🗝 dance, magic dance!

a convo with my sister on David Bowie's Labyrinth

Growing up we had a few different babysitters, but my sister and I will never forget Imogen from Norway, who showed us Labyrinth for the first time. Harriet and I, already having been trained David Bowie fans from birth (thanks Mum and Dad), were obsessed the instant we saw his dramatic entrance as the Goblin King, curtains and sleeves billowing in the midnight wind.

I recently called Harriet up and asked her if we could talk about Labyrinth for an hour. She, being the busier, more organised, married, well-adjusted sister (yet somehow the younger one??? beats me. nahhh Harriet you’re alright), found time in her busy schedule. Both of us re-watched the 1986 classic, and then jumped on a call.

Here’s what we talked about.

Olivia: So Harriet, what made you want to speak to me today about Labyrinth?

Harriet: You texted me saying 'please do this.' And I had time.

O: What did you think?

H: [shows an entire page of notes on her phone] I have so many notes throughout the entire thing.

O: I was taking notes in the beginning. Mine are a lot shorter!

H: My last one was "yellow and gray eyeshadow with a yellow lip as a look" for the last scene with David Bowie. He was wearing yellow lipstick. Like, banana-coloured lipstick.

O: No he wasn't wearing banana lipstick.

H: He was wearing yellow lipstick that matched his eyeshadow!

O: Okay, I need to go back and check that out.

H: I was watching it in 4k on our beautiful big screen, our massive tv.

O: Right. Was your first note "Sarah is so real for cosplaying alone in a park?"

H: No, it was "Sarah lives in a mansion"

O: Yes!

H: And her mom was an actress!

O: That’s right!

H: I never realized. That’s the only time it has clicked with me. I'm like, oh the cosplaying makes sense now. She's not just a nerd.

🕰 Enter Goblin King

H: Reading Midnight Sun [part of the Twilight series] and then watching Labyrinth, is an experience.

O: [makes muffled screaming noise]

H: Because they're both about a dramatic, eccentric, mythical older man obsessed with a teenager... Truly, Jareth is in love with Sarah. It's difficult to read it any other way. And I don't know what happened before? Because he's clearly chosen Sarah, from the beginning. But she's also not surprised that he appears?

O: Well, I think there’s a little suspension of belief, in order to get the whole ”Whoa what's happening?” out of the way.

H: There's no ”who are you?” It's just like, ”ah yes, Jareth.”

O: “Oh, Jareth!”

H: “Hello Jareth, make yourself at home!” …He's called Jareth. 

O: And he is just so happy to have human interaction. Like, the man is desperate. It's so funny because when he comes in, he almost has a little smile on his face. And he's like “no, be serious,” because he has to do his dramatic speech, but I think he's just really happy. Because he's literally been living with goblins and chickens, like, for so long. And he hates them! They don't laugh at his jokes! 

H: Honestly, I think David Bowie wanted to be in the Muppet Show and they just couldn't make it work, so they made a movie instead.

O: I mean, I'd rather them do this. A Muppet Show would be great, but an entire movie is way better, and he gets to write the songs as well.

🕯 The Dress

O: I think, as a girl, and everything that gets put in our head, all of us want to have a ‘Mysterious Ballroom Moment.’

H: You know how there are the five mother sauces in French cooking? Well, there’s the three mother dresses. The dresses that everything is tied to when you want a ball gown. And it's the dress in Labyrinth, it's the dress from Pirates of the Caribbean, and it's the dress from Anastasia.

O: The purple dress from Anastasia, 100% yes. The dress from Pirates of the Caribbean, I totally forgot about.

H: It's a good dress.

O: Yeah, you're right. I'm trying to think of any other dresses… to be honest, I think the dress from Anastasia sweeps. It's just the ultimate, the ultimate dress.

H: Sarah’s wardrobe slaps, though.

O: Yes, poet sleeves and waistcoats for everyone.

H: I kind of want to emulate that in one of my teaching outfits. I think that would be cool when I'm introducing my Higher class to Shakespeare, or something.

✨ On Glitter

H: [talking about the set] When I was younger I was like ”oh everything’s just glistening because it's just rained.” Incorrect! Everything very clearly has glitter on it, like it's just fallen off of Jareth's cloak as he was just walking around the labyrinth.

O: See, I thought it was slime from, like, snails? I just thought snails had been over everything. That was like one of my major realisations —  I don't know why it was a major realisation — from watching it again. Just the amount of glitter employed in the general world.

H: The cobwebs in the oubliette have glitter on them, the candle has glitter on it, the walls have glitter, the fallen tree trunks have glitter and it's literally just because it's just fallen off of Jareth. It wasn't intentional, it's not magic, it's just what happens with glitter.

O: He just touches things. Also oubliette. I want to have a black dog called Oubliette now. I think it's a great name.

H: ‘Forgotten,’ the dog!

O: 'Oubliette!' shouted across the park! And he could have a little bow!

H: Ooblie.

O: Ooblie. Little Ooblie.

🔮 On Crystals

O: So, the crystal that “shows your dreams?” …not that appealing.

H: Was that what he was offering?

O: Yeah, Jareth was like, “oh look at this” and he held up the crystal. He's like, “this will show you your dreams” and it's like... thanks?

H: I was so distracted now that I know that that's not David Bowie's arm that's going like this. [does wavy motion]

O: What?

H: No! Why do you think he's wearing a massive cloak every time he does that? It's literally just someone sticking their hand up and going like this [wavy motion] and it looks so goofy.

O: That's funny because I did actually wonder that, the first time I saw him do the crystal ball rolling.

H: He could do tiny bits, but not sustained while he was acting.

O: I just thought with David Bowie, he would have put in the time and effort to learn how to… I don't even know what you would call that.

H: It's called contact juggling.

O: Contact juggling.

H: Contact juggling.

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🪄 Why not share this with a friend?

You know, the one who dressed up as Jareth for Halloween (or you know will dress up as Jareth for Halloween, one day).

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⏳ We Don’t Scare Children Like We Used To

O: I genuinely feel like kid’s movies don't set out to scare children the way they used to. And they need to.

H: [pauses] I want to fight back and be like, no, there are scary kids movies. But honestly, I'm just thinking of TV shows like Over the Garden Wall and Gravity Falls. They don't shy away from scaring. Kids are weirdly okay with creepy things. [pause] Also I really want to know what that baby was experiencing when they filmed the ‘Magic Dance’ scene and they were just surrounded by funny little guys. Because babies have no concept of filming, so, one day, that baby was just surrounded by the fuckiest looking muppets.

O: I would love it if that kid just grew up and never realised he was actually in the movie, and just had these like inexplicable dreams. Like, recurring goblin nightmares. But the thing is, right, with this movie and Never-Ending story and, um… I can't think of other examples, but they all have something I've called in my head, ‘Twilight in Fantasyland.’

H: Return to Oz, the second Wizard of Oz movie.

O: Yeah! Where things are weirdly quiet, weirdly creepy, there's stuff like upside down, stairs and pyramids and it feels like the sun's about to go down. The sun's constantly in a state of going down.

H: There's a fog machine, and cobwebs, and forests. Lots of forests.

O: But nobody is there? Like, nobody who can make any sense of it is there with you.

H: And specifically fake rocks, with that kind of orangey, painted sky backdrop, like that first scene where she sees the goblin castle and the Labyrinth. It’s like those Greek myth videos that we would watch in Latin class? Straight-to-TV stuff.

O: Oh my God yes. And also, sort of half-related is that Encarta ‘95 cover. Do you remember Encarta ‘95, Harriet?

H: It sounds familiar.

O: Look at it. Look up ’Encarta ‘95 CD ROM.’

H: [Googles image] Oh. It feels familiar? But this definitely wasn't as much a part of childhood for me as it was for you.

O: Sometimes I would just go on the computer just to go on ’the encyclopedia.’

H: It feels like, high concept, low budget.

O: There's a creepy emptiness to it. But also… statues? I can't put it into words.

H: Yeah, I know what you mean on some levels.

O: I could make you a mood board of this and you would understand it conceptually. But you wouldn’t be able to say what it was.

🪨 REALLY STUPID DISCUSSION ABOUT ROCKS

O: Big rolling rocks. Where's their place in Hollywood now? What's the big rolling rock of the 2020s?

H: [launches into an extremely long and confusing thought train about big rolling rocks in movies] … ‘big rolling rock’ really had its moment with Indiana Jones, but now it feels like every other big rolling rock is just trying to capture that magic again… I think there isn't space for ‘big rolling rock’ in the films that we're making today… the big studios are controlling everything… people aren't brave enough to do big rolling rocks… no-one’s brave enough to put a big rolling rock in an introspective movie.

O: [eventually] What you're saying doesn't make any sense.

H: I'm just saying I want to see Timothy Chalamet crushed by a big rolling rock and no one is willing to do that.

O: No-one's getting tied to the train tracks anymore. This is what I was thinking when I was watching the rocks rolling. I was like, “oh a big rock rolling!” It’s peril, in quite a visceral way, where it's just about a moment between one person and ‘the thing.’ It’s just a moment between a person and a rock.

H: Man versus god, man versus nature, man versus rock.

O: …I'm probably gonna cut this whole section.

H: Yeah, this is useless.

👀 Recasting Jareth

H: Who would you cast as Jareth in the inevitable prequel about the Goblin King?

O: Okay, but it has to be 2023. And it has to be a musician, I'm gonna say. [pause] Oh god my head is just saying ‘Matty Healy’ because it hates me. It cannot be, we CAN’T let him do this. It can't be Matty Healy. Okay let me just do a quick google, um, [typing] ‘musician men, 2023.’

H: We know who it definitely can't be.

O: Harry Styles.

H: It's not Ed Sheeran, it's not Harry Styles. There's no way Ed Sheeran could pull that off and Harry Styles is not an actor.

O: Harry Styles would be so excited about it, but he would never, ever, ever be able to pull it off. We need someone who's mainstream but also independent.

H: See, I'm thinking Hozier.

O: What? …Okay.

H: I don't know why, maybe it's just because he's tall and he has long hair. But he does feel like a goblin.

O:  I… don't hate that actually. Or! Hear me out: St Vincent? She actually did something with David Bowie, I'm pretty sure.

H: I can see her as the Goblin King.

O: Yeah that would be my first choice. No, I think Hozier is good. Who’s… who's a guy who's just, like, a freak? [Googling] ‘men who are freaks, 2023.’

H: Sufjan Stevens.

O: No he's too gentle, I don't think he could do it. It can't be Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, because he would just be the saddest Jareth.

H: I feel like at one point Brendon Urie would have been a good choice, but –

O: OH NO! He'd be like, [high-pitched] yaaaaaaa! Oh, the songs he would write. He'd be like, [singing incredibly loud] EVERYBODY IN THE LABYRINTH, CLAP YOUR HANDS! EVERYBODY IN THE LABYRINTH, GET DOWN TONIGHT! That's what he would do. And it would be awful. [defeated pause] Okay, maybe Hozier is the best choice. People can, um, come up with their own ideas.

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✨ WHO WOULD YOU CAST AS JARETH IN THE 2023 GOBLIN KING PREQUEL?

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👨🏻‍🎤 The Goblin King

H: I do fully believe that Jareth is at least a thousand years old.

O: Really.

H: Like, I think he's old old. But I also think time is different to him.

O: Do you think all the goblins he has are babies?

H: I don't think they're babies, in comparison to the other goblins. I was also thinking, are all of these goblins just guys who live in the castle, or are they his court? Are they courtiers? Are they nobility? I think there are goblin babies. But I don't think all of his goblins are babies.

O: [laughing] No I mean do you think all the goblins are babies he's stolen, and turned into goblins.

H: Ohhhhhhh okay.

O: Not just, ‘all the goblins are baby goblins!’

H: I don't think there's been a recent baby he's stolen, because people have stopped believing in the Goblin King. I think that they've not had a goblin-baby since, like, the early 1900s, late 1800s.

O: Yeah, it definitely feels like Sarah is the only person still engaging with the Goblin King, and to be honest, he's probably been so happy about it, and excited for the day that she finally doesn't want her little brother anymore, so he can send her into the Labyrinth and have this interaction with her. Good for him.

H: But he's also trying to pull her out of the Labyrinth at the same time.

O: Is he trying to pull her out of the Labyrinth? I mean, he doesn't want her to even start the Labyrinth.

H: I think he's just kind of worried about human connection and being rejected and seeming weird because he hasn't talked to any humans in a couple hundred years.

O: Totally. Aw, poor Jareth! But there are those people who are at his ballroom party?

H: Yeah, but I think that's like that's within a fantasy, and I think it's his fantasy of having friends.

O: Oh noooooo! He’s so lonely!

H: Or, okay, here's a theory: I think that [the ballroom people] is what all the goblin court looked like a couple hundred years ago. And Jareth’s gonna look like a goblin eventually.

O: Through age?

H: Yeah.

O: So he's like literally the last man standing of the Goblin Court.

H: Yes.

O:  Maybe it's like a Beauty and the Beast situation, where he needed Sarah to become his bride so that he wouldn't turn into a goblin.

H: Or so that he would turn into a goblin, maybe.

🌈 More conversations with friends coming! I do a collaborative newsletter like this once a month.

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📝 JOIN ME IN THE COMMENTS SECTION…

1. What music artist did you parents get you into?

2. What movie or tv show scared you as a kid?

3. Do you think we’ve stopped scaring kids as much in films and TV? Do we need to start scaring the kids again with weird movies?

4. Do you have a favourite David Bowie song?

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Olivia 🌈✨🏔🎶