3

Alice From Alice In Wonderland Is The Worst Possible Tour Guide

The first thing to consider is Alice's day-to-day life PW (pre-Wonderland). She's always lived a very regular, non-fantastical existence. It makes zero sense that she would follow a talking rabbit down a dirt hole, voluntarily burying herself in a shallow grave. This girl is what, seven years old? She knows her own mortality and understands danger. Only a stupid baby would follow a talking rabbit into the ground.

(Fun fact to note: The original manuscript by Lewis Carrol was called Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which sounds less like a fantasy adventure and more like murder porn.)

There is a fundamental problem with Alice and her underworld adventures, and it lies in her blase reactions to what is happening around her. On one hand, the audience could be presented with a version of Alice who is absolutely stoked by what's going down in Wonderland and takes control of that narrative like no other. She just thinks Wonderland is the coolest place ever. She consumes those "Eat Me" cookies with enthusiastic fervor while giggling, tosses back the "Drink Me" potion like whisky shots on a Tuesday, and exchanges perverted anecdotes with the Mad Hatter that would put the comments section of an Ariana Grande music video to shame. Hell, she will be the one to cut off that damn queen's head and paint every rose in the fucking room if she feels like it!

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The Wizard Of Oz And Return To Oz Wouldn't Work If They Shared The Same Dorothy

Return To Oz was a Disney sequel-but-not-sequel to The Wizard Of Oz. It was made almost 50 years after the original, but takes place about six months later. A melancholic version of Dorothy, traumatized by the events that took place in Oz, has severe insomnia. She's sent a key via a shooting star and tries to tell her Aunt Em. Her reward for relaying this story? She is taken to a mental institution for some electrotherapy, under the ruse that the procedure will let her sleep. A girl, later revealed as Princess Ozma, helps Dorothy escape the institution during a thunderstorm. The girl presumably drowns, and Dorothy wakes up in a version of Oz that is in ruins, with her friends from the original turned to stone. Holy shit, now that I write it all out, it feels like it was written by Pink Floyd.

Watching this movie and seeing the challenges that Dorothy (played by Fairuza Balk) faces, there's no possible way that this film would work if we were seeing Judy Garland's version of the character. In Return To Oz, Dorothy gets chased by freaky wheeled gang called "The Wheelers," and almost has her finger bitten off by the disembodied head of the witch Mombi. In Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy falls into a pig pen and ... stays there screaming until one of her uncle's farm hands leaps heroically over the fence, sweeps her into his arms, and hovers over her until she's sure she's okay.

While Return's Dorothy (who I must note is younger than Garland's portrayal) is busy tying a taxidermied Gump's head to a couch, learning the intricacies of aerodynamics, and casting a spell to bring a sofa-thing to life so it can fly her and her new friends (a robot, a talking chicken, and a pumpkin-headed sort of scarecrow man, respectively) to safety, Dorothy in Wizard Of Oz gets locked in a room by the Wicked Witch and just ... sits there. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are climbing a castle to try to save her while she's just hanging out. I want to shake her and tell her to smash that stupid hourglass that the Witch claims will kill her when it runs out of sand. So what? Jump out the window. Kill yourself before she kills you. Make an effort! DO SOMETHING.

1

Sarah From Labyrinth Drags The Entire Narrative Down The Toilet With Her Shitty Boredom

What makes Labyrinth so interesting to examine is the infinite number of directions the story could have gone in if only the protagonist, Sarah, was more like a person -- any kind of person. She goes from manic and pissed to completely non-reactive so fast that it makes her completely unrelatable to the viewer. And through the whole movie, Jareth the Goblin King is giving her fuck eyes and trying to convince the viewer how special she is. One of the reasons Labyrinth was originally panned has to be that Sarah isn't a character most people want to kick it in a maze with.

Out of the gate, Sarah is deranged and cruel to her family. She spits hate in a narcissistic monologue fashion. Really, all her dad and stepmother asked her to do was babysit her brother so they could toss back a few drinks and pretend they aren't totally drained by that shitty thing called being adults.

Sarah summons Jareth, a warlock with a very prominent pants bulge (whose makeup rivals Mark Hamill's in the Star Wars Holiday Special), along with a whole mess of Jim Henson puppets, by wishing he would kidnap her baby brother. Jareth takes the baby and tells her that if she wants him back, she'll have to make it to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth in under 13 hours. Now, all of a sudden, Sarah stops Shakespearean screaming and hating on everything. She, without any sort of amazed, frightened, or intrigued reaction, says, "Come on feet, let's go."

What's even weirder here is that based on what we've seen of Sarah up to this point, why would she even step into that maze? She's displayed zero sense of loyalty, bravery, or compassion. I'd buy it from her if she scoffed, grabbed a copy of Seventeen, and was basically like, "Let the parents hit that maze. Their baby, their problem." I'd also buy it from her if she saw Jareth, threw him onto her parents' bed, and took a ride to the bone zone on that sweet Dance Magic Bulge. This reaction would be very realistic and acceptable. I know many a girl who at 15 would have performed similar actions. Hell, I'd even take it if she suddenly changed her tune and screamed at Jareth that she was speaking out of anger, that she didn't mean what she said and he needed to give her back her baby brother right goddamn now.

But absolutely nobody would look out their regular-ass suburban window, see their world transformed into a magical castle and labyrinth, and basically roll their eyes and go, "Fine. I guess I'll go," and then walk through the scenery with the same lack of enthusiasm as a community college freshman on her way to Bio Lab. Especially during the dungeon scene, in which Jareth shows up out of nowhere, leans on the wall like a cool dude trying to impress a girl, and says, "So, how do you like my Labyrinth?" and Sarah, with a bored expression, says, "It's a piece of cake." I swear, she was seconds away from saying, "Pfft, it's OK, I guess. You know, for a boring-ass Labyrinth." It makes sense that in a world of goblins and monsters, the strongest reaction we get from Sarah is during her visit to the fart swamp.

You can be part of Loryn's fantasy adventure on Twitter. She also has a pop culture blog, "Sometimes I Write Funny Things."

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