You remind me of the babe... And, of course, its Labyrinth. Bowies performance in this film cant be divorced from the film itself. Over the thirty years (thirty years!) since its release, a lot of people have ribbed him for the fright wig and those tights - tights so tight that they make a photo finish look like a long distance relationship - but they forget. Jareth is a teenage girls prototypical sexual fantasy, a cobbled together creation concocted from the heroines stories and her dolls, and from dim, unrealised feelings for her mothers boyfriend, also played by Bowie (check out the pictures in her scrapbook). This, of course, is a Jim Henson movie: he was originally looking at making the Goblin King a puppet, before he hit on the idea of appropriating the exoticism (and eroticism) of a mainstream pop star for the part. Bowies outfit, wig and makeup allow him to blend seamlessly into the production design of the film itself, despite being the only other real actor in the fantasy part of the film aside from fifteen-year-old Jennifer Connelly, playing the protagonist Sarah. Its vital that she, the interloper, sticks out like a sore thumb its vital he does not. As a result, this is the only film in Bowies entire output as an actor in which his uncanny looks and arch, alien qualities dont render him an outsider figure. On the contrary: his character is the King of the fantasy land that Sarah finds herself in, although you always get the impression that he doesnt really want to be. As Jareth, Bowie is a multisexual terror, an unsettling wet dream given form, and clearly hopelessly smitten with Sarah, who plays the white knight in this faery tale, come to rescue a helpless loved one. Shes both fascinated with the Goblin King and terrified of him, and thats something you could also say about half the girls (and no doubt, many of the boys) whove watched Labyrinth over the last three decades. Knowingly echoing this facet of the film, Bowies you remind me of the babe riff is stolen from Cary Grant in The Batchelor And The Bobby-Soxer, a film about a teenagers inappropriate crush on an older man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmgmXgoBZFo Its fair to say that Bowies Goblin King holds a similar confused and confusing place in the coalescing adolescent mind as Carrie Fisher did when she put on a gold bikini for George Lucas in Return Of The Jedi in 1983. However, this is a family film in which he plays the outrageous pantomime villain... so hes also able to be menacing, callous and archly funny in equal measure. And the songs are all his, of course. Musically, even eighties Bowie is better than almost every other pop artist theres ever been. Rest in power, Goblin King. Which is your favourite movie performance by David Bowie? Share your picks below in the comments thread.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
