She made my day, that’s what! She recommended this week’s top story from the Onion** to me with the comment: “So this made me think of you watching Labyrinth as a child and being slightly traumatized by David Bowie’s package in spandex…” I almost busted a rib when I opened her e-mail this evening! I’d forgotten that I’d confessed to her how Bowie’s bulge, er, stands out among my childhood memories…
Slightly traumatized? Let’s face it, folks. This is a Muppet movie about a girl’s loss of sexual innocence! Consider the timing of the film’s release. Let’s see, I probably saw it on HBO around about 1987 when I was an 11-year-old drama queen growing up Methodist in small-town Middle America, going through a puffed-sleeves phase, and struggling to cope with my parents’ divorce. “Sarah” with all her big sister/stepdaughter poutiness and fantastical escapism was ME. And we were so confused, torn between the innocent playfulness of those wacky Muppets and the dangerous allure of Jareth the Goblin King and his masquerade, ehm, ball–Oh-my-but-WHAT-is-WITH-that-big-lump-in-his-pants?!?!
So, while the Onion has spotlighted this country’s veritable epidemic of pediatric NNBD (Nearly Naked Breast Disorder), I’ve decided to start my own support group for women suffering from BBPT (Bowie’s Bulge Prepubertal Trauma). Ladies? (’Fraid you hetero males just don’t get it.)
**”U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV,” referring, of course, to last year’s Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction.
You know, Davie’s package flashing never really struck me until now. I too experienced a similar romantic girly puffed sleeve phase but it also meant an inclusion of a lot of ballet viewing, so we all know what kind of views are involved with the gents of that profession! Influence of hippie parents’ attitude towards love and nudity was (and is) a factor in my lump exposure indifference. If naked women are on my TV, my daughter is going to see them. I make no effort to scramble and hide her eyes as though it were sinful to be an exposed voluptuous woman. No need to make children feel themselves dirty, especially when some day, she too will be a voluptuous woman. Blatant bare male package flashing is rare on screen, so I haven’t really encountered the situation to see how I’ll react on her behalf. We have seen boy buns with little distress. Perhaps full frontal man nudity is rare because, as I have often said, men are covered in hair for a reason: some things were just never meant to be seen (Good gracious! What IS that thing!?).
For some reason, I find The Onion’s phrase "violent shirt tearing" to be rather intriguing…
To set the record straight, you first saw Labyrinth at the Garrett Drive-In Outdoor Theater in a double feature with The Dark Crystal in the front seat of the station wagon with your Mummy, brother, and sisters. The younger 3 stayed awake for the Labyrinith but slept through the Dark Crystal. You stayed awake in the front seat with your mummy and baby asleep on laps. Mum has always wanted to be that fantasy girl with curls at the ball with the off the shoulder gown and fabulous skin, the closest image to my wannabe.
It was West Side Story from the 3rd row looking up at an incredible eye candy black man in tights that first made the term "package" comprehensible to me. Oooh. I still shiver at the thought. But I was in my mid-thirties when that moment of revelation struck me, the mother of four. How is it possible that the concept escaped me until then? And I think of the poor 9 year old focused on the David Bowie gift. Sorry……
Sorry – arithmetic skills slipping….you were either 10 or 11 – summer of 86 or 87.
dirty girl, it’s a steep and slippery slope from the puffed-sleeves phase to the bodice-ripping one.
Sometimes it takes me a while to pick up on what are probably very obvious references to others. I have no excuse here as I always confused David Bowie and Billy Idol as I was growing up. Now that I think about it, Billy Idol probably would have made a great Goblin King!