Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about Labyrinth

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 16

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You remind me of the babe…the babe with the power…

Join us this week as Emily shares her deep thoughts about the 1986 film Labyrinth. She and Tracie talk about the myriad and surprising sexual metaphors throughout the movie, how the film may not pass the Bechdel test, but still offers a feminist response to dealing with an abuser, and why David Bowie’s performance as the Goblin King was…ahem…a formative experience for them both.

(Also, that codpiece…)

Throw on your earbuds and listen along as we unpack the seriously weird sexual undertones of Bowie’s mulleted glory.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. 

Content warning: Discussion of fan theories about childhood sexual assault, grooming, and emotional abuse.

Mentioned in this episode:

Cracked.com Why Labyrinth is Secretly About Masturbation
Making of Labyrinth BTS
Interpretations of Labyrinth: Jim Henson’s Views
Labyrinth Novelization
R/FanTheories Labyrinth Is About a Girl Coping with Sexual Abuse

Emily Guy Birken:

This is Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the movie Labyrinth with my sister, tracy Guy-Dekker, and with you, let's dive in.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed Because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters. You know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over and think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people.

Emily Guy Birken:

So, tracy, I know you've seen Labyrinth. I feel like we saw it in the theater when it came out, but maybe I know for sure. I remember watching it at Dad's house on VHS with you. But tell me what you know about Labyrinth.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about it because we had, you know, we were scheduled to record, and the thing that comes to mind the strongest, honestly, is the soundtrack, which I adored. I had it on CD. I like invited my smart speaker to play it for me as we were getting ready and I was like thinking along to the five or so Bowie songs that he wrote specifically for the soundtrack. That I just really enjoyed. So the things I remember about it you know the most clearly from those early days when we were watching it as kids was is, honestly, david Bowie's costume, like no, there was some awakening.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I guess that's the word for it. I also like apparently I have a thing for men in eye makeup, because you know Mr Spock was my first TV crush. So anyone was wearing that like kind of blue eyeshadow and Bowie's got some serious eye makeup going on.

Emily Guy Birken:

He's rocking some serious eye makeup.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, and I really, really, of course, the pants and the cod piece, I think have a lot to do with my awakening, but I think the eye makeup didn't hurt, didn't hurt for me and that weird wig and that the thing with the spheres, like the I don't even know how to describe it.

Emily Guy Birken:

Like juggling, basically, yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But it's not because they stay on his hands. I thought that was so cool. I met a woman when I was a prospective student at my at Oberlin, like we went to like perspective students day and she had like practice that and could do it and like pulled it because of that movie and I just thought that was the worst thing ever.

Emily Guy Birken:

So, yeah, I know, you know this, but that wasn't Bowie, that was I know, I know, yeah, it was a guy behind him, and there's a part of me that is glad that there is at least one thing that Bowie can't do.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, he was pretty remarkable. Yeah, so I mean, those are like those are the things that. And there are like specific moments that kind of shine out as like bright lights, like the, the riddle between the two door knockers one always tells the truth and one and like trying to figure out that riddle and how exciting that was. And you know other moments that kind of stand, like every once in a while if I'm faced with a big like a smell that I don't care for, then I become Ludo. So it's in there. It's like you know I shouldn't you know what's in your head. This is definitely in my head.

Emily Guy Birken:

And.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I have it's, I can't say I've never examined it, because there have been like different articles that have come across my social media feed or whatever that I'm sure we'll get into a little bit of different interpretations about what is really I'm putting quotes around that word going on behind this fantasy novel that I just found disturbing and decided I didn't want to know so. So I think it's time. It's time for me to like follow you down this path to see a little bit more about what's in my head.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So, so what you got what? Why are we talking about this? Why? Why does this one matter?

Emily Guy Birken:

For a couple of reasons. I can recall loving the movie from early on. Similarly to you, I was seven when it came out, so you must have been 10. I just remember really liking it when Bo it was on screen. I just really really liked when he was there, even though I also really loved Sarah and her friends Ludo in particular was always one of my favorites because he I loved that he was friends with the rocks and things like that.

Emily Guy Birken:

I have been wanting to kind of revisit this movie for a couple of reasons. One is because, like you said, it's it's, it's part of the furniture of my mind. Another has to do with my just complete adoration of David Bowie. He is one of my heroes and there are aspects of his life and career that are not necessarily heroic. So and this is one of them where I look at it's not that I think he did anything wrong in this movie or anything like that, but there's, there's some weirdness. He was 38 years old when this movie came out and he's played as being in love with 15 year old Sarah, who was played by 15 year old Jennifer Connelly. So that's a part that was written and he played, you know, but still there's. There's some some, some weirdness in there. It's the kind of thing you're talking about, like you come across like I don't know if I want to look at this. So those are, those are the two big reasons.

Emily Guy Birken:

And then also, like we've talked about Jim Henson twice already, sort of we talked about Muppets in Space, which came out before or after Henson died, and we talked about Frago Rock. But I also just really want to kind of talk about the genius of Jim Henson and the ability to create this world that is feel so real, using practical effects, because this is like pre CGI and you know they had some. There's one part where you can tell that it's on a green screen, but other than that they do like pretty much everything. Well, there's one part with the, the fire walkers I can't remember what they're called, the ones whose heads come off. You can tell that's green screen and you can tell that the owl was CGI, the computer animation, because it's 1986 computer animation, right and so. And then there's a aspect of sexuality running through this film that I know I didn't pick up on as a kid that I'm very curious about and really want to grapple with with you Cool.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

All right, well, I'm excited about this. Let's, let's, let's catch people up Remind us what happens in this film.

Emily Guy Birken:

So film starts. We meet Sarah, who is clearly someone who loves fantasy. When we meet her, she is practicing lines for like play or something in like kind of a generic old timey dress in a park. Starts to rain. She realized she's late to babysit for her baby brother, who is the son of her father and stepmother. She comes home, gets into a fight with her parents Her stepmother is like you know, I'd love it if you were dating. You should be dating at your age, which is already a bit weird and the parents leave the baby, whose name is Toby and that's actually his name. He's Toby Froud, who is son of Brian Froud, who worked on this and was one of the puppeteers. So anyone worried that the little baby Toby was terrified being around like all these goblins. No, those were his friends, his family friends, his aunts and uncles.

Emily Guy Birken:

Anyway, toby starts to cry. She's frustrated, as any 15 year old would be having to deal with crying baby. She can't get him to calm down and so she wishes that the goblins would come and take him away right now, which is a line from her play slash book and the goblin king, who is David Bowie and all his glory and Muldered wig, shows up, it takes the baby away and she says why I'd like I want my brother back and and he says, alright, well, you've got 13 hours to make your way through my labyrinth. And so she sets off. First Person she meets is a dwarf named hagel, who happens to be peeing into a pond. When she comes upon him, he shows her the entrance. She gets a little bit lost. She's trying to keep track of where she's going by using a lipstick to mark the way, but there are little creatures in the labyrinth that keeps moving her marks.

Emily Guy Birken:

She runs back into hagel again. She steals his, his jewelry. He has a bag full of jewelry and To uses it to blackmail him basically into helping her. They they come across ludo, who is a giant creature a la where the wild things are, and he seems scary. So a go runs away. She discovers that ludo is actually a very gentle beast. The goblin king threatens toggle with being sent to the bog of eternal stench and so gives, gives him a poisoned peach to give to Sarah. And they see, they get past the bog of eternal stench and he gives her the peach. She immediately kind of falls unconscious and has this dream of being in a ballroom with a whole bunch of masked Revellers and David Bowie. She's wearing this gorgeous princess costume with the largest hair you've ever seen in your life and really big, big big skirt, big, lots of hoops.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I will. I actually saw all the costumes exhibit at the Maryland history, the Maryland Historical Society that's not what it's called now, maryland history and culture, that Jim Henson exhibit. There that costume was on display and it is Big. I mean it's got huge shoulders to, but yeah, yeah like big, puffy shoulders and this big, you know those cakes that they would make with a Barbie doll and the big dome. Yes, for the skirt. Yes, that's the kind of dress we're talking here people.

Emily Guy Birken:

It's during that scene that we get another one of Bowie's wonderful songs and she manages to wake up out of it but doesn't remember where she is and she seems to be back at home. There is a Old woman puppet who has like all these things on her back, who is like in her room with her saying like, oh, you need to keep all of this, keep your, keep all your dolls, keep all your toys. And she really she remembers that she needs to save Toby and gets out. She's finds her friends, including now Sardidimus, who is a dog. And what is Sardidimus's Steed's name? He rides the sir. Sardidimus is like a fox.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I always thought he was a fox and okay, I'd the dog, who's a sheep dog, who looks like a dog that we saw in the real world before right her dog.

Emily Guy Birken:

Merlin yeah, the dog's name and bro yeah and bro yeah yeah, yes.

Emily Guy Birken:

So an ambrosia is a coward and Sardidimus is so brave he's stupid. In any case, she reunites with all of them. They get to the Goblin City, they fight off the goblins and she ends up in the castle where she has to confront Jareth by herself and she ends up in a like emcee Escher painting in the real world when Toby is upside down and backwards and she's trying to find him and and Jareth is like following her in impossible ways until she finally Just jumps to get to Toby. It's like a leap of faith and she lands and has her final confrontation with the Goblin King, where she remembers the line that she always forgets, which is you have no power over me.

Emily Guy Birken:

Just as the clock strikes 13 and she is returned home, toby is returned home and she is kind of putting her things away when her parents get home from their date and All of her friends from the labyrinth show up Just kind of in mirrors saying like, hey, you know, should you ever need us, we'll be here, and she says you know what? I will need you sometimes in my life, every once in a while, and so they all show up in her room and have a big dance party while the owl, that is the Goblin King, looks on and then flies away. It's, it's a lot. I skipped a bunch of stuff too, yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

All right, all right. So, now that we're more or less caught up with the plot, where do you, where do you want to start with this?

Emily Guy Birken:

So I want to start with the question that has bothered me for a while, which is is this a feminist movie? It does not pass the Bechtel test.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah so the stepmother does not have a name in the movie. The novelization lets us know that her stepmother's name is Irene, but we don't get her name in the movie. She talks to the stepmother, but there's that's still even kind of about Men. It's about her father, it's about them going on dates. It's about her taking care for a little brother, toby, and it's about her like you know. You know, I assume you tell me if you had plans. I would love it if you had plans, you should yeah dates at your age.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, yeah, so it's all in service of men. The only other female characters we see. The character we see is the old woman with the the all of her stuff on her back the pack. Yeah and so she talks to Sarah about all her stuff. So not about men, but she's not named just have a name, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

So so fails the Bechtel test. Now, that's low bar. It's part of what has bothered me is the fact that there are so many movies out there where you get a female Protagonist, everyone around her as a guy yeah, like everything is male. In the same way that you'll get like, like the, the Golden Trio, and in Harry Potter you get a Girl. You can't, it can't ever be a golden trio where it's two girls and a guy. Right, you can, you can never. You can never have more than one. Right now, however, her resolution and her ability to prevail is Something she does entirely on her own. She loves her friends, they help her, she helps them, but when it comes to the final confrontation, she says I have to do this by myself because that's how it's done, and the line is you have no power over me, and that felt good to me as a kid.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I think there's also something in thinking about this. Like, though Sarah is exceptional insofar as the Goblin King has taken note of her, she's not actually exceptional in like a Dana Scully kind of way, and the way in which she prevails is also not exceptional in that sort of way. Right, it's actually very human and very accessible right To be able to kind of like find oneself and one's footing even when being intimidated by someone older and stronger and whatever more powerful, but it's not sort of a you know, she was the smartest in a generation like Hermione, or she was, you know, like Medical doctor and a FBI agent and FBI agents.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, and so there's something about that that feels at least different than the not like other girls kind of feminism that we have talked about several times on the show.

Emily Guy Birken:

And there is some suggestion that she's one of many. When she shows up, poggle says like. She says I'm Sarah. He's like yeah, I know.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, he says, of course you are Of course you are yeah. And I think one of the articles that went through my feed that I was like oh, I don't know if I want to know this.

Emily Guy Birken:

So and then I read something yesterday where we're suggesting like where did the goblins come from? Because Toby would have been turned into a goblin. Are they all younger siblings of teenage?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

girls Of Sarah's Of.

Emily Guy Birken:

Sarah's, and so the fact that she's one of many and is not exceptional, and then also her characterization early on. Now, I never had a problem with this growing up. When I was seven watching it, she, she seems like you know the kind of cool not quite real, grown up that that a 15 year old Teenagers are yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And so it never occurred to me that the way that she responded to her parents was inappropriate. Now, some of it has to do with the fact that, like I really hate the like, I would love it if you had dates like screw yourself, irene. You can have plans that are not romantic, and it's still important.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Especially at 15. I mean come?

Emily Guy Birken:

on, yeah, but the way that she responds to her parents is kind, is very immature Now appropriate for her age.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, and we don't like we are not given the details of this, of how long this, this new marriage with set mother, has been around, but like the fact that a teenager would be acting out against dad and stepmom, didn't? It certainly didn't seem implausible. Even as an adult looking at it. It doesn't seem implausible the way that she behaves.

Emily Guy Birken:

But all of it feels typical. She is responding in ways that are very typical for a teen girl and that's great, that's great. So I, I, I appreciate that, like there's, there is an accessibility to this, that's, that is a kind of feminist telling of what it means to be a girl, and I appreciate that. But then, on the other hand, you got the the all male cast otherwise and and the like.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Like more than half the cast are actually puppets. Yeah, so it's like, it's not like. Why would you? I mean, seems fairly easy to change the gender of a puppet.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, yeah, so Ludo could have been female.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Ludo could have been Luda, yeah, yeah, and actually that would have been really awesome to have a female rock talker with all that strength and, yeah, that would have been amazing yeah, like Louisa from Incanto. But different, but yes but different. Yes, Just like a different way to like show up Femininity. Yeah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Now part of also what I get I wonder about. So I looked up what Jim Henson was intending to do with this movie and what he he said in an interview that he had. He had an interview that he wanted to show that Sarah was learning about taking responsibility for herself and her choices as she grows up and learning to kind of like embrace some aspects of adulthood, while also recognizing that she doesn't have to lose who she is. She doesn't have to lose the fantastical part of her that it that loves stories and loves fantasy and and and loves to live in her dreams Right.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Imagination, she can do both.

Emily Guy Birken:

My favorite way of showing that she gets very angry early on when she realizes that probably her stepmother has taken her, her teddy bear lance a lot and given it to Toby without her permission, which is bullshit. Like you can't you don't take people's stuff without their permission.

Emily Guy Birken:

But it was just sitting above her bed, you know like on a shelf display was on display and so at the end, after she, she and Toby are safely back at home, she gives him Lancelot and said it's time for you to take care of Lancelot now, or something along along those lines, and that is like a very beautiful way of showing that she's taking responsibility for herself and for her actions and recognizing the ways that she is growing up while still holding on to her love for the fantastic by sharing that love with her Little brother. That's lovely. It's lovely of moments. But there's a lot of sexuality in this movie which we reacted to as children. Yeah, like we definitely saw it, even if we didn't understand what it was. Yeah, and so I just kind of want to go through real quick all the different ways that sex is invoked in this movie. And it's kind of odd. So when Jareth first arrives, he throws one of his fears at her, one of his bubbles, and it turns into a snake.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But you don't want to spell out the snake imagery for me. I think you can get it. Okay, so Jareth meets her and throws his dick at her. All right, all right. What's next?

Emily Guy Birken:

She meets Hagel and he's urinating, so he's got his penis Another dick, which and then that's also like for a 15 year old girl yeah, that is like how she's most likely to encounter in the best of all possible worlds. That is how she is most likely to encounter a penis At some point. She goes through a doorway and falls down into a pit of helping hands that are all the Ubliette, which is French for forget, or specifically Ubliette is to forget, ubliette is a place of forgetting, and so those hands are holding her and grabbing her, and then it's pretty interesting that the threat is the Bog of Eternal Stench. I had someone point out and I think that this is kind of interesting that like helping hands and the Bog of Eternal Stench has to do with, like, burgeoning sexuality and masturbation.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

And it's interesting that the hands ask her like they stop her, they arrest her downward fall and they're going to help her and they say, do you want to go up or down? And she's like well, I'm already pointed down, so I'll go down, which I had never thought about, the sort of innuendo of that. And so we're having this conversation right now. She said, down, you didn't finish your thought about the Eternal Stench.

Emily Guy Birken:

Oh, so the Bog of Eternal Stench. That is something that an adolescent girl is probably going to feel very uncomfortable about is the idea that things are changing. Things might smell different when she goes down. Right, so that could be. It's just interesting that that is what they went with. Now, part of it is that children's movie and kids are going to think it's hilarious and there's like farting noises.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, and there are farting noises from the like bubbles, and also there's something really, really funny when we get there in that scene that you didn't describe, where Ludo and Sarah are just like gagging with the smell of it and sorts of dismisses like what. I don't smell anything, which is hilarious when you're tense.

Emily Guy Birken:

Just sweet air. Like you know, this is one of those things where, like overthinking another aspect of this kind of burgeoning sexuality is when she is in the after eating the peach. Peach, a peach, a peach. I mean, it's only because candy an eggplant with a.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Exactly, you wouldn't make a big bite out of an eggplant and it is about female sexuality, this film.

Emily Guy Birken:

but when she has the dream, she's in the bubble where they're dancing. It looks like a child's understanding of what adult romance looks like. You know, you wear this beautiful dress, people are in masks and dancing, but what's interesting is that she and Jareth dance, but things start getting more and more frenzied among the other dancers, like a pace. The pace gets more frenzied. There's some weird like one of the masks has, or several of them have, a long nose and you see someone kind of like I don't know how to describe it.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, like kind of like masturbating.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I don't remember that. Oh yeah, oh, I'm gonna have to go back and watch that scene again.

Emily Guy Birken:

An excellent song, and so when she decides to try to leave she, she smashes the bubble with a chair and, like everything is coming to a frenzy, she then like kind of floats in the air, and so it really does kind of seem like what it's like to orgasm.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Like a build and then a climax.

Emily Guy Birken:

A build and then a climax, and then a release, a release where you feel like you're floating yeah, so um.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Tim Henson man.

Emily Guy Birken:

I know. I mean, I think it's like once you got David Bowie associated. What else can you do?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It just happens, Just happens. By association everything gets sexier.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, um, and then the way that Jared speaks to her in the final confrontation is he says love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave. Weird, that's really weird. What is it he's actually asking of her there and I have seen. So. I think that it's reasonable to look at this especially with what Henson intended and have it be like as a child who's going through these, these, you know, very big life changes in terms of family, but also like body changes, going through puberty and all of that, to be a little afraid of it and afraid also what that's gonna mean. Like that you can no longer be a kid and then come to the realization no, I can contain multitudes. Like I can enjoy those helping hands and that bog of eternal stench and also party with Hagel and Ludo and Cercidemus. It's like there's.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

no, there's no dichotomy there. I don't disagree, but I want to go back to love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave. Like where does that?

Emily Guy Birken:

I'm like Well, and that's part of the reason why. So that gets to the other possible interpretation.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

That's a lot darker.

Emily Guy Birken:

We. So Sarah lives with her father and stepmother. In the very beginning you see her looking at a scrapbook and she's got pictures on her mirror of her mother, who is an actress. For years I assumed her mother was just dead. Yeah, that's what I assumed. That's definitely what I assumed, always assumed she was dead. Yeah, if you read the novelization, it turns out no, she's not dead. She and her and Sarah's father divorced. Her mother is an actress and she is dating another actor whose name is Jeremy and who is played by in that. There's a photograph as David Bowie.

Emily Guy Birken:

There's a photograph of Sarah's mother and Bowie, which puts a very different cast on things. Now it could be that she has a crush on Jeremy because he's David Bowie.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

David Bowie. I was gonna say Join the club, sarah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, can't blame you there, but I have not read the novelization. I'm basing this on interpretations. I've read.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

This feels like an important parenthetical Is the novelization. Was it authorized by?

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, yes, it was authorized by contemporaries Henson.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Oh, okay, so it's canon, it's canon. Okay, it is canon. All right, carry on.

Emily Guy Birken:

So there are further Like there was like a second and third book that are not necessarily related and I think some of them work graphic novels, but the novelization this is like back when novelizations of movies came out pretty regularly They'd put them out at the same time. So in that we know that Jeremy is fond of Sarah, that he has taken her dancing and that he made a comment Not taken her dancing, but they went out to dinner the three of them and they danced and he said something about how the paparazzi are gonna think you and I are together, or something like that in the novel and she's 15. She's 15. So there is the potential interpretation that what she's dealing with is not just a crush and not just burgeoning sexuality, but having dealt with being groomed or molested by her mother's boyfriend.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yuck.

Emily Guy Birken:

And then that puts Jared's lines at the end in a really weird context, because he says, like you're so ungrateful, I have rearranged the world for you, I have stopped time, I have done this, you know? Like why is what I'm doing not good enough for you? Which sounds like the words of an abuser. And then the line love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave also sounds like something an older man would say to, which sounds like something an older man would say to a teenage girl who's always been told she's mature for her age, and seems malleable to him.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It sounds too like. I mean, it sounds like a dom talking to and trying to convince a person to be their sub in a BDSM relationship.

Emily Guy Birken:

And it's honestly like it's a little too on the nose because in a gaslighting relationship it would be much subtler and take longer. But that is like whenever I don't know if you read Am I the Asshole on Reddit? I'm very good, I love it Usually it's when you send them to me.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, so some of them and this is an outgrowth of my love for advice columns yeah, but basically you see a bunch which are like the immediately like there's an age difference. You're like, oh God, and the age difference is always in one direction, not the other, and it's where this child, like this young girl, has been groomed by an older man to love him, fear him and do what he says. So like it's a lot more straightforward there and part of it has to do with this is a fantasy and if we do take that interpretation, she knows that's what he wants from her subconsciously and so she puts it like very straightforward into Jared's mouth, so that makes it easier for her to say you have no power over me. That sounds like a bad deal to me Totally. It's disturbing thinking of it that way.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It's really disturbing thinking of it that way, because of how much I loved it and how much I loved the David Bowie like, yeah, presence. And also to your original question is this a feminist film? Like, if that is in fact, what is sort of happening in real life is that this child is using this fantasy as a way to process and make it so that she can do what she knows is right. Like she can act on that voice that's saying this is not okay. So she like projects the potential abuser or maybe abuser I mean, I guess we don't know Into this goblin king who is scary and sexy, but she can actually confront it and she does and wins.

Emily Guy Birken:

Like that's actually very empowering if I think about it that way, and that yeah, that's the way that I can kind of be okay with that interpretation is thinking about women, young children, anyone who has been in that position, and how much this movie would mean to them that it gives a construct for dealing with it.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I think too, like I'm glad you named that line, because I think saying it in that way, explicitly, so clearly, a bad deal, and to your point, that it wouldn't ordinarily be offered in that way, unless I mean I'm imagining like adult folks who are already in the scene, the BDSM scene sort of like this is where they agree to proceed, but in a less consensual and a less even power dynamic. It would, as you say, it would not be presented so plainly, and so to have it set up so plainly so that the person with less power can be like oh wait, yeah, that's a bad deal yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, there's something really poignant and powerful about that. Yeah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And so that brings in I mentioned early on that I kind of I need to grapple with the less admirable aspects of Bowie's life. There's only one that I know of for sure that, like it makes my heart clutch, which is there is a story from one of the baby groupies that's what they called themselves who claimed that she lost her virginity to David Bowie. She was 14 years old, he was in his 30s and at the height of his fame, and you know he was going on tour, and so he was pretty used to getting to his hotel room and finding a naked woman there. And that's what she did she just was in his bed naked. This is not like Jimmy Page, who actually, like, kidnapped a woman or woman, a girl she was 15 and kept her for a year. Oh, I didn't know that, it's awful, it's awful. So it's not like that at all, but it's still like in that power dynamic, you, he, had the power. So I don't know if it's true. I found something relatively recently that talked about how the woman who claims that has some like aspects of her story that are not that don't fit, which doesn't mean that it's not true, but just means that the way that she tells it can't be, can't be true, but I very much believe women. So there's that. Then, earlier this year, I was looking up, I found a behind the scenes making of about Labyrinth, which was really interesting because Gates McFadden, who played Beverly Crusher on Star Trek the Next Generation, is apparently a dancer and choreographer and she did the choreography for this movie and I had no idea. Yeah, wow, it was just like it was like when I found out that Paul Simon had been married to Carrie Fisher, I'm like I didn't know those two parts of my like pop culture childhood connected to each other. That is so cool.

Emily Guy Birken:

Anyway, one of the things that they included included some of the, the interviews with the actors, including David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly, who plays Sarah. Jennifer Connolly was 15 at the time. I always had assumed she was like 18 or 19 and playing younger because she looks older than 15. For sure, although, looking now, knowing that that she's 15, I can see it, if you know what I mean as a 44 year old watching this. And Bowie is talking about how much respect he has for Jennifer Connolly, how impressed he is with her, but the way he puts it is that she's so lovely and so mature for her age, which really squicked me out because he was 38. And also because I was the one getting the like you're an old soul, you're mature for your age, from older men when I was like as young as 13. Yeah, and even I mean I think I was 11 the first time I had an adult man hit on me.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Oh, yeah, my daughter's 11.

Emily Guy Birken:

I'm sorry. That, I think, is less to do about David Bowie himself and more to do with the way, especially in the 80s, although still to this day, we consider it appropriate to talk about girls and women. Yeah, but that is the atmosphere that this film was made in. Yeah, and so there is some weirdness to that as well. You know, they don't sexualize Sarah in the film, like she wears appropriate clothing and even like the costume that we were talking about. The ball gown costume is beautiful, but not like plunging neckline or anything like that.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I don't think anybody would consider it modest. Doesn't show off the figure in any specific ways Sexualized.

Emily Guy Birken:

It's just a ball gown. It's just lovely. It's the way that a girl would think about looking pretty.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, yeah, and her through most of it. She's wearing jeans and I can't remember what kind of blouse, and like a vest. It's very not yeah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

So it's a both end. Is what's going on with this movie Like? This does not feel as childhood ruining as when we talked about Ghostbusters. Great, that was awful, and I will not stop my adoration of Bowie Like I still revere him. I wish that he could have existed in a world that recognized the importance and autonomy of women, because he would have risen to that challenge. What would have risen to that Like? Because I know that he in the 1980s he was interviewed on MTV about something and he made sure to take the time to call out MTV for not including black artists during prime time. They saved a hip hop, r&b and rap or O MTV rap yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

It was like it's own show.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It was like here's music and here's black people music.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, and it didn't play until like 11 pm. So like you and I weren't exposed to rap music because we were watching it for in the afternoon after school, yeah, so like I know he could have risen to that challenge, he also did amazing things around gender and gender expression.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Like long before we had the word non-binary to describe gender fluid or gender queer. Like he was pushing on binaries in terms of gender expression, yes, before we even fully understood. No, let me rephrase that Before we as a society were pushing back against the binary. Recognizing that we were living in a binary.

Emily Guy Birken:

It just was natural and normal. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh. Okay, there is a crackedcom video from about eight years ago that I will link in the show notes. That is talks about some of this, like about how the movie might be about masturbation, and it starts with there's like one email crackedcom employee is talking to a female crack down employees about labyrinth and he was just like let's talk about David Boyd's dick and she's like you've got my attention. And so by the end of it they talk through this whole thing and she gets up because they're supposed to be in the office, like that's where they're. So she gets up. She's like all right, I'm going to go rub one out. I'll see you in a bit. I'll link that in the show notes because it is very funny, but it's like going in.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So it's an interesting question that this brings up. Like, since it was a Henson production, and like what you said about what his intention was with it and some of the things we have talked about, even in this show, where we see misogyny or other hierarchical thinking that we don't like, we've said, like Rob Reiner was not like I'm going to make a misogyny movie, he just wrote what he knew from the society that you know, like he just did and like.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

so I'm wondering, which? I'll never know the answer, but it's an interesting kind of hypothetical to think about, like how much of this sexual content, subtext, the sexual subtext, was conscious on the part of Henson and the other movie makers, and how much of it just.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

This is how we tell stories. These are stories that are interesting and like, just as we as the consumers weren't thinking too deeply into the potential symbolism that we were watching maybe the movie makers weren't either they just were like oh yeah, that's cool. Like I don't know, part of a turtle spence is funny.

Emily Guy Birken:

Like the helping act. One of the things that was interesting was seeing how, when they talked about, they realized they were going to do the helping hands. How they had the puppeteers figure out how to make faces Like that's not I'll. I'll link to this behind the scenes video as well, because that was fascinating.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So how they did it like where they made like the like two hands to be the eyes and the mouth and I loved that as a kid it was really like that.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So it's called labyrinth and we had that game, that labyrinth game with marble that you had to, like, twist in different ways, and so when she falls into the Oobliette like I just assume, like it's the game and she, she's the marble and just fell into one of the holes, had to go back to the beginning, right? So there was that piece of it's not even symbolism, it's just a structure, right.

Emily Guy Birken:

And so everything that's in the labyrinth is in the real world. So, like she has a labyrinth game in her room, she has a figurine that looks like the Goblin King on her right, right.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I remember that.

Emily Guy Birken:

Her little as a little figurine as well. Yes, and Ludo comes from where the wild things are like. Everything is from her room, and so, like the MC Escher print that she has above her bed, which is like what happens at the end, it's very well constructed because they thought through each and every one of those details.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, and that was in fact the hole for the marble and the labyrinth game. Yeah, interesting. Okay, any other insights you want to tease out, or should I?

Emily Guy Birken:

I mean, we've been talking for almost an hour I got a fluff that I got to share. There's the two knockers. One has the yeah. Those are the ones I mentioned from the, from my memory yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Where they have like a riddle.

Emily Guy Birken:

So no, no, no, no, those are. Those are the different one, the riddle are, yeah, the knockers. One has has the ring in his mouth and the other one and the other is ears, yeah, ears. I find myself thinking it's no use, can't hear you that? And like I'm yours to it when she manages to get the yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

She pulls his nose, pulls his nose To get the ring. She can put the ring back in. Yeah, it's okay, I'm yours to it.

Emily Guy Birken:

Both of those run through my mind three times a week.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I mean it's funny. All right, I'm going to try and recap. I say synthesis, but I'm not actually since that synthesizing, I'm just recapping. So I'm going to recap what I heard you talk about and then you can, you can, fill in.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So we started with this question of whether or not this film is can be considered a feminist film, and I think it's like a mixed answer is what I'm hearing like does not pass back del test, so not a good sign. On the other hand, sarah finds strength and bravery to confront fears on her own, not in a she's not like other girls kind of a way. So maybe kind of both. And we talked about the intention that Henson brought to it, which was that he wanted to. He wanted to show a story of Sarah taking, starting to take responsibility for her own actions, while recognizing that she does not have to leave behind the things that she loves from her childhood.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

We talked about subtext of sex in this movie and whether or not that was intentional, and there's kind of a lot of it. There's several dicks hanging out and one literally with hoggle peeing, and then there's also the sort of possible references to masturbation. There is the increasingly rapid frenzy of activity in a bubble which then bursts and then we're wait lists. There is also a couple of the interpretations which we get from the novelization, but also from other sounds like other commentators talking about. Potentially the Jareth represents a real man in the real world, mom's boyfriend, who at best Sarah has a crush on and at worst is actually grooming or already molesting her and her kind of processing that.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

And one of the, I think, comforting, satisfying consequences of if that's the case is that this movie then provides girls and and others who might be in that grooming situation kind of a model. And also it says explicitly this is a bad deal and you don't have to take it in terms of love me, fear me, do what I say and I will be your slave. And then, finally, you investigated a little bit of like your hero worship of David Bowie when there were moments when he behaved less than heroically, though perhaps not Absolutely villainously either, but rather were. He was a product of his time which was less than heroic. Did I forget anything?

Emily Guy Birken:

No, I think, I think that that's a pretty good. I think what I forgot.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I think what I forgot, actually, in my recap is that this is just a delightful film. Oh gosh, yes, beautiful music, really fun puppets and practical effects to your point.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

This is not like from the 80s, this is not the sort of CGI fantasy that we get today, and there's something just charming about these practical effects and the magic and imagination of Henson Studios, from the costumes, including the stuffed crotch of David Bowie, to the Puppets though, the ones that you mentioned that are on green screen, the sort of fire guys who, like, can take their heads off. And toss them around, and that's that.

Emily Guy Birken:

Escher Creation that was entirely real and done with practical effects and like there's one.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

There's one moment where Bowie Changes planes on the. Escher, like he cut, it's like he steps, but he like circles like 180 and spacing the other way. It's awesome. I mean it's just really, really charming. So I think that that's something that I didn't name yet that I want to make sure that we leave our listeners with.

Emily Guy Birken:

I will say that is the one part, because I know people have been like the poor kid must have been, toby must have been traumatized, you know being around these, these Muppets, but but they're, they're his family because, like his both his mother and father were puppeteers, her Muppeteers. But as an adult who has had children, seeing him sitting on the stairs In the Escher section, which is like he's kind of. That's what freaks me out. How did they make sure he didn't fall?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So yeah, that's yeah, all right. Wow, well, this was fun. What are we gonna talk?

Emily Guy Birken:

about next time. So next time I'm going again. Usually we try to trade off, but next time because tis the season we are going to be talking about a Christmas story You'll shoot your eye out Sure with the sexy leg and that's with the sexy lamp. Yes, that's the lamp trope comes from it does indeed, so I am very excited to talk about that with you.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

All right, well, talk to you soon. See you then. Hey podcast listener. Yeah, you.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

A Number of folks have been reaching out to us privately with their own memories or deep thoughts about our deep thoughts. Erin told me that our brief conversation about poltergeist in the Ghostbusters episode brought back some scary childhood memories. Marian hi mom pointed out that Fred Savage's dad in the Princess Bride was probably at work and that we were maybe overthinking that idea. Jake pointed out to us that we had completely missed the negative and potentially harmful stereotypes of Roma people that Underlie Robin Hood and little John's cross-dressing as fortune tellers in Disney's Robin Hood. We want to hear what you're thinking, but I bet other listeners do too. We have a forum feature on our website at guygirlsmediacom. Come join the conversation. I'll put the link in the show notes. Come on over. Let us know. What did we miss? What surprised you? Did we inspire any deep thoughts for you? Be in touch. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is professor oomlaut by Kevin McLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember Up culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?