My lovely wife is currently writing a series of blog entries on the self improvement elements of the movie Labyrinth, which you can read by clicking on the link above. While researching for this particular project, Cathy came across another interesting post about the religious elements of the movie Labyrinth. Right up my alley, yes? Not really. Emily, the author of this piece, has tried to claim that Labyrinth is a Christian morality play. I can relate to the idea that the movie can be symbolic of a spiritual journey, but Emily tries forcing metaphors where they simply do not belong.
How so? Well, lets start with our protagonist, Sarah - Emily claims that Sarah is with child and is projecting her emotional confusion over what to do with her unborn child onto her little brother. It is made pretty obvious by the, er, uh… what proof of this exists in the movie? Are we so sure that it is not Ms. Emily who is projecting?
It gets worse, though. She claims that Hoggle is a personification of Jesus Christ. Hoggle, the coward - Hoggle, the gruff loner - Hoggle, the reluctant traitor, is Jesus Christ? If Hoggle is anything, he is the voice of Sarah’s own doubts and fears, playing a foil to her outward optimism and naivete.
When we first see Hoggle, he is just outside the gates of the labyrinth killing fairies with a pesticide. According to Emily, we are suppose to infer that these fairies are instead the embodiment of the homosexual culture, which Hoggle… er, um, I mean Jesus, is seeking to eradicate. Could it simply be that they serve as a lesson for Sarah that not all things are as they seem? Nah! That apparently isn’t Christian enough, so Emily projects her homophobia into this children’s movie.
And the article continues from there, drawing the conclusion that the talking door guards are symbolic of true and false religion, the cleaners symbolic of cults, and the wise man is symbolic of Eastern Religions. In an apparent fit of racism, she calls the fire gang “blacksploitation jive turkeys,” claims that The Bog of Eternal Stench is symbolic of an abortion clinic, and claims Sir Didymus is symbolic of the fallacies of science. At this point, it behooves me to ask whether this particular article is a parody or serious. I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.
“The Christian Themes of Labyrinth” does one thing right, however unintentionally. It shows how easy it is to ignore obvious explanations in favor of rationalizing the interpretation we expect to be true. We each see what it is that we want to see. Unless we make the truth that which we most desire, we will only see the contrived metaphors of our imagination. If I may suggest, perhaps the lesson we are supposed to learn from Labyrinth is the importance of balancing the imagination of childhood against the required clarity and purpose of adulthood in order to seek truth over fantasy. Then again, it now might be me who is projecting.
written by John \\ tags: Christian, Metaphors, Morality, Movies, Religion
Photo by 
, a screen adaptation of the book with the same name. When I realized this, my first reaction was disappointment; I was hoping that the truth would be more interesting. If you think about it, though, this site is a stroke of genius when it comes to marketing. The more I think about it, the less disappointed I become.
