Sexuality

Although it is a children's film, the theme of sexuality in Labyrinth is impossible to ignore. Even the Wikipedia entry reads: "Labyrinth may also be interpreted as a symbolic tale of a young girl's acceptance of her sexuality". So it's not just me and my friends having dirty minds…

Some may see Sarah as an 'innocent' who grows up during her journey, including Smith – see the later discussion of Sarah's innocence - but this view is naïve. No fifteen-year-old girl can be called innocent, and Sarah is clearly attracted to the Goblin King from the start.

As I see it, the film symbolically represents the move, not from innocence, but instead from an unformed, childish, hedonistic sexuality to mature, socially acceptable sexual behaviour, involving the "dates" encouraged by Sarah's stepmother and, eventually, motherhood.

Between child and adult

Before she enters the labyrinth, Sarah has never been on a date. There are no posters of heart-throbs on her bedroom walls. Her stepmother says worriedly, "You should have dates at your age". Although she expresses her femininity by dressing up as a princess, her sexuality is immature.

The wise man calls Sarah a "young girl", to which the bird on his head whoops suggestively. The fieries constantly call her "little lady". These terms of address highlight her position between child and adult. Indeed, Henson said that he cast Jennifer Connelly mainly because he felt she "could act that kind of dawn-twilight time between childhood and womanhood".

Sarah's lipstick

One of Sarah's favourite props is her lipstick. This resonates on several levels. There's the cliché of the little girl playing at putting on her mother's makeup – perhaps the lipstick represents Sarah's desire to be like her mother, who, from the pictures, appears be a rather glamorous woman. It could also represent a teenage girl's budding interest in her looks and her femininity – a sign that Sarah is ready to take the journey ahead, to grow up and become a desirable woman. The phallic shape of the lipstick cannot be ignored either, and Sarah's obsession with putting it to her mouth could suggest her (perhaps unconscious) sexual desire.

The lipstick is an uneasy signifier: childish games and womanly sexuality at once. Its ambiguity is echoed in Sarah's response to it. It is the first thing she rejects in the labyrinth, when she throws it down angrily because the pixies keep turning round the marks she makes with it. Yet it is the first thing the junk lady offers her beguilingly – "Go on, make yourself up".

Oedipal themes

Sarah's family situation is significant. Her mother walked out on the family, probably a couple of years before the story begins. In the rough draft of the script we learn that she is an actress, and Sarah clearly wants to emulate her. The book goes even further, stating that Sarah's mother had moved in with another actor. Supporting this assumption in the film is a newspaper cutting on her dressing table mirror captioned 'The onstage kiss', suggesting that Sarah's mother has begun a relationship with a co-star.

Sarah's mother has been replaced by her father's new partner - a 'wicked stepmother' whom Sarah resents for 'stealing' her father's attention and time. She says angrily, "You go out every single weekend!"

The subsequent altercation between Sarah and her father has undertones of jealousy. When her father knocks on her door, she quickly thaws and is ready to talk. But when he merely tells her, through the door, that they are leaving, she is deeply hurt. "You really wanted to talk to me, didn't you?" It seems that Sarah wants her father all to herself.

In Freudian terms, Sarah's position represents the Oedipal stage of development. Allen (who believes that Jareth is a figment of Sarah's imagination) writes: "Like many girls in this phase, Sarah creates a dream guy [Jareth] to help her transfer her affections away from her father and towards other men."

In fact, Sarah is suffering from a kind of double Oedipus complex. She desires her father and hates her stepmother - and at the same time, she is envious of her real mother and there are hints that she desires her mother's new boyfriend. This latter tension may be an attempt to rewrite the Oedipal theme in a more appropriate form: Sarah cannot be portrayed as desiring her father sexually, so instead, her mother's new boyfriend becomes the object of Sarah's desire – the mirror that would allow her to become a sexually desirable, mature woman, like her mother.

Significantly, the press cuttings of Sarah's mother actually show her with David Bowie (the script merely refers to 'Sarah's mother and handsome young co-star', but Bowie was used for the photos), suggesting a parallel between the co-star and the Goblin King of Sarah's fantasies.

Smith's novel takes the comparisons between Jareth and Sarah's mother's boyfriend further. The boyfriend, Jeremy, is a rich, dashing, semi-famous actor whom Sarah admires. A flashback to Sarah's fifteenth birthday, when Jeremy gave her a blue gown and took her to dinner and a show, is a rather crude attempt to explain Sarah's longing to be 'swept off her feet' by an older man and to underline her envy of her mother.

Sarah owns Snow White, a fairy tale that depicts the Oedipal mother-daughter struggle. The wicked Queen, driven by vanity to prevent Snow White from growing up and surpassing her in beauty, arrests Snow White's development. Similarly, Sarah lives in her mother's shadow. Her mother's presence as a glamorous, successful woman, skilled at gaining male attention, holds Sarah back from developing into a woman herself.

The wicked Queen tries to kill Snow White by posing as a peddlar woman and appealing to the young girl's vanity, first by lacing her too tightly in a corset, then by combing her hair with a poisoned comb. According to Bettelheim, succumbing to the temptations of a mature sexuality "is 'poisonous' to Snow White in her early, immature adolescent state". She is not yet ready for marriage, and is "overwhelmed by the conflict between her sexual desires and her anxiety about them" (Bettelheim p212). This description also applies to Sarah at the masked ball.

The masked ball

At the masked ball, Sarah is dressed in a white gown reminiscent of a wedding dress. Amongst the laughing, knowing, gaily-coloured guests she stands out as an innocent virgin bride. Presented with the little-girl fantasy of meeting her fairytale prince, she is hypnotised, enchanted by its power over her imagination.

What would it mean to succumb to the Goblin King's seduction? Perhaps here we see Sarah on the cusp of sexual maturity, ready to give herself to a man. Yet she clearly has misgivings. She seems like a rabbit frozen in the headlights, overwhelmed and afraid rather than responsive and elated. She is certainly disgusted by the other guests with their phallic masks and lascivious grins.

Henson says, "We were trying to create an adult world... Sarah is still a child… She knows she's too young to be there, it's something that's attractive to her and it's also repellent". The scene could be interpreted as Sarah's seduction into the world of adult sexuality – possibly perverse sexuality – and her rejection of it.

The masked ball is full of imagery that is at once sexual and threatening. A significant number of the masks have long, beaked noses that are blatant phallic symbols. In one shot, a woman encircles a man's 'nose' in an overt mime of masturbation.

There are hints of the orgiastic, for example the shot of the Goblin King with two women resting their heads on his shoulders and gazing at Sarah. Several of the faces show lascivious leers. In the making-of documentary, production designer Elliott Scott confirms: "The people in the ball were meant to be vaguely depraved".

In the rough draft of the script, Sarah is described as "the picture of innocence" and "self-conscious" among the richly-dressed, decadent, provocative guests. The rough draft goes further than the film in its depiction of a slightly sordid sexuality. It reads: "There is the feeling that the party has been going on all night". A "lascivious admirer" jostles Sarah, and a young man whispers something to her that shocks her. She stumbles across a room in which "pillow feathers are flying and she can't make out what the several people are doing. A woman comes up to the doorway, winks at Sarah, and closes the door" – a clear suggestion of an orgy.

The masked ball scene portrays a hedonistic and unrestrained sexuality that can be linked to Freud's theory of 'polymorphous perversity'. According to Freud, young children's libidinal instincts are shifting and ungendered, directed towards all sorts of objects and body parts. Pre-Oedipal children are "anarchic, sadistic, aggressive, self-involved and remorselessly pleasure-seeking" (Eagleton p154).

Allen writes of this scene: "Jareth twists Sarah's dreams. He reveals to her the decadence beyond the opulent gaiety of the ball, the worm inside the peach… He shows her that she has more in her than sweet dreams". She suggests that the masked ball reflects a dark sexuality that is within Sarah already - perhaps within all of us.

The Goblin King is trying to tempt Sarah to join this realm of polymorphous perversity - or kinky sex - by 'masking' it with a veneer of traditional romance. As he takes her in his arms and waltzes her round the room, singing a beautiful song to her, she is almost seduced by his 'fairytale prince' act. But surrounded by men and women, simultaneously gorgeous and grotesque, who laugh mockingly at her as they dance the dance that she cannot join in, Sarah is frightened and intimidated. In the end, she flees the ball, and rejects this model of sexuality.

Sarah's 'innocence'

Smith, in the book of the film, labours the point of Sarah's 'innocence': her position on the cusp of adulthood. Jareth calls her "too old to be [turned into] a goblin, but too young to be kept by him, damn her innocent eyes". The masked ball scene is laden with clunky eroticism, and Sarah is seduced but embarrassed and confused. Afterwards, she feels "shame at how she had succumbed to [Jareth's] charm", and soiled by the men who made advances towards her. "Had she been truly innocent, they would not have behaved like that towards her, would they?"

It is slightly disturbing that Smith intuits these feelings in Sarah. Nothing in the film gives the impression that she felt ashamed, and I can't imagine any teenage girl wanting to proclaim her "innocence". Certainly, a young girl's first overwhelming glimpse of the world of adult sexuality may give rise to a sense of unease, both in Sarah and in the viewer. But I think the film makes Sarah's reaction much more subtle and ambiguous.

Fieries

In the rough draft of the script, the scene with the fieries is considerably more violent and disturbing. Lorelei believes that it hints at gang rape, and although I think this is an overreaction, it is definitely sexual. The creatures are called 'wild things', and the beat of their drum fascinates Sarah, making her become "a little wild" herself and join in their dance. Then one of them propositions her: "How 'bout gettin' wild with me?", and they continue to harass her as she tries to escape.

Jareth as sex god

Jareth is undeniably a sexualised character – witness the amount of fan fiction posted online by smitten girls! I would guess that neither Jones' nor Henson's conception of the character was quite as highly eroticised as the final film version: probably the casting of David Bowie took the character in this direction.

One of the most oft-commented-on features of this film is the, ahem, revealing nature of Bowie's trousers (I found this picture online; I love that someone took the time to do that!). It must be deliberate, and underscores the theme of sexuality. Allen puns: "[Jareth] glitters literally and figuratively, mesmerizing people with his balls".

Lorelei also points out the phallic significance of Jareth's cane. He pokes Hoggle with it when trying to intimidate him; and is shown before the 'Dance Magic' sequence "running it through his hands in a very – familiar gesture for many people".

Hermione notices that Jareth's costumes borrow elements of sexual fetish clothing: black leather gloves and a riding crop. She also comments that Jareth's final plea to Sarah: "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave" evokes sub/dom sexual play. That this was intentional is certainly possible: David Bowie was certainly no stranger to alternative sexuality, and he did have creative input into the presentation of Jareth.

It is interesting that, at the beginning of the film, Jareth throws snakes at Sarah to scare her. Snakes are a common phallic symbol. This backs up the theory that the film shows Sarah's initial fear of sexuality (perhaps masculine sexuality), and that the Goblin King represents this sexuality.

The peach

As discussed in the section on the peach as a symbol, the peach recalls the pomegranate seeds eaten by Persephone that trapped her in the Underworld. Another parallel is the apple in Snow White (a book which Sarah owns): tempted by a peasant woman, Snow White eats the poisoned fruit and falls into a death-like trance.

There are also echoes of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, in which a young girl tastes fruit sold to her by goblins. The symbolism of the fruit in Rossetti's poem has been interpreted in various ways. It induces cravings in those who have eaten it, suggesting the addictive nature of narcotics. But other critics have speculated that the fruits symbolize the pleasures of the flesh. The description of Laura consuming the fruit is deeply sensuous – "She sucked until her lips were sore". When she cannot get any more fruit, she "sat up in a passionate yearning / And gnashed her teeth for balked desire". Rossetti also refers to another victim who succumbed to the goblins in her eagerness for "joys brides hope to have".

When Laura falls ill from her craving for more fruit, her sister finds the goblins. They attack her and try to force her to eat the fruit, pressing it against her face and body. She returns to her sister and utters words oozing with sexuality: "Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices / Squeezed from goblin fruits for you, Goblin pulp and goblin dew. / Eat me, drink me, love me."

The peach is also reminiscent of the dangerous yet tempting fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the garden of Eden. This links to my analysis of the masked ball. Sarah - in the white dress of a virgin bride and with her romantic, childish dreams of a fairytale prince - is offered knowledge of the true nature of adult sexuality, in all its confusion and abandon.

Thus the peach – in a postmodern, intertexual play – calls to mind Greek myth, Victorian poetry, Bible stories and fairy tales, and arouses in the viewer the plethora of ideas symbolised by fruit in these other texts.