I do adore the tumblrs. It cracks me up, most days! Some days, it makes me despair a bit. But, that's fandom, you know?

I miss when we would post long essays of fandom things and comment on each other! I wish tumblr was better about that sort of thing. It tries! But not exactly the same.

I follow random things on tumblr, but one thing a lot of my tumblr gif-friendly people write about, besides Teen Wolf (I know so much about that show and I only recently started watching it. Didn't even need a primer! :D), is Labyrinth. ...And Sailor Moon. I feel no shame but y'all are into that very much.

One of the things being passed around by a bunch of writerly type people is a talking about Sarah from Labyrinth and does she appear to be under-represented as a heroine to you, as a viewer? And it was thoughtful, so I could not help myself and wrote about it! I'm not a big meta writing, but part of why I still love Labyrinth so much is that the movie was one of the few coming of age stories about a young woman that I got to experience growing up. There was Anne McCaffery's Harper Hall trilogy and... well, Aliens and Terminator 1 & 2, that I really remember. There had to have been others, but those were the formative ones.



I have to say I love this discussion!!!

I loved Sarah growing up. I didn't realize until I was much older how much her character had effected me. Much like Ripley in Alien/Aliens is my go-to of what I long for in more female character leads, I want more of Sarah for teenage girls: a wonderfully flawed person that is learning to be a better, mature person.

Sarah's ending, when she choose to save her brother, shows how INCREDIBLY she has grown from the beginning of the movie. It's a female coming of age story: you are more than your love interest, more than a fairy tale dream. You are the only one that has power over your body and mind. That's what Sarah was to me. She wasn't sexy in the way we were shown by media. She was comfortable and relaxed and still attractive in her way. (Which, I know is Jennifer Connelly in many ways; that woman hits ALL the conventional attractive ideals, but still! she was a bit of a dreamy tom boy in Labyrinth)

I love in the movie that her love interests are both only psedo-love interests (OMG NO LOVE TRIANGLE, NO CHOICES! Can we go back to this sometimes? I'd love that!). There is no kissing. There is no implied sexy times. You have Jareth, a much older David Bowie, being strangely compelling while also terrifying. Then, you have Hoggle. Yes, Hoggle! Who has to make choices to, to be a better a person, and Sarah helped him learn that. They grow together, and she makes the choose to be friends still, even after her adventure.

I do love that fandom still loves Labyrinth. I still find awesome fanworks that focus on the power of Sarah. I don't think it is a bad thing that there are romances. Part of coming of age is learning what romance means to you, if you even want it!

(Which I think why Labyrinth appeals so much to many different women when they were teens. There is no traditional romance, so you can see a lot of your wants if you are asexual, David Bowie is rather gender queer himself and that makes a nice combo to girls questioning a lot of things in their teens.)

And the idea of a romance between Sarah and Jareth is not simple. It would not be a pretty, traditional fairy tale with wedding bells and the story ends at happily ever after, and I love when fandom deals with that!

I love Sarah. She was complex and wonderful and young and stupid and mature for her age. She was a real person, something teenage girls do not get all that often in media. I want more Sarahs in my life. Let's have more Sarahs!

And just in case any one ever wants it, a rec of one of my fav Labyrinth stories. It is a romance, but it is a romance done as it should be done in the situation. Sarah is an EQUAL.

Her Kingdom as Great


I now I hit enter, rather terrified.



Here is the original discussion question and replies/notes here.