‘If she had kept going down that way, she would’ve gone straight to that castle!’: Labyrinth, the Gothic body of David Bowie and the education of desire

This article investigates Labyrinth as a Gothic narrative; it positions the films as an attempt to ‘educate desire’ into normative channels within the context of the late Cold War and the Culture Wars of the 1980s. Particular attention is paid to the body and performance of David Bowie as Jareth and the way this engages with classic Gothic tropes of the dangerous older man. Sarah is also considered as a liminal adolescent coming to occupy a position defined by desire in a historical moment riven by anxieties around ‘acceptable choices’ amid the AIDS crisis and the activism of conservative pressure groups such as Moral Majority. Ultimately, Labyrinth is shown to be a productive space for the working through of issues of desire, both in its original context and, through the mapping of fan activities, throughout the 40 years since its release.