Pan’s Labyrinth was always an explicitly political film, layering a world of frightening fairy tale fantasy over the brutal aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Now, writer-director Guillermo Del Toro has linked his allegorical fable to the modern day, suggesting that one of its most terrifying villains is “thriving” in the current political climate.
Like any openly political statement made online in 2017, Del Toro’s assertion that the Pale Man is a symbol for predatory white male power was met with a mixture of cheers, screams, and accusations of racism and sexism against embattled white men. One fan did come up with some pretty compelling “evidence,” though, that the Pale Man is alive and well, and may even be haunting the Majority Leader’s office in the U.S. Senate at this very moment:
Chilling stuff.