are presented as kind of
monstrous and yes we talked about this
last time but labyrinth has very overt
examples of child versus adult
temptations and I want to talk about
that in more detail growing up is like
dealing with temptations and
prioritizing that which is most
important while still remembering to
have fun but we'll get to that in a
second the childhood temptation is the
gratuitous collection of useless
trinkets over the safety of a real
living person not that childhood is bad
but that trying to live it exclusively
when you are in fact growing up will
mean that you hurt the people around you
while there is this toxic culture of
boys will be boys and absolving young
men of old responsibility when they
commit truly heinous crimes there's also
an expectation that when you grow up you
are a man and you do manly things and
you rely on yourself and men tend not to
be infantilized the way that women
particularly young women are well
everybody gets it kind of from both
sides young women get the be a
sexualized free independent agent by
which I mean have sex with me and at the
same time they get you don't really know
your own mind you don't really know
yourself you're you're just you're just
a child you know you can't really make
up your own mind about things oh you
just need to find a nice man to look
after you what you don't want kids oh
you'll change your mind someday you
should really give him a chance he's a
nice guy I mean you
our young lady and young ladies are as
changeable as weathercocks you want to
grow up and be a leader and change the
world oh isn't it adorable she thinks
she's people childhood temptation lets
you power off the responsibilities of
adulthood onto others and the world is
an exhausting and horrifying place
sometimes which is why it's tempting
adulthood temptation is David Bowie and
his anime villain ensembles and adults
claiming or gaining understanding of
their sexuality isn't bad the same way
that you know childhood and indeed
collecting toys are not bad but while
childhood temptation is about regressing
back to who you were when you thought
happy meal toys were awesome adult
temptation is about who you might become
and what that might mean for you if you
are responsible for making your own
choices and not just the choices of
childhood you know red pajamas or blue
pajamas then you also have the
possibility that you will make the wrong
choices of course added to this is the
cultural narrative that portrays
relationships between men and women is a
sort of predator-prey set up being
desired and desirable is great right
except when it's really really not being
a woman and going on dates is great
right except when there's the constant
background hum of your worth driving
solely from what other people think of
you and your perceived sexual
availability and attractiveness look at
the other dancers in their lovely
dresses with their demon masks they are
laughing at her they are judging her I'm
not fear the fear of the censure of
others is huge especially when you're a
teenage girl and every choice is a bad
choice you get two little prude or you
did too much or you don't know
everything there is to know about adult
life and sexuality already oh you're
such a baby teenage girls man there's no
caddy and stupid and selfish on and on
it goes until you figure out that there
is no right way to be and you are angry
but before that when you're still trying
you're just afraid and there's a lot of
fear in this sequence there's the desire
to and it's very real the big musical
number the poofy eighties princess dress
David Bowie the fascination and the
temptation of sexuality is there but the
fear not just of becoming an adult or of
sexuality but of becoming the kind of
adult the
uses their sexuality as an excuse to
abandon responsibilities that's very
real especially for Sarah the child of
the mother who we infer never calls
adolescence is hard because you have
growing responsibility but you don't
have a lot of power yet you can't vote
you can't drive your choices are
constrained and so are your horizons
sometimes after all who is Sarah to
emulate she's not like her stepmother
her stepmother doesn't understand her
she's not like her mother or is she and
if she is like her mother does that mean
that she will leave the kid behind
that's why the fever dream peach bowl
comes before the toy collector Sarah is
taking steps towards adulthood
independent sexuality but they are
frightening and the main available
female role models are her biological
mother who wien fair she never sees or
her stepmother who interferes in bosses
and tries to push her into adulthood of
the piss she isn't ready for and she
does this out of love and concern but
it's still massively unhelpful but Sarah
Sarah chooses neither of these options
in her story Sarah decides that she will
be queen and this is the power of story
and of imagination you can break out of
the roles immediately available to you
you can become someone else entirely you
can choose from a lot more options you
can grow up and still have fun or
collect toys or LARP labyrinth is at
least partially about realizing that you
have the power and you can choose and
choose she does with her immortal ork
words you have no power and this is
growing up this is adolescence figuring
out who and what gets to have influence
over you and knowing that your own
domain at least you are queen with all
the power and all the responsibilities
that that entails you know I think it's
time to break out the tiara again
especially because I got through that
entire review of labyrinth without once
mentioning David Bowie's
[dance, magic dance...]