It's only forever, not long at all 🌙✨️🔮🦉🐛🧱✨️

Reading this piece by The Atlantic encouraged me to write this. I am also very excited about the up-coming collection from Vixen by Micheline Pitt.

There are some  brief mentions of adverse childhood circumstances, parental alcoholism, and brief references to allegations, so please proceed with caution if that is not your jam. 💖

Edit: just to make an edit, I think Sarah's mother is still alive. I had previously  thought that her mother died. Instead, it appears as though her mother is very much alive, but has abandoned her.

There are very few films that have moved me or have meant to me as much as Labyrinth. 

I have previously spoken about this at length, but, as a child, I spent a large part of my very formative years neglected. It's interesting to me that people who are a little older than me hold similar experiences as some kind of flex, but I say what these experiences were (and are): neglect. There are other factors I will not get into (but you can check some of the tags for other recounts of pretty horrifying experiences), but understand that a large part of my very, very early years were me looking after myself and watching the same VHS tapes over and over. 

I remember very, very vividly one evening, my biological father leaving me home alone to go walk to the gas station to buy more beer.  I watched him from the front window walk the very short block to the gas station, but he did not return for much longer than it would have taken someone to go in, buy beer, and come back; I don't really have a handle on how much of a length of time this actually was. The television had been left on the Disney Channel. The Disney Channel in its developmental existence used to play all kinds of things--Disney films and shorts, music videos, old non-Disney classic films, award ceremonies, and concert series. (It's not me just being bitter or overly nostalgic, the halcyon days of Disney Channel yore were, indeed, a vastly richer experience.) On that fateful night, there was a David Bowie special. I remember very, very vividly not understanding what or who I was watching, but knowing that I had to be part of whatever that was. I would have been around 3 or 4 at the time; I saw David Bowie on TV for the first time, and thought to my baby self, "I want that. I have to be part of whatever that is." 'Let's Dance' was also featured at some point on DTV (and I have been desperate to find this footage again).

We had the Labyrinth VHS, which my mother had bought for Bowie and for Jim Henson, although it was something they had bought just to have. It was I who became fixated on this film. (We actually still have the VHS, and I recently purchased the anniversary DVD set.)

This fixation was only solidified once it started airing on the Disney Channel.

Labyrinth was one of those things that I loved that no one else cared about, and I was devastated. It was heart breaking. How do you, as a 5-6-7-8-9-10 year old, try to connect with your peers with things that you loved when no one else you knew had ever seen this movie? But on that fateful day in 1997, Labyrinth aired on my beloved Disney Channel and now ONE HAD ANY EXCUSES. I am not one of those people who say, "oh, well, I liked this before it was cool, I liked it first." No, absolutely not. I am the opposite of a gatekeeper, I am a "let me introduce this to you, PLEASE"  type of person.

I am going to back up for a second, because I feel as though I need to paint a clearer picture; I spent a lot of, in fact most of, my childhood completely isolated and ostracized from my peers. I am not going to get into this so much in this entry, because I have touched on this multiple times before (but you're free to check the tags). But to get an understanding of my isolation, I had 'friends' that I drew, cut out, reinforced with tape, and kept in a book (which I still have) in order to have someone to play with and talk to. My toys and my little characters were my friends. I, like Sarah, was regularly lost in my vivid imagination for survival. I may or may not have maladaptive daydreamed decades my life away in order to mitigate the horror my my existence.

Labyrinth is the story of a young teenage girl named Sarah, who is shamed for her refusal to 'let go' of the things that comfort her and conform to the expectations of the selfish adults around her. One night, when Sarah's awful step mother (who is in the picture in the first place because her biological mother has abandoned her)  once again saddles her with watching her baby half-brother, Toby, Sarah indulges in her own selfishness and wishes that the Goblin King take Toby away.

Suddenly, the Goblin King appears and offers Sarah with everything she's ever wanted--in exchange for her brother. When Sarah has second thoughts, Jareth, the Goblin King, takes Toby and gives Sarah 13 hours to solve his labyrinth or Toby becomes a goblin forever.

As with many of the other 1980's dark fantasies made for children, Labyrinth trusts its child audience. Childhood is bleak and scary for many of us; we are surrounded by inept adults who make no sense, who lie, who make terrible decisions-- all of which we are at the mercy of. It's the right blend of a little scary with a lot of whimsy. There are a lot of themes, with none of the heavy handed patronizing.

I know that most other people when citing scenes in this film that effect them are going to say the Escher-inspired scene or the Ballroom. For me, the one that effects me the most is The Junk Lady. I  actually don't have the same take away from this scene that I think you're supposed to--the idea of this monster-thing taking all of my stuff is spiral-inducing, if I am being perfectly honest. The idea of some monster coming in and taking what little in my life I did(do) have, and the idea that my treasured friends are "just stuff" is a little too much for me.

There is something I also have to address that  was touched on in the Atlantic article. I am not going to go into too much because the Atlantic piece did a good job touching it, and I am not going to fully address the allegations against Bowie (because those are ...surprisingly complicated, and I am not the best person to talk about them--there are others who are way smarter and way more appropriate than me to speak on this, including the people who this allegedly happen to.) The age difference between Jennifer Connelly as Sarah and David Bowie can get uncomfortable and weird to a modern audience. I never noticed it until I watched a few reviews of this film in the last couple of days.  One of the reasons why this never occurred to me was because I am not a romantic-minded person, and  those were forgettable moments in the film compared to the Henson creatures--it was a dull obstacle to wriggle through impatiently until you got back to Ludo. Secondly, Jareth is supposed to be one of the fae, meaning he is not just David Bowie at 39, he is Jareth at at least a couple of thousand years old. He is also the villain, and this "relationship" or "temptation" is seen as wrong. Sarah is not supposed to give into this temptation, she is not supposed to fold to this, she is supposed to, despite everything she wants being presented to her, put that aside to save her baby half-brother. It's not a love story, it's a test of character. Jareth is the villain, and plays the classic role of the deceitful fae throughout the course of the film (even though he is not all bad, though I will not spoil the ending). Of course, because you're dealing with the fantasy of a teenage girl, there is some romantic fantasy aspect of it. However, as I said before, this was not my focus point for enjoying this film, and I was vastly more interested in Sarah herself and the Muppet-y creatures. (Also, if you think you are going to make a "clever" snide comment about me enjoying this film so much because I have "daddy issues," you can immediately--if not sooner-- launch yourself directly into the sun! :D)

Labyrinth pulls from the designs of Brian Froud and the traditional fae lore, to tell a story that takes little touches from other classic heroes and their journey stories such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of OZ, and Peter Pan--that seemingly powerless and  faced with harrowing circumstances, you can pull from the strength within yourself. I think that's a very powerful message. I also think that saying you don't have to give up the things that make you feel safe. Our imaginations and the ability to draw strength from our comfort items are sometimes the only tools we have. Our imaginations save us. Our toys and little characters save us. We are put in a world full of deceitful adults, rules we are expected to follow that make no sense that none of the adults follow. The people who are supposed to keep us safe do not. The adults who act selfishly tell us we are the selfish ones for not accommodating their selfishness, their rule by their own whims and indulgences. Instead of the pressure to push away from "childish" things, it asks us to use them as our totems of strength. Just as the fae are not always as they seem, the adults and their bullshit rules aren't, either.

I cry more as an adult watching this film than I would have as a child. There is so much about this film that makes me feel safe in a world that has done so little to protect me. But there is also so much sadness in watching this film now; Bowie and Jim Henson are now both gone, my grandparents who used to watch this film with me are gone, every year I inch farther and farther away from a childhood I never had.

Labyrinth is more than Magic Dance (which is amazing, don't get me wrong), or the tightness of David Bowie's pants, or the meme of the worm‐caterpillar creature in the wall. It's more than the ballroom scene or that incredible gown. It's about navigating the societal pressure as a young woman to "grow up" and meeting the demands placed on you of  taking 'personal responsibility' on your own terms-- especially if you consider that women, particularly young women, are often saddled with responsibilities and seen as "immature" and "selfish" for not waiting on their families (who have demonstrated they don't care about them, also see: Pearl). Sarah loses herself in the worlds of fantasy and make believe to escape her real-world horrors of losing her mother, her father's disregard for her emotional needs, and being forced to take care of the symbol of the absence of her mother: a child from a step mother who mistreats her. 

Labyrinth is about learning that more than one thing can be true at once--you can grow up and still need your toys to guide you, you can save your brother even though your step mother is a monster, David Bowie can be an imperfect artist who has been a safe haven for many marginalized people with complicated allegations from someone who doesn't see themselves as a victim. Not everything is  simple or wraps up neatly. It's not narrative, it's real life. For as fantastical and as magical and Labyrinth is, there is a lot of realness to it.

I am so grateful that this movie has become the cult classic it so richly deserves to be. I am so grateful that so many people love this film, that we live in a world where I can sit here typing this wearing a lavender glow in the dark Labyrinth sweater listening to the soundtrack on repeat, that I can send YouTube clips to my sister begging her to finally let her kids watch it. I love that I now exist in a time where something that was once a sole comfort in an lifetime of isolating experiences can now be shared with other people in a weird, communal gathering of pocket friends. Only this time, my pocket friends live in my phone and I talk to them every day (and occasionally get to hug them in real life) and aren't ones I have drawn for myself. 

I love this movie. I probably love this movie more than I have loved a lot of people in my life. I love that 37 years later as of this week,  we can continue to learn from it. We can continue to find new parts of ourselves in its twists and turns. I love that we can share it with  those we love who are seeing something we love so much for the first time. A film about taking your power back as a child, or taking the power back for your inner child, is something many of us need now more than ever. 

"

You have no power over me

."