Labyrinth, Toxicity and Wishful Thinking

Jareth didn’t give a flying flip about anything but power.

For so many eighties kids, especially goth and goth-adjacent ones, David Bowie’s spiky-haired antagonist in Jim Henson’s cult classic Labyrinth was an awakening of one sort or another. Whether he first taught one about men in makeup, mind games, moral ambiguity or the importance of a well-fitting pair of tights, Jareth got into the heads of quite a few of us.

I met the dudes I played with in the late aughts in what I’ll call the “doctor band” because of Jareth. My Craigslist Musicians Wanted ad directed back to an online profile wherein I joked about Jareth’s endowment, and this served as the icebreaker that brought me, an insecure twenty something kid from the sticks, together with some well-to-do, cosmopolitan medical professionals approximately eight years my senior.

If I’m honest, though, the package itself was something tiny me had thought and cared very little about, beyond a glancing notice and an “oh”.

What Jareth actually whetted for me was something far more dangerous than a barely-concealed codpiece: a lifelong fascination with power dynamics.

Given the number of people who are clueless enough to do things like picking “Every Breath You Take” for their wedding song, I shouldn’t be surprised but still am when I see so many women my age online sharing the most superficial summations possible of this character. Ahhh, he is so sexy. Oooh, yes please. And worst of all:

Look how he gazes into her eyes! I believe Jareth was truly in love with Sarah.

To gather that is a ludicrous act of wishful thinking that misses the whole point of what you’ve been looking at all these years.

This is a creature who thrives on games and mischief-making. He makes Sarah jump through hoops for a reward, but he doesn’t even play clean, all the while trying to actively sabotage her progress. He likes seeing what she’ll do in different obstacle courses, like a rat. He comes when she calls, sure, but he only offers his compliance in exchange for her total submission. “Let me rule you and I’ll be your slave.” Uh…come again?

A charitable take is that these viewers took at face value the legend recited early in the the film. It DOES say “the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl”. But in this context “love” equates to admiration of beauty, appraisal of high value, perhaps even covetousness… but not selflessness or empathy, without which there is no actual love.

Now, I’ve managed to sound pretty high and mighty here. I may know better than to share the delusional interpretation of some of my peers – but has it ever been easy for me to turn off my reptilian brain when confronted with the drug-like highs and lows of inconstant behavior, in the face of the daily grind and the perseverant march of time? Of course not. And I have Jareth (along with a few other formative influences, no doubt) to thank for that.