We need to talk about David Bowie’s codpiece.
Not the goblin king. Not the crystal balls. Not even the M.C. Escher stairways.
The codpiece.
I was teetering on the brink of puberty when Labyrinth (1986) came out, caught in that liminal space between childhood and whatever came next. About thirty seconds into “Dance Magic Dance,” I found myself holding my hand strategically in front of my face, trying to block the bottom third of the screen. My younger sister thought I’d lost it. “Stop being weird,” she hissed. But I couldn’t look away. Or rather, I couldn’t stop trying to look away.
Later on I discovered a fact that still fascinates me: that grey-stretched situation was absolutely intentional. The costume designer literally stuffed extra padding in there because – and I’m not making this up – they wanted to emphasize Sarah’s journey into adulthood, her first glimpses of… ahem.. *grown-up* feelings. In a children’s film. In 1986.
Think about that for a moment.
The entire film is Sarah navigating her attraction and repulsion to Jareth. One moment she’s entranced, dancing in that feverish, dreamlike ballroom; the next she’s running away, terrified. She can’t work out what his deal is, and likewise, I couldn’t work out what was happening to me watching it. I felt horrified, intrigued, repelled, and peculiarly… sparkly? Hah, there really isn’t a good word for that particular combination of pre-teen emotions.
I’d liked boys before, but in that abstract playground way – could they keep up on bikes, did they have a good conker game, would they share their crisps? The idea of actually touching one beyond a “haha you flinched!” punch was revolting. But when Bowie’s …aggressive… trouser situation appeared on screen, complete with feathered mullet and glitter eyeshadow, suddenly my entire understanding of the universe shifted.
When I rewatched it on VHS a few years later, that squirmy ambiguity had transformed into um… naked curiosity. I even tracked down the behind-the-scenes footage – particularly fascinating were the shots of the juggler having to basically embrace Bowie from behind, getting unnecessarily intimate to manipulate those glass balls while the camera lingered at strategic height. Someone signed off on this. *Multiple* someones.
I love that Labyrinth understood something most coming-of-age stories don’t: that the threshold between childhood and adulthood isn’t a door you walk through.
It’s a labyrinth you navigate, full of dead ends and wrong turns and extremely confusing feelings about men in tights. Sarah doesn’t leave her toys behind because she’s “grown up” – she gives Toby his Lancelot because she’s learned when to hold on and when to let go.
And that prominent (cough) situation in those grey tights? It promised and threatened things I didn’t understand, couldn’t articulate, and *definitely* couldn’t discuss with my mother. It was simultaneously the most uncomfortable and most formative viewing experience of my adolescence.
Jim Henson and George Lucas knew exactly what they were doing when they created this. A story where growing up doesn’t mean abandoning wonder – it means learning that the sexy guy with twinkling eyes isn’t always trustworthy, that power comes in different forms, and that sometimes you have to rescue yourself. (Also, that adult feelings are weird and confusing and sometimes involve being very distracted by someone’s impractical fashion choices.)
Labyrinth showed me that adulthood was an inevitability – but more than that, it showed me that the journey would be strange, uncomfortable, occasionally ridiculous, and absolutely worth it. That growing up meant gaining something, not just losing innocence. That the bad parts might even make the good parts better by comparison.
So thank you, Labyrinth. Thank you for Ludo and Sir Didymus and “you remind me of the babe.” But mostly, thank you for making puberty seem less like a terrible ending and more like a very weird beginning.
Even if it did involve far too much grey lycra for anyone’s comfort. -Mom
