In 1996, revered film critic Roger Ebert reviewed what appeared to many as a gratuitous, lowbrow, and supernatural teen movie, Andrew Fleming’s The Craft. Commenting on the film, which centers around the lives of four high-school aged witches and alluring corruptions of power, Ebert says that the plot is “below audiences’ interest,” with its largest failure being one of imagination.
Shortly after Ebert’s review went public, the film hit theaters gained slow momentum. Ultimately taking on the persona of a sleeper hit, The Craft brought in $56 million, almost four times its budget. 24 years later and the film’s popularity has yet to wane. A cult classic, Fleming’s supernatural dalliance continues to inspire, as seen by the film’s upcoming stand-alone sequel, The Craft: Legacy.
The Craft’s success didn’t happen within a vacuum, nor was it unpredicted for those who needed it most: young women.
The same decade which saw actresses Fairuza Banks, Sarah Bailey, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True conjure in one of Ebert’s least favorite witch stories, also saw the creation of third wave feminism. Inspired by the unfinished business of the second wave and the rise in right-wing Reagan endorsed Christian politics, young women gathered together in new and more inclusive ways seeking rights, power, and representation surrounding beauty, sexuality, femininity, and masculinity.
No longer looking to shake things up from within pre-approved establishments, third wave feminists took to music, underground scenes, and alternative media channels. Riot grrrls, third wave punk feminists that combined music, politics, and human rights, seem the vein which most closely inspired the chaotic powerful punk witches in The Craft.
Besides the obvious resemblance in clothing between the feminist rockers and the four main female characters in The Craft, the riot grrrl’s main pillars constitute, as chronicled in Bikini Kill’s Riot Grrrl Manifesto, a direct renunciation of racism, a refusal to assimilate into heteronormative and sexist archetypes, and a call for more representative and feminist media.
The 1996 cult hit speaks to those core principles, chronicling the racism Rachel True’s character receives, carving out a space for left-of-center young women, and creating an entire feature length film which more accurately represents a new type of womanhood.
Although bolstered by feminism and released amongst this movement, the film’s writers, its director, cinematographer and editor, and one of the three producers on the film, are men.
Men’s representations of women, stemming from a male gaze mindset, can never be fully accurate. An increase in women behind the scenes of a show or movie directly positively impacts the portrayal of that piece of media’s female characters. Although The Craft follows the lives of four very powerful teenage girls, imagine what the film could have been knowing that even the hiring of ONE woman writer on prime-time shows has been linked to the reduced use of on-screen insults between women.
2020’s reiteration of Fleming’s supernatural universe can be this direct feminine reimagining.
Releasing on October 28th on Amazon Prime, The Craft: Legacy once again follows four strong teenage witches and their struggles with the darker sides of wielding power.
As observed in the reboot’s newly released trailer, the feature borrows heavily from the original’s plot and pays homage to classic lines such as Nancy, Fairuza Banks’ character’s, “We are the weirdos mister.”
Much like the original, the sequel comes at a time where a new wave of feminism, much inspired by the digital world and yet another rise in fascist leadership and ideology, defines our thoughts. However, Legacy, bolsters a female screenwriter and director (both tackled by Zoe Lister-Jones, of Band Aid fame), cinematographer, editor, and many female producers.
The new film’s trailer diverges from its predecessor’s path in its polished imagery and outfits. However, we’re to watch to see if the feminization of the movie’s making directly impacts its messages, representation, characters, and dialogue.
Coming to fruition during a tumultuous political hellscape on the verge of complete collapse into dictatorship and fascism, we’ll see if Legacy’s form of feminism displays the same pillars, like body positivity, complete inclusivity, a rejection of harassment, support of BLM, and the dismantling of rape culture, as the fourth wave of feminism it exists within and may be a product of.
Until October 28th, we’re to rewatch The Craft in all of its 90s glory in spite of male critics who observe it as nothing more than a boring plot.
The Rogue Runway 