Postmodernism in Labyrinth

I went to Sussex University, where pretty much everything is taught with a 'po-mo' slant, and I loved it. Postmodernism is fun, as well as clever and interesting – just like Labyrinth.

Postmodernism is a reaction against the values of Modernism. It celebrates chance above design, anarchy above hierarchy, play instead of purpose, intertextuality rather than boundaries. Postmodernism is based on a mistrust of 'grand narratives' that seek to explain the world. Instead it perceives a carnival of colourful and contradictory views, none of which can dominate or explain the rest. Postmodernism is about deconstruction, subversion, and play.

Subversion of myth

The labyrinth does not conform to the rules of 'normality'. As Sarah learns, nothing can be taken for granted. Not only are Sarah's own assumptions challenged, but the film also subverts common myths, legends and tropes of fantasy.

• Seeing the pretty fairies fluttering outside the labyrinth, Sarah is enchanted and tries to pick one up. She is shocked when it bites her, defying her expectations. Hoggle laughs and retorts "What did you expect fairies to do?" Sarah replies uncertainly, "I thought they'd do nice things – like granting wishes".
• Jareth twists the legend of the frog prince by promising Hoggle: "If she ever kisses you, I'll turn you into a prince - prince of the land of stench!"
• When Sarah, irritated by Toby, declaims a rhyming couplet that sounds appropriate for a fairytale – "Goblin king, goblin king, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me" – there is a dramatic roll of thunder. But then we cut to the goblins groaning in disappointment: "That's not it! Where'd she learn that rubbish?" This mocks the flowery language of fantasy and fairytale. The 'right words' are prosaic, natural speech: "I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now".
• As the film begins we see Sarah in a lush green setting, wearing a medieval-style gown. She begins to recite a poetic speech. Accustomed as the audience is to these familiar tropes of romance and fantasy films, we instantly assume this film is set "once upon a time". But the illusion is sharply undermined when Sarah says "Damn! I can never remember that line".
• The scene with the Scottish guards puts a spin on the riddle of the liar and the truth-teller, an old logical puzzle. Sarah's reaction implies that she has heard the riddle before, and she is sure she knows the answer. But she is entirely mistaken, and her pride literally comes before a fall. Thus the labyrinth overturns logic.

• At the very centre of the labyrinth is the staircase maze. Like several of Escher's creations it is a physical impossibility, seeming to exist in dimensions other than the usual three. It confounds reality and epitomizes the twisting, unpredictable, illogical nature of the labyrinth.

Deconstruction of binary opposites

A binary opposition is a pair of contrasted terms, each of which depends on the other for its meaning. For example, things can be either male or female, dead or alive, night or day. The idea of 'night' would be meaningless in a world where the sun never set. One can have no concept of happiness unless one has also experienced sadness. Binary oppositions establish order in the world, classifying objects, events and relations and governing thinking.

Post-structuralist theorists such as Jacques Derrida have critiqued binary oppositions, arguing that they are not a natural underpinning of human thought, but a cultural artefact. According to Derrida, their oppositional logic can be disrupted by what he calls 'undecidables', which are neither or both parts of an opposition (for example, zombies are both living and dead).

In a similar way, Labyrinth can be said to deconstruct binary logic through its questioning of traditional opposites.

• When Sarah asks which way Hoggle would go in the labyrinth's external corridor, he replies: "Me? I wouldn't go either way". The wise man advises Sarah: "Sometimes the way forwards is also the way back".
• After Sarah has found the concealed opening in the wall, and sets off, the worm calls out "Don't go that way! Never go that way!" Assuming that the worm is suggesting that she goes in the opposite direction, Sarah turns round and takes the other path. The worm tuts and says "If she'd kept on going down that way, she'd have gone straight to that castle". (Most people assume that the worm means to direct her away from the danger of the castle – but she has told him that she needs to solve the labyrinth, which requires her to reach the castle at the centre. I think, instead, that the worm defines any way one happens to be going as 'that way', in defiance of the logical binary opposite of 'that one' / 'the other one'. It reminds me of the White Queen in Alice, who will give her maid "jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today".)
• The Goblin King's final speech is full of ambiguity. "Just let me rule you, and you can have everything you want", "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave". These words are paradoxical: Jareth offers Sarah the power to command him and have whatever she wants, yet at the same time he demands that she obey him. Such power play is another deconstruction of binary opposites.

The theme of 'undecidables' may come from Jim Henson. He says of the film that it "is about a person at the point of changing from being a child to a woman. Times of transition are always magic. Twilight is a magic time and dawn is magic - the times during which it's not day and it's not night but something in between. Also the time between sleeping and dreaming. There are a lot of mystical qualities related to that, and to me this is what the film is about."

This seems to suggest an interest in transitions between oppositional states, in liminal boundaries, and in binary opposites and the play between them.

Concepts of infinity - a book within a book?

Sarah's small red book titled 'The Labyrinth' is very interesting. We see it in a panning shot of her bedroom, and it is the book from which Sarah reads in her role-play at the beginning of the film. Who can help but wonder about the story in that book? All we know is that it contains the speech with the words "You have no power over me". Does it describe a young girl's journey through the labyrinth to save her baby brother? Does it describe a young girl who is left to babysit her brother – a girl who owns a small red book called 'The Labyrinth'?

Another famous fantasy, The Neverending Story, uses the concept of a book within a book. It's a fascinating and challenging idea, invoking the concept of infinity: a girl reading a red book which describes a girl reading a red book, which describes… and so on. The presence of the book adds to the film's theme of paradox and illogicality.