H/t to Mama Fortuna over at Walk Softly, Witch for introducing me to The Faculty of Horror podcast and getting me thinking about glamour/Otherness
I was going to use a bunch of different media examples in this part of The Glamour Guide, but in the interest of being able to explore the glamour/feminist implications fully, let's stick to one movie and of course that movie is going to be The Craft.
This is different. You put spells and power thoughts in it, and then you don't let anyone else read it, ever. Except maybe us.
If you haven't seen The Craft, it's likely because you were no longer in the 16-30 demographic when it came out in 1996. I've talked about my unironic love for The Craft extensively, but lest you think it was just me, Andrea from The Faculty of Horror sums it up very nicely as well:This was an extremely influencial in both mine and Alex's life. If you talk to any horror fan, any female film fan around our age, they probably have an accute fondness for this film. Now my fondness for this film is that it's just Clueless mixed with horror, right? These were the dark girls. I went to a Catholic high school which had these uniforms and you know, being one of the duo of the only two goth girls in my entire school, I really took to this movie. This movie became my fashion sense and my soundtrack, yeah it was a really big deal for me. On its surface it's just a fun teen movie but there's a lot a lot going on.
So, in case you've never watched it, let me briefly sum it up. Sarah moves to town after a troubled past at home which included a suicide attempt. Bonnie, one of the three outcast classmates of Sarah's, sees Sarah do magic in class and decides she is the fourth witch needed for their circle to correctly cast the quarters (as per the lore of this particular world). Sarah is initially put off by the three by the boy she likes (Chris) but when Chris starts spreading rumors that Sarah has slept with Chris, she decides to become friends with Bonnie (the scarred one), Rochelle (the African-American chick) and Nancy (the chick from a low class broken home). Early on, it's established that Sarah is a "natural witch" because she inherited her witch skills from her dead Mom. All of the girls start practicing magic together and having a grand time of it. Each girl casts a spell - Bonnie wants to be beautiful, Sarah wants Chris to love her, Rochelle wants to not hate the racist popular girl on her swim team and Nancy wants all of the power of Manon (their explanation of The God half of the traditional Wiccan God and Goddess). They start to become powerful together and their spells start to get out of hand - Chris becomes obsessed with Sarah and tries to rape her, Rochelle's spell makes the swim team girl lose all her hair, Bonnie becomes self absorbed with her beauty and Nancy, well, Nancy just gets power crazy. After Nancy kills Chris for trying to rape Sarah, Sarah tries to put the brakes on everything because their collective magic is getting very out of control. She tries to bind Nancy from harming herself or others and Nancy decides that if Sarah is not with the coven, she's against them and Rochelle and Bonnie go along with Nancy. They use magic to terrorize Sarah, leading up to a showdown between Sarah and Nancy. Nancy is committed to a psych hospital and Sarah is the only one to keep her magic.
Sounds like any teen horror movie, right? But if we look at it more closely, there are a lot of serious feminist implications to The Craft.
The only way you know how to treat women is by treating them like whores! Well, you're the whore! And this is gonna stop! Do you understand!
Those three girls are the Other. They are outcasts, they are different. It's made even more clear in the fact that they are goth, they are witches. But also in the Catholic high school, everything is always shot with the glare of the statue of Jesus watching over them and it's very ominous and very strange with what these women are doing with their spare time.
[. . .]
Nancy is a victim of her class and Nancy is the character we are most invested in, in her inner life and her life outside the girls. Nancy seems greedy because she asks for all the power of Manon and not just these little high school wishes. Nancy is ultimately the villian and punished because she wanted more than what the rest of the girls were willing to settle for with their powers.
[. . .]
Here's Nancy who has nothing, who is so hungry for her power and she kind of wears her witchcraft in a really artificial and comodified sense. She kind of gets edgier as her power grows. She gets spikier and edgier, if she was any more intense her head would be on fire.
[. . .]
If you want to be like Sarah and love nature and light candles, that's just fine. If you want to take over, if you want to bring down the patriarchy and you want to go after the asshole who gave you syphilious or whatever, then you're gonna have to pay for that times three.
[. . .]
They were outcasts but they got this fetizied power that was sexy and playful and alluring in their power and I feel like that's worth mentioning. This came about during the early 90's when third wave feminism was coming about with the idea that you could be so many different things and we're not only equal and smart but you could also like clothes and boys and it doesn't make you any less charismatic or interesting. - The Faculty of Horror
The narrative of Witchcraft in the media hasn't really changed much since The Craft. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow is considered a Witch with an addiction to magic and is punished for it when her girlfriend, Tara is murdered. In Wicked, Elphie is dead in the book version (though may some day come back to life) and has to leave Oz forever in the musical version, unable to tell Glenda that she survived. Glenda is trapped in Oz with all of her loved ones gone and forced into a role that she may no longer want. So you're fucked if you're an outcast and fucked if you play the game too, there. In Frozen, Elsa is not permitted a love interest, though Hans could have very easily been written as non-villianous and a love interest for Elsa or Ana, leaving Christophe for the remaining "unmatched" sister. In Practical Magic, Jilly is punished by the spirit of her abusive boyfriend for running away and being promiscuous. Prue Halliwell in Charmed is double punished - When she becomes a "super Witch", she's killed by a demon. Double punished because Shannon Doherty couldn't get along with the publicly better liked Alison Milano which is (allegedly) the reason she got kicked off the show, never to be seen again. And the kill list for American Horror Story: Coven? Crazy. Fiona - too ambitious, dead. Myrtle - dead twice! Killed by Fiona likely due to jealousy (women can't be friends!) and then burnt at the stake again because she killed two of the witches who conspired to kill her. Madison - also too ambitious and daring to avenge herself after being gang raped. Misty - dead because goddess forbid someone with good intentions can survive this world. If you're "too good", you're killed for that too! Not just killed, but trapped in a hell realm. Marie (Laveau) - dead for daring to be black, immortal and serving Papa Legba (a Voudon/Santeria pantheon - a definite no no!). Nan - dead because she was developmentally disabled and a witch. Chantal - dead for being an African-American Witch associated with Marie.
True magic is neither black, nor white - it's both because nature is both. Loving and cruel, all at the same time.
Nothing makes everything all better again.
Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power. Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power