Ever since I spent about six hours on screencaps last weekend, I’ve been ruminating about L. Like Mirror Mask, its framing story involves an unhappy family. I asked myself how Sarah’s unhappy family affects her journey through the Labyrinth. Possible answer: It makes Jareth a parental substitute.<\/p>\n
Note: Poor Jareth is doing double, triple, even quadruple duty in this movie. Rock star, fashion icon, pin-up boy, Byronic hero, antagonist, DAD?!!?! L is a freakin’ thematic goulash. Hmmmm, you could probably make an argument for Jareth as floating signifier,<\/i> but that might mess up the entire pretense of the Realm… Anyway, click below for more. <\/p>\n
\u201cPractically broke down the door!\u201d: Sarah\u2019s unhappy family and Jareth\u2019s alternative<\/p>\n
You know there\u2019s only about two seconds in Labyrinth when the entire family \u2013 Sarah, Toby, Sarah\u2019s stepmom and Sarah\u2019s dad \u2013 are in the frame together? After pouting at her stepmom, Sarah runs upstairs to the haven of her room. Exasperated stepmom watches her go as dad appears on the landing holding Toby. They\u2019re not even looking at each other! No one\u2019s happy in this family, and Sarah wants out. Where\u2019s she gonna go?<\/p>\n
Well, we know Sarah\u2019s miserable. In the story that she tells Toby, she says that \u201cher wicked stepmother always made her take care of the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child who wanted everything for himself.\u201d In this snippet, Sarah\u2019s anger at her stepmother comes through clearly; she dislikes stepmom because stepmom is trying to make Sarah behave live a normal, civilized older sister, e.g., one that occasionally babysits. Sarah also obviously dislikes the sheer fact of Toby\u2019s existence; she calls him \u201cspoiled\u201d not because he is [he doesn\u2019t seem to be] but because he gets comparatively more attention than she does. She resents her stepmom and dad\u2019s focus on Toby. Finally, though Sarah\u2019s dad is never spoken of, you can be sure she doesn\u2019t think too highly of him either; after all, he\u2019s the traitor who is no longer with Sarah\u2019s birth mom, and he\u2019s actively making Toby \u201cspoiled\u201d by paying attention to Toby. I\u2019ve devoted an entire essay to the dissolution of Sarah\u2019s parents\u2019 marriage and its effects on Sarah, but suffice to say that the protagonist wants something different than what she\u2019s got.<\/p>\n
Sarah\u2019s stepmom is not happy either because she can\u2019t measure up to Sarah\u2019s birth mom. First off, she looks nothing like Sarah\u2019s mom. Sarah\u2019s mom looked like an older version of Sarah: a glamorous, dreamy figure with long brown hair. Stepmom, with her brittle beauty \u2013 short frosted hair, drawn face, frown lines \u2013 looks more like a real person than Sarah\u2019s mom the actor. Second, stepmom acts nothing like birth mom. Birth mom loved Merlin the dog [note family photo of Sarah, parents and dog on her mirror], while stepmom won\u2019t let him in [\u201cNOT THE DOG!\u201d]. In her physical appearance and her character, stepmom is harsher, more realistic and a tougher disciplinarian than birth mom.<\/p>\n
Stepmom works hard at being a good mom. She goes out frequently with Sarah\u2019s dad [probably not \u201cevery weekend,\u201d as Sarah claims, but often enough to keep the spark alive], but also spends time with her children. Toby\u2019s getting along fine, but stepmom worries about Sarah. Is she socially and emotionally on track? Stepmom doubts it: \u201cI\u2019d like it if you had dates at your age!\u201d she exclaims to Sarah. Sarah responds by throwing a fit and storming upstairs. While particularly concerned about her stepdaughter, stepmom doesn\u2019t know how to communicate with her and tell Sarah that she does, in fact, love her. Stepmom\u2019s comment to dad \u2013 \u201cShe treats me like a wicked stepmother in a fairy story no matter what I say!\u201d \u2013 summarizes stepmom\u2019s hurt, frustration\u2026and probably some of her broken heart that she can\u2019t get through to Sarah.<\/p>\n
Sarah\u2019s dad seems rather unhappy too, but it\u2019s difficult to tell. The guy has about four lines, mostly delivered from behind doors. That in and of itself should tell you something about him. He addresses the pissed-off Sarah through the door because he feels threatened by her fits. He also feels awkward around her overheated imaginative life \u2013 notice how he won\u2019t cross the threshold into her room \u2013 but has no clue about how to address his worries with Sarah. The door provides protection for dad against any outbursts from Sarah, while it also conceals his embarrassment. Sarah\u2019s dad\u2019s unobtrusive, clueless, self-effacing style hides a man who sees his daughter grieving and his new wife hurting [viz. previous paragraphs] and who chooses to withdraw, rather than deal with these familial problems directly.<\/p>\n
At the center of a family wrapped up in its own troubles, Sarah longs for a substitute family, a better one. Is Jareth an alternative parental figure? In some ways, he contrasts favorably with Sarah\u2019s dad. He likes the baby [I\u2019ve got a whole essay about that]; he pays attention to Sarah [note Hoggle\u2019s remark: \u201cThe Cleaners, the Bog of Stench: you sure got his attention!\u201d], while Sarah\u2019s dad seems aloof and flustered. Jareth promotes Sarah\u2019s fantasies [with drugged peaches] while Sarah\u2019s dad puts the door between himself and Sarah\u2019s imaginary worlds. Finally, Jareth wields power over life, death and time, which is highly attractive for a girl whose dad never actually does anything.<\/i> Jareth may be an erotic figure, a representation of Sarah\u2019s ambivalence over adolescent sexuality, but he also provides a model of pervertedly paternalistic involvement that Sarah may wish for, given her unhappy home life in the real world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever since I spent about six hours on screencaps last weekend, I’ve been ruminating about L. Like Mirror Mask, its framing story involves an unhappy family. I asked myself how Sarah’s unhappy family affects her journey through the Labyrinth. Possible answer: It makes Jareth a parental substitute. Note: Poor Jareth is doing double, triple, even… Continue reading Jareth as the alternative parent<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}