How Netflix's 'Sabrina' fails its intersectional feminist promise

This post contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina desperately wants you to know how woke it is.

From Sabrina founding the WICCA (Women’s Intersectional Cultural and Creative Association) club to help her black best friend Ros, to protecting her gender nonconforming friend Susie from bullies, she's painted as the model of white feminist ally.

SEE ALSO:‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ takes a while to cast its spell, but the magic is still there

And that savior complex is exactly where CAOS'wokeness gets iffy real fast.

Initially, the idea of "intersectional witchcraft" sounds like the most deliciously perfect lens for commenting on the most pressing feminist issues happening in the year of our dark lord 2018.

Witch narratives are not only in vogue thanks to #MeToo, but also natural metaphors for stories of marginalization and othering. Then there's the history of witch persecution, all steeped in the intersectional nexus of sexism, racism, classism, and ethnocentrism that upholds patriarchy.

Yet instead of taking advantage of any of this fertile soil, CAOSfeels like someone googled "feminist buzzwords," then sprinkled their search results into the script.

The characters of Susie and Ros get totally shafted in 'Chilling Adventures of Sabrina'Credit: Netflix

Using feminism as aesthetic rather than meaning, its declarative wokeness amounts to little more than nauseating soapbox Moments of Intersectional Feminism that are like a bad after-school special that only makes you want to do moredrugs.

Worse still, the show fails to see how its own plot highlights almost every issue with white feminism.

Now, to be clear: We are not condemning CAOS for its above average attention to diverse representation. The attempt is commendable. But it also goes to show what a sorry state we're in that many are heralding the series as a feminist manifesto -- even while not agreeing on exactly what it's even saying about feminism.

CAOS feels like someone googled "feminist buzzwords," then sprinkled their search results into the script

Like most pop culture representations of witches, it focuses squarely on white women victims. In the process, it totally erases the countless other victims who were slaves and other people of color with foreign religions that were demonized as witchcraft by white, colonizing Christians.

Many forget that in Salem, historians trace back a great source of the panic to racism against Tituba, an enslaved woman (her ethnic identity is debated, but popularly stated as West Indian) accused of teaching and using curses on the girls who were first accused. But of course, he racism behind this famous example of mass hysteria is constantly overshadowed by the narrative of white women victims.

CAOSis guilty of doing all of this in spades – like with the Thirteen, a group of white women who were hung and now seek revenge after being abandoned by their coven during witch trials.

To be fair, it's true that most of the victims killed in Salem werewhite women, often because they didn't fit the strict social norms for what Puritan women should be. But that story is also much more complicated and interesting as a historical example of who the patriarchy harms.

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For example, a significant amount of men died too (upwards of six of the twenty who died in total), for the crime of refusing to participate in the trials and supporting the women accused.

I mean, talk about true male allies who deserve a bit more recognition, amiright? Where's our male ally laying down his life to stand up for women, Sabrina?

The unbearable whiteness of Sabrina's intersectional witchcraftCredit: Netflix

CAOS, a show declaring itself intersectional from the mountaintops, forgoes this complex tapestry of marginalization to resurrect the same old specters of white women victims. Before then swiftly making Sabrina a white woman savior to boot.

It's particularly insulting because, outside of Salem, the biggest targets of fatal witchcraft accusations in history have been people of color.

It's particularly insulting because, outside of Salem, the biggest targets of fatal witchcraft accusations in history have been people of color.

Wether it was Native Americans or slaves from both Africa and the Caribbean, accusations of voodoo and witchcraft allowed colonizers to further dehumanize the people they tortured, killed, and abused with impunity.

Even now, the racist persecution of "witches" in the name of Catholicism remains in full effect. As recently as 2002, the Catholic church tried to outlaw the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, a practice of Yoruban origins brought over by the Atlantic slave trade.

The religion survived the unimaginable trials of centuries of slavery. Yet even in 2015, there were reports of mounting violence from Evangelical Christians against its practitioners, who stigmatize Candomblé as a devil-worshipping cult.

But that's just one of the many examples of how, to this day, racism and ethnocentrism play a huge role in the story of who is marginalized and othered through the excuse of "witchcraft."

Um can we return 'Sabrina' for a show just about these three, particularly Prudence?Credit: Diyah Pera/Netflix

Obviously, CAOSdidn't need to go into any of the specifics. But at the very least, a show with an incredibly talented and diverse cast that pays constant lip service to intersectionality could've done a better job of acknowledging it.

Instead, CAOSsidelines most character arcs who aren't about straight or white people, and even edges into racist stereotypes itself, like the Wise Old Black Magical Character that is Ros' grandmother. And again, the slap in the face is made wose by the missed opportunity. Ros' storyline could've easily delved into how accusations of "magic" affect people of color differently.

An attempt at social relevance that perpetuates the myth of a white person being the only one powerful enough to save everyone.

Instead, Sabrina's character unknowingly dips into a recent trend of real-world cultural appropriation. Those who practice Hoodoo, for example, are expressing an influx of "New Age" white woman witchcraft claiming their traditions passed down by slaves in the South.

The characters of Ambrose and Prudence only heighten the sense of lost potential, too.

By far the two most interesting characters (imma need about 98% less Harvey, please), their identities as specifically black witches go completely unaddressed. Of course, their characters don't need to be defined by their race. But ignoring it as part of their experience feels equally awkward.

As it is, the talented actors behind those characters feel otherwise marginalized to the role of fulfilling a quota, rather than actually representing diversity in the narrative.

Ultimately, CAOS'intersectional feminism is an attempt at social relevance that instead perpetuates the myth of a white person being the only one powerful enough to save everyone.

At best, it winds up being little more than the story of how Sabrina's hair went platinum. At worst, it's about how Sabrina, and the series itself, saves the day by refusing to address the history of persecuted witchcraft, and why they were targeted. Because the climax finds her literally burning that history to ashes with patriarchal hellfire.

Which, ironically, is a perfect metaphor for what white feminism does. But certainly, it's #NotMyIntersectionalWitchcraft.

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TopicsNetflixRacial Justice