fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5341 ]

[ SECRET POST #5341 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5341 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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05. [SPOILERS for Gank Your Heart]

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06. [WARNING for discussion of sexual harassment]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #764.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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You sound very defensive OP?? I don't think anyone wants to take away the memories of your ship but I also think it's fair to simply acknowledge that the age difference in canon does indeed carry that power imbalance. Hell, by the fandom aging her up is that not also saying the same thing already??

Not the OP, but policing fandom ships like this is policing female desire, and it's okay for a teenager to find any fictional guy fuckable if they want to.

Everybody knows shipping fandom is like >92% women and girls.

There's a difference between "policing female desire" and acknowledging that a ship is messed up. You can acknowledge that a ship is messed up and still ship it. Sometimes that's part of the fun. It's also perfectly acceptable to discuss what makes the ship messed up in the context of it being something that irl would be just awful. Fiction and reality aren't interchangeable

da- ok but that sounds like you're expecting that acknowledgement when it's only, as you say, sometimes part of the fun. sometimes people don't want to give a shit and that's fine too

It's not fucked up in the context of the story though. It's normal for young girls to crush on and have fantasies about older men. Jareth is just that--a fantasy. Like...that's the point.

Nevermind that despite the implied age difference and the powers Jareth has, the whole point of his speech to her is that it has to be her choice to stay with him and that she would basically dominate him if she did.

I would argue against his speech meaning that she would dominate it if she did--I think it's the exact opposite. Labyrinth is a coming-of-age movie about a girl who has to choose between Becoming A Woman and maintaining her childhood innocence. To keep it from being creepy, this is done squarely in the realm of the fantasy of a young teenager, which also adds the fantastical element. Sarah enjoys her banter, the thrill of temptation, her first look into becoming a woman and exploring her sexuality, all under the safe wrappings of a dreamy fairy tale where she is the desired heroine at a time she feels unappreciated and unwanted.

The crux of this is the ballroom scene. However, what makes the ballroom scene so powerful is that it's the scene where she gets to start playing out the fantasy, complete with the big poofy white princess ballgown of her dreams. She gets to step towards womanhood. And she finds out it's a roomful of sensual adults who are a little bit mean, eager to consume her innocence, who can't wait to laugh at her missteps. And she runs! From then on, the danger the Goblin King poses is a little less "Oho here's a handsome king for you to flirt with" to "here is someone who can give you many things, but will take many things in return. Step carefully."

What makes this entire movie so good--and so inane for the antis to target--is that in Jareth's speech, he is asking her to grow up. He's asking her to enter into an adult relationship, with all the give and take that entails. He can give her the world but he's going to have to take a part of her to do that. And Sarah chooses to stay in her childhood a little bit more. She's definitely matured by the end of the movie, but she has said "You know what? Womanhood can wait, I'm going to stay with my friends and my toys a little bit longer." It's revolutionary. I can't think of another movie that was true to the fantasies of young girls towards older men, the real danger they face if they try to enter the adult world too soon, and the message that young girls shouldn't push themselves into becoming a woman before they're ready.

The really annoying thing is that none of this is a bad message, and it's a very healthy one for young girls to have. Yet Sarah/Jareth shippers don't run afoul of it, because a) if she is at the age she is during the movie, it's part of a fantasy and *that's the point* and b) if she's older, she's engaging with Jareth when she's ready to and *that is also the point*.

That being said, if people remember this movie for being more sensual than it actually was, it's because David Bowie is wandering around with a codpiece and some very tailored clothing so I can't blame them.

This is the best description of the movie and its themes.

+1000 That's such a good breakdown

AYRT +1, this is a really excellent breakdown.

I wish this were reddit so I could upvote you and give you awards. Such a fine explanation, perfect.

da

I've actually never seen this movie, but I greatly appreciate this comment.

This is an interesting take, but apparently there are some big disagreements in fandom over what the real theme of Labyrinth is. Some dude got ripped apart for saying it was about the "stranger danger" that was rampant around the time the film came out, in favor of a more feminist analysis like yours. I don't believe any thoughtful analysis of Labyrinth is the real one, because it isn't supposed to be a thoughtful movie at all. So, cool interpretation, but don't give the movie itself any props.

Stop trying to control what people say about the movie.

You have your interpretation of the movie. They have theirs.

Is "this an interesting take" the new "Well, actually"?

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-08-22 12:33 (UTC) - Expand

Well, the wording's a bit vague, as fae often are--"Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave"--buuuut yeah, exactly. It was always centered on her choice.

I agree.

This is nice in theory (and not the OP of this secret) but it very rarely stops with, "Okay let's all acknowledge there'd be an imbalance here if they were real. ... and then they fucked."

It always goes down the judgemental rabbit hole of OMG PEDOPHILIA!! GROOMING!! ABUSE!!

The anti-shipping stance in present-day fandom isn't "if there's a power imbalance, you need to acknowledge it." (Of course the shippers acknowledge it, the power dynamic between Jareth and Sarah is the whole point of the movie, I don't know how you could miss it...)

The stance is "if there's a power imbalance, you're not allowed to ship it at all, or else you're a Bad Person."

But if you're younger than Sarah and ship them? Then it's like OK by antis and when you outgrow her, you're a pedophile? Power imbalance is always there somehow, really.

Nah, the line there is "if you like it, young child/tween, that means the movie is grooming you to accept abuse from IRL ~~immortal fantasy creatures~~ adult men, and you're a sympathetic victim that we have to save."

Unless the child/tween resists being "saved" for too long, in which case they find out the sympathy was conditional, and now they're being treated as a horrible abusive person who happens to be 13.

The age difference doesn't significantly change by aging up Sarah from 15 to 20 or whatever. It's the experience/knowledge gap that usually gets a bit more equitable in these fics.

NA

OK but how often do you need to acknowledge it? Is it enough to just say "shit's messed up, yo" once, or do you have to put a disclaimer on every fic? On every art piece? On any random piece of meta or reblog of a gif?

Personally as a reader I can't stand that shit. I can figure out for myself my own opinions about how messed up a ship is or isn't. I do not want the author patronizing me. It doesn't matter whether the fic is a fluffy romantic fantasy or a dark fic that explores the messed-upness of the dynamic.

I was a cigarette smoker for several years. That warning was on every pack, and it never once stopped me. (I quit because I was tired of wasting so much money.) Everybody knew it was a CYA thing for the tobacco companies. This kind of "I know this is bad in real life" disclaimer is the same thing for fan creators, and I hate that so many people feel pressured into it nowadays.

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