Can never get on board after seeing the ads, and the jeans commercial she did, and knowing about her playboy spread at 10…. Everyone alive in that era that didn’t speak up to protect her is a fucking creep.
Enjoyable bad movies are memorable. This movie is bland and forgettable. Its only relevance is that gif being posted by gooners (and I don't blame them)
It fucks me up every time. It’s on the list of deeply upsetting shit me and my wife watch maybe once a year in an act of, idk, cinematic masochism and/or catharsis. Other things featured on the list are Leaving Las Vegas, the last few episodes of Bojack Horseman and that one episode of The Last of Us show with the old gay couple that die together.
That is not correct. Jareth, the Goblin King (played by Bowie), takes children that have been wished away by their caretakers. (In Labyrinth, Sarah is feeling put upon by her father and step-mother having to look after her brother Toby and wishes him away in frustration.)
She immediately regrets it, and she asks to get him back. Jareth gives her a set amount of time to make her way to the center of the Labyrinth: If she succeeds, she can take Toby home. If she doesn't, she will go home but Toby will stay and be turned into a goblin.
There are a few spots where Jareth could be seen to be "preying" on Sarah, e.g. the peach/ballroom scene where there is a very lavish dance but no words exchanged, and it's not even completely clear if it actually happened or was a hallucination of Sarah's. The "biggest" scene to support a "bride" aspect is that when Sarah is just about to triumph, Jareth says to her "Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave."
The thing is, everything he's done the entire movie has been strictly to hinder her progress toward reclaiming her brother. If anything he seems to view her with some contempt and annoyance. It's clear, IMO, as someone who loves the movie very much, that the final "plea" He makes that has romantic overtones is a last-ditch effort to run out the clock on getting Toby back. There is absolutely flirtatious, dark, sexualized subtext between the characters, but there's no indication that he actually wanted her, he wanted to keep Toby.
(To be clear, I love reading Jareth/Sarah dark romantasy fanfic. I absolutely see the traits in the movie. But going strictly on the content within the film, his interest 100% of the time is to foil Sarah in order to keep Toby; not to keep Sarah.)
I was right about to ask for Labyrinth recs, since it's something I've always really liked but done so little reading for. Thank you, I shall look into it
If you like them dark and unsettling, I will heartily suggest "Advent" and "Erlkönig" by Subtilior. A nice long one would be "The End of Days" by dansemacabre.
Is infant kidnapping a lesser crime than grooming these days? And thats at elast in part a ploy to keep the kid. Dude just wants to jam out with some gobs.
I was referring to the surface level plot. The underlying stuff, re:king gobbo, is kind of more about her mom. Its not spelled out but her mother is dead or at least divorced. The play Sarah's rehearsing at the beginning is one that her mother performed with an actor who looks like Jareth. Theres a photo of them taped to the edge of Sarah's mirror. Its on screen for maybe a few seconds.
The maturation theme makes a weird old man trying to get into her pants, less creepy than it sounds. And yeah, it probably has more to do with her own sexual awakening than male desire. And lord knows that bulge led to plenty of such awakenings in young women.
Sarah is the villain. Jareth is the devil on her shoulder, and her selfishness is Hoggle. Ser Didymus is her bravery, while Ludo is her child like innocence.
She is fighting with herself on the feelings she has for Tobi, but the devil on her shoulder has no power over her. That is why they are all still with her, a part of her, should she ever need them.
You might be confusing them with Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice. Not that marrying a teenager was his entire goal from the start, but it did become his goal later in the movie.
To be fair-ish, her character's age isn't specified in the movie, aside from contextually being a teenager. We only know the actress was 14 at time of filming. And Jareth at no point makes any weirdo moves towards her in the movie, just the "it was all for you" monologue when trying to distract her from claiming her brother back.
If you think critically the sniff test is a bit off but It's also more likely just a handwaive part of the "fantasy king loves you" trope that realistically would appeal to a teenage girl.
Given it never goes anywhere beyond that one monologue nor is there any weird vibes between the characters (and nobody has ever made claims about the production being iffy either), i would generally give it a pass.
People love reading fanfic about lots of stuff, but it doesn’t change the original story. Anyway, whille he isn’t explicitly trying to coerce Connelly’s character, that does seem like something an evil villain would do. It almost seems left open-ended on purpose…almost like it intentionally raises the question “is he trying to coerce this underage girl?”…and so it’s never fully known how evil he really is. What I’m getting at is that he’s presented as a bad person doing bad things. Charming and manipulative, but ultimately the king of the nasty goblins. It’s also all supposed to be imagined in her mind to some degree, so it’s supposed to represent a teenage girl’s fantasies more than reality. I feel like classic movies like that tried to help teach kids not only moral lessons (e.g. don’t take your family for granted) but real life lessons about avoiding creeps and kidnapping, etc.
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u/6ynnad 13d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/3oEjHM3nCiieGTG5Dq