Writing magic: "The Craft"
Aug. 15th, 2009 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just watched the film "The Craft", which is about 4 teenage girls doing magic. New girl at new school meets three girls everyone thinks are witches, a goth girl, a girl with lots of scars, and the only black girl in the school (or indeed the movie, iirc). Surprise, they are witches! And it all goes horribly wrong! And the new girl discovers her power and dumps the mean girls. The End.
... except once you start looking at the specifics I think it's the film that goes horribly wrong, especially if you try and read it as a morality play. If you track who does what and what outcomes they get, which actions are approved or disapproved of, it all goes rather manky.
Start with The Only Black Girl In The Movie. A bleach blonde girl who gets no other characterisation makes a nasty crude joke about her hair looking like pubes, so the black girl does a spell to make her hair fall out if she's mean again. Which she is. And it does. The thing is, that's the only magic that girl does, and yet the rest of the movie treats her as one of the people who did something Wrong, so in the end she loses her powers and the new girl won't be friends with her. And, okay, making someone's hair fall out is indeed quite wrong. But. Well. Racism. Isn't that a bit wrong? There's a bit where the girl with no hair left is crying in the shower and asks the black girl what she did to deserve this. Perfect opportunity to tell her racism is wrong! But no, black girl looks in the mirror and something spooky and magic happens so she can't even look herself in the eye. When asked what she did to deserve this, only the black girl has a moment of realising she's in the wrong. There is no moment where anyone else has a 'hey, maybe we shouldn't be racist!' moment. Which I consider a problem.
Then there's the girl with the scars. The only magic - *only* - she does before Horribly Wrong happens with her on the wrong team? She wants to not have scars. And we see her having horrible painful medical treatment to get rid of the scars, so, yes, lets get rid of pain and have skin that works instead. The big problem is that's treated as Wrong. I don't even know why. After she has no scars she is confident and flirty. And the movie punishes her with it. Apparently what she'd get back threefold for wanting her scars gone? Why even more scars! Which is fucked up. For no readily apparent reason.
There's also a line about how she used to be nice (when she had scars and thought she was ugly) but now she's not nice any more. The words used are 'totally narcissitic'. And, well, no. She didn't turn around and join the mean girls and hurt people, she just liked feeling pretty and yelled comments at guys that might count as sexual harassment which is wrong but in a get more scars way? No.
So by the end she is back in the long sleeve shirt having learned her lesson. Whatever that was.
Nancy, the only one who had her name said enough I can remember it, the goth girl, was the only one that did properly wrong things. Killed two people. Killing is wrong. That's pretty clear.
And this is where the fact that the way they do it all is magic screws over the story.
The first guy she kills is her mother's boyfriend. He's just pawed at her, said her clothes are see through. When her mother tries to stop him he throws her mother across the room and gets ready to hit her. Nancy yells for him to stop it, things blow up, and he has a heart attack.
The second guy is a guy who just tried to rape her friend. So she goes and tries to have sex with him, which is screwed up, and then she yells at him about how he treats women and how wrong it is. Because there is magic involved the yelling makes a window open behind him and him fall out.
The big big problem is in both cases there's a guy doing sexual violence, really clearly wrong things, and a woman yelling at him to stop. But the end of the story punishes the woman for it.
If she'd killed them both by stabbing or something, clearly done something to kill them, then that would be too far. But all she did was yell.
So after that second death Nancy is clearly The Bad One. She has gone to the bad and pulled the others down with her. You can tell because The Good One tries to dump her and they get horribly vindictive about her trying to leave.
So lets talk about The Good One for a while. She's the one that wins in the end, the one the story follows from the start. She learns her lesson and gets her power. But what's her lesson?
When a guy stalks her and tries to rape her she blames herself for making him feel that way about her. And because there is magic involved, the film says this is a true thing. So she blames herself when she is sexually assaulted, and she and the film think Nancy is wrong for hurting the guy.
Nancy is several sorts of messed up, goes too far, but compare and contrast: The good girl blames herself and cries, the bad one blames the man and yells.
This is fucked up.
So the whole film is resolved with a binding spell that stops Nancy from being able to harm herself or others. So Nancy ends up sectioned and restrained and raving in a mental hospital. Creepy.
The film has a finds her own power ending. The good girl realises she inherited power from her dead mother, decides to give herself up to a higher power, and everything works out well for her.
Problem: The other three girls have actual problems. Racism, scars, sexual abuse and a crappy home life. Trying to deal with their actual problems is what they do with their magic. It goes horribly wrong.
The girl who gets the good ending? She has mental health problems, hallucinations, slit her wrists before the film, and her mother died when she was born. So, that's problems. But ... how to say it... it's problems where the solution is not-doing. Not-killing herself, basically. She finds her power by... deciding other girls shouldn't be trying to fix their lives?
Clearly it is not good to try and hurt others. But not all the girls did, before the film decides they are Doing It Wrong.
So what is this film saying?
Far as I can see: Racism isn't a problem, just hating racists. Scars aren't a problem, and it's narcissistic to want your skin to work. Stalker/rapist men aren't a problem, women making them feel that way is. Abusive men might be a problem, but yelling at them to stop is still wrong.
This is fucked up.
This film is messed up.
Write about women doing magic, write about women finding their power, should be good stuff.
But there's many ways to get it wrong, and this film did quite thoroughly.
... except once you start looking at the specifics I think it's the film that goes horribly wrong, especially if you try and read it as a morality play. If you track who does what and what outcomes they get, which actions are approved or disapproved of, it all goes rather manky.
Start with The Only Black Girl In The Movie. A bleach blonde girl who gets no other characterisation makes a nasty crude joke about her hair looking like pubes, so the black girl does a spell to make her hair fall out if she's mean again. Which she is. And it does. The thing is, that's the only magic that girl does, and yet the rest of the movie treats her as one of the people who did something Wrong, so in the end she loses her powers and the new girl won't be friends with her. And, okay, making someone's hair fall out is indeed quite wrong. But. Well. Racism. Isn't that a bit wrong? There's a bit where the girl with no hair left is crying in the shower and asks the black girl what she did to deserve this. Perfect opportunity to tell her racism is wrong! But no, black girl looks in the mirror and something spooky and magic happens so she can't even look herself in the eye. When asked what she did to deserve this, only the black girl has a moment of realising she's in the wrong. There is no moment where anyone else has a 'hey, maybe we shouldn't be racist!' moment. Which I consider a problem.
Then there's the girl with the scars. The only magic - *only* - she does before Horribly Wrong happens with her on the wrong team? She wants to not have scars. And we see her having horrible painful medical treatment to get rid of the scars, so, yes, lets get rid of pain and have skin that works instead. The big problem is that's treated as Wrong. I don't even know why. After she has no scars she is confident and flirty. And the movie punishes her with it. Apparently what she'd get back threefold for wanting her scars gone? Why even more scars! Which is fucked up. For no readily apparent reason.
There's also a line about how she used to be nice (when she had scars and thought she was ugly) but now she's not nice any more. The words used are 'totally narcissitic'. And, well, no. She didn't turn around and join the mean girls and hurt people, she just liked feeling pretty and yelled comments at guys that might count as sexual harassment which is wrong but in a get more scars way? No.
So by the end she is back in the long sleeve shirt having learned her lesson. Whatever that was.
Nancy, the only one who had her name said enough I can remember it, the goth girl, was the only one that did properly wrong things. Killed two people. Killing is wrong. That's pretty clear.
And this is where the fact that the way they do it all is magic screws over the story.
The first guy she kills is her mother's boyfriend. He's just pawed at her, said her clothes are see through. When her mother tries to stop him he throws her mother across the room and gets ready to hit her. Nancy yells for him to stop it, things blow up, and he has a heart attack.
The second guy is a guy who just tried to rape her friend. So she goes and tries to have sex with him, which is screwed up, and then she yells at him about how he treats women and how wrong it is. Because there is magic involved the yelling makes a window open behind him and him fall out.
The big big problem is in both cases there's a guy doing sexual violence, really clearly wrong things, and a woman yelling at him to stop. But the end of the story punishes the woman for it.
If she'd killed them both by stabbing or something, clearly done something to kill them, then that would be too far. But all she did was yell.
So after that second death Nancy is clearly The Bad One. She has gone to the bad and pulled the others down with her. You can tell because The Good One tries to dump her and they get horribly vindictive about her trying to leave.
So lets talk about The Good One for a while. She's the one that wins in the end, the one the story follows from the start. She learns her lesson and gets her power. But what's her lesson?
When a guy stalks her and tries to rape her she blames herself for making him feel that way about her. And because there is magic involved, the film says this is a true thing. So she blames herself when she is sexually assaulted, and she and the film think Nancy is wrong for hurting the guy.
Nancy is several sorts of messed up, goes too far, but compare and contrast: The good girl blames herself and cries, the bad one blames the man and yells.
This is fucked up.
So the whole film is resolved with a binding spell that stops Nancy from being able to harm herself or others. So Nancy ends up sectioned and restrained and raving in a mental hospital. Creepy.
The film has a finds her own power ending. The good girl realises she inherited power from her dead mother, decides to give herself up to a higher power, and everything works out well for her.
Problem: The other three girls have actual problems. Racism, scars, sexual abuse and a crappy home life. Trying to deal with their actual problems is what they do with their magic. It goes horribly wrong.
The girl who gets the good ending? She has mental health problems, hallucinations, slit her wrists before the film, and her mother died when she was born. So, that's problems. But ... how to say it... it's problems where the solution is not-doing. Not-killing herself, basically. She finds her power by... deciding other girls shouldn't be trying to fix their lives?
Clearly it is not good to try and hurt others. But not all the girls did, before the film decides they are Doing It Wrong.
So what is this film saying?
Far as I can see: Racism isn't a problem, just hating racists. Scars aren't a problem, and it's narcissistic to want your skin to work. Stalker/rapist men aren't a problem, women making them feel that way is. Abusive men might be a problem, but yelling at them to stop is still wrong.
This is fucked up.
This film is messed up.
Write about women doing magic, write about women finding their power, should be good stuff.
But there's many ways to get it wrong, and this film did quite thoroughly.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 06:08 pm (UTC)It had all the things you needed back then:
Boys, clothes, friends, and the feeling that you might be special some how.
I perposely didn't watch it when it was on because I know that (like most things you think are awesome when you are 12) it will be shit.
xx
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 11:14 pm (UTC)