The New Witches: Critical Essays on 21st Century Television Portrayals PDF
Preview The New Witches: Critical Essays on 21st Century Television Portrayals
The New Witches The New Witches Critical Essays on 21st Century Television Portrayals Edited by Aaron K.H. Ho McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina This book has undergone peer review. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Names: Ho, Aaron K.H., editor. Title: The new witches : critical essays on 21st century television portrayals / edited by Aaron K.H. Ho. Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2021 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021019769 | ♾ ISBN 9781476679150 (paperback acid free paper) ISBN 9781476642888 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Witches on television. | Television programs—United States—History—21st century. | Television programs—Great Britain—History—21st century. | Feminism. | BISAC: PERFORMING ARTS / Television / Genres / Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Classification: LCC PN1992.8.W58 N49 2021 | DDC 791.45/677—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019769 British Library cataloguing data are available ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7915-0 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-4288-8 © 2021 Aaron K.H. Ho. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover image © Shutterstock / Ironika Printed in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com To Melissa He Acknowledgments Layla Milholen at McFarland has been wonderful to work with and I appreciate her guidance on this book greatly. I learned much from the contributors with their w ide-ranging expertise. It has been a thrilling ride and I could ask for no better company. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments vi Introduction—“That’s how I like my witches”: The New Witches on 2 1st-Century Television Aaron K.H. Ho 1 Intersectional Politics and History: Race, the #MeToo Movement and the Witch “This is a reckoning”: Intersectional Feminism and the #MeToo Movement in Charmed Katherine J. Lehman 10 From Witchcraft Activism to Witch Hunt Sentiments: The Changing Political Landscape in American Horror Story Johanna Braun 28 R e-Remembering the Past: Hauntological Feminist Memories of Salem in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Brydie Kosmina 41 Good Witch, Bad Witch: Identities and Ethics Declawing the Jungle Cat: Caging Feminine Power on the CW’s The Secret Circle Charity A. Fowler 56 The Witches of the West and the Boundaries of Goodness Lindsey Mantoan 73 “When witches don’t fight, we burn!” Monstrosity and Violence in American Horror Story: Coven Emily Brick 87 vii viii Table of Contents The Witchy Body: Sexualities and Disabilities Condensing the Palate: Queer Representation and Heteronormativity in Charmed Samuel Naimi 100 Queerness and Historical Sadomasochism in Salem Tanner Alan Sebastian 111 Teenage Furies: The Rape-Revenge Genre in American Horror Story: Coven Christine R. Payson 126 Witches with Disabilities on 2 1st-Century Television Programs Aaron K.H. Ho 139 Disembodiment of the Witch: Ecofeminism, Digital Humanities and Beyond Blood The Literal and the Metaphorical: Othered Voices in Salem Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 158 “The world never did help a smart girl”: Disembodied Digitalization, the Open Access Library and BuzzFeed in The Magicians Natalie R. Sheppard 172 Beyond Blood: The Negotiation of Biological and Chosen Families in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Alissa Burger 187 Appendix: 2 1st-Century Television and Streaming Programs with Witches 203 About the Contributors 205 Index 207 Introduction “That’s how I like my witches”: The New Witches on 2 1st-Century Television Aaron K.H. Ho Sabrina: I want freedom and power. Prudence: He will never give you that. The Dark Lord. The thought of you, of any of us, having both terrifies him. Sabrina: Why is that? Prudence: He’s a man, isn’t he? —1x2 “The Dark Baptism” Rewatching Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–2020) for the third time, I am still awestruck at the scene above, not because Sabrina and the Weird Sisters have banded together in solidarity to combine their powers to humiliate four entitled, misogynistic, transphobic jocks, magically trap- ping their manhood in birdcages; not because the artful scene blends a tri- umphant tone with humor, disquiet, and foreboding; not because the scene is empowering to viewers, especially women and minorities, who have been bullied before; not because the scene offers the satisfaction of revenge on the misbehaved boys; and not because they pass the Bechdel test of two pow- erful young women not talking about heterosexual romance but instead they are exchanging information and sharing knowledge. The scene’s power comes from all those elements, but the most striking of all, to me, is the almost 1 6-year-old Sabrina’s cocksure proclamation of desiring both power and freedom in the c oming-of-age series. It is rare to see on the small screen a confident and ambitious woman, and rarer still to witness a girl with the same qualities. In this sense, Sabrina isn’t the common fictional teenager. Most fictional teenagers—from Harry Potter to Spiderman—doubt their abilities, reject at some point their powers, and question and s econd-guess their actions; Sabrina revels in power. Even though Sabrina has a half witch, 1
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