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Jim Henson explained why he believed David Bowie's character in Labyrinth wasn't actually evil
"The one thing I feel we've tried to do is keep positive attitudes in what we've created."
Being evil is no easy feat, though some of us are better at it than others. It's open to interpretation whether Jareth the Goblin King even is evil in the film Labyrinth, his feud with a teenager aside. If anything, he just seems a bit misguided, though maybe we're just saying that because he's played by David Bowie.
However, it seemed that film director and overall Muppet man Jim Henson seemed to believe that the truth of Jareth's moral alignment was a bit murkier than first meets the eye.
"I thought David Bowie was exceptionally clever to not bring a truly evil and angry and fiendish tone to his role as the villain," Henson said during an interview with The San Francisco Examiner. "He was so deft at being devilish more than evil, dangerous maybe, but now with a character fraught with only ill will."
While a film like Labyrinth is a far cry from Henson's Muppet beginnings, he insisted that it kept the same sort of optimistic theme that his characters have become known for.
"I didn't see it as very dark at all," he said. "This is really a quite bright and upbeat story, don't you think? I mean, it isn't a tale for four-year-olds because it's more of a rite-of-passage kind of thing, catered, I guess, to an older child and perhaps to adults."
Of course, while Henson stood at the helm of the ship, he was quick to pass around the credit for his creations.
"I can't really take credit for all the work, because so many people are involved. I'm a conceptual guy, and it's really others who bring the concepts to reality. But the one thing I feel we've tried to do is keep positive attitudes in what we've created."
Still, evil forces aside, Henson and his team stood for values any viewer can be proud to support. "If there's a message to anything we do, it's that life is good, and people are good," he said. "I like to think a whole generation has been exposed to a feeling that life is good, and that goodness is always there — or possible — when all's said and done."
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