FILM / The Craft, Feminism, and Building a Better World / Joanna Acevedo
Image © Columbia Pictures
The 1996 cult classic The Craft sets out to be a feminist movie, but like many movies of the late 90s, it loses steam about an hour into the movie, when its main characters, a group of teenage girls, turn on each other and it becomes a movie about what happens when teenagers, shoved together in the hothouse of high school, get too close to one another. Exacerbated by the supernatural, Rochelle, Bonnie, Nancy, and Sarah’s personal problems are raised to breaking point, and they lash out at one another, fueled by mystical powers. The end result is a terrifying melee of what happens when teenagers with already fragile mental health conditions get involved with each other, and ultimately it serves as a cautionary tale for reactionary, copycat suicides.
The Craft is pure 90s gold—lots of dark lipstick, Catholic schoolgirl outfits, and moody music, along with special effects like fingers turning into snakes and roaches crawling out of people’s mouths that will bring enjoyment to even the most body-horror-phobic of watchers. Like many movies of the era, the movie attempts to open up conversations about female friendship, male-female relationships and consent, and mental illness, without being totally effective. It’s admirable that directors and producers want to have these conversations, but often they get caught up in the production, marketing, and logistics of the movie, and it becomes counterproductive.
The Craft starts with some important lessons about date-rape and male desire. Its main antagonist, Chris Hooker, initially pursues protagonist and new girl Sarah and then spreads lies about her when she refuses to sleep with him. When she puts a love spell on him as revenge, he is so entranced with her that he tries to rape her, and Nancy, the strongest of the witchy teenagers, tricks him into sleeping with her by pretending to be Sarah and then pushing him out a window with her magical powers, in an iconic scene that has her levitating off the floor. The scene is disturbing and traumatizing, and many women will empathize with Sarah, who both feels terrified for her life and guilty for Chris’ death.
This is where The Craft stumbles. Nancy is portrayed primarily as mentally unstable, and even evil, for killing Chris, rather than an angel of vengeance who protects Sarah from the magic that Sarah had done herself out of revenge for Chris’ lies about her. Although murder is never acceptable, Nancy is trying to protect Sarah, as well as hold onto her own power. The Craft is really a movie about female desire and in particular, desire for power, and where it can go wrong—and the lesson we learn from this movie is that a woman’s quest for power can be destructive and alienating. Rather than being an empowering, feminist film, The Craft relies on tropes which have been played and replayed in films for years.
The Craft, again, begins as an empowering movie. We see the four young women calling the corners, a ritual which involves a dagger and pricking their fingers, then mixing their blood with wine and drinking it, and it’s portrayed as a magical, spiritual event. They have fun together—they enjoy each other’s company, and they all gain something from their newfound power. Bonnie gets relief from her burn scars, Rochelle addresses the racism she’s been facing in school, and Nancy’s stepfather dies in a freak accident, leaving her some money. But as the movie progresses, we see the impulses of the greater powers start to stir. It’s simply too revolutionary for young women to have this much power, and live successfully with it—they must be punished.
Then, there is the mental illness aspect. Sarah is a suicide survivor, Nancy is clearly unstable, and Rochelle and Bonnie are both followers, not leaders. Sarah’s previous suicide attempt is exploited throughout the film; Nancy is constantly calling her weak, and she hallucinates near the end of the movie due to Nancy’s dark magic. As the girls turn on each other, they exploit their weaknesses, much like lions circling around a weak animal. We see the dark side of teenagers in this film—young women who want to hurt each other, who have truly serious illnesses, and who struggle deeply with their issues. Rather than giving us a positive message about mental illness advocacy, The Craft uses Nancy’s sickness as a punchline and turns her into a villain, and Sarah into a victim. Although she perseveres in the end, using her mother’s strength to beat Nancy, her power is not something she truly understands. Maybe she never will.
The Craft is ahead of its time in terms of the way it ruthlessly takes on themes of mental illness, teenage girlhood, and the supernatural. But in how it actually handles these topics, it is frighteningly close to the mainstream, which is somewhat disappointing for such a cult classic.
There is still much to enjoy about The Craft—great costumes, Fairuza Balk’s incredible portrayal of Nancy Downs, and a genuinely creepy sense of horror in some of the special effects. For fans of suspense, witchy, supernatural movies, and strong female character development, The Craft still manages to be entertaining, even almost thirty years later. But as a conversation starter about mental illness, The Craft relies on stereotypes and is, at times, underdeveloped. We don’t get a real sense of what is at the core of Sarah’s depression, and it’s treated more as a plot point than a genuine psychiatric illness, which is discouraging for real sufferers of depression who are looking for representation in movies and TV.
As a feminist movie, too, The Craft falls short—Sarah ends up alone, without the girl power or sisterhood aspect that witches and covens usually imply. She has her powers, but it doesn’t seem like she totally understands them. There is a sense that women can’t be trusted in large groups, and the woman from the magic shop, who Sarah turns to in times of crisis, is never mentioned after a certain point, and we forget about her. As a viewer, I enjoyed the scenes where the girls spent time together and worked towards a collective goal, and it felt like they were being punished for their natural teenage impulses—to get a boy to like them, to be prettier, to have their families be more supportive. Don’t be selfish, the movie warns. But these are natural impulses, and to stifle them would be to stifle being human.
Power corrupts, says The Craft. And it especially corrupts young women. This does not seem like the message we should be telling the next generation, who we want to encourage to think bigger, dream larger, come up with the next ideas. In this world of mega billionaires who can take over companies and destroy them, I want to see young girls who can work well with other young girls, handle power effectively, and create a better world.
Joanna Acevedo is a writer, educator, and editor from New York City. She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2021 for her poem “self portrait if the girl is on fire” and is the author of three books and chapbooks, including Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, 2021) and List of Demands (Bottlecap Press, 2022). Her work can be found across the web and in print, including or forthcoming in Litro USA, Hobart, and the Rumpus. She is a Guest Editor at Frontier Poetry and The Masters Review, Associate Poetry Editor at West Trade Review, and a member of the Review Team at Gasher Journal, in addition to running interviews at Fauxmoir and The Great Lakes Review. As well as being a Goldwater Fellow at NYU, she was a Hospitalfield 2020 Interdisciplinary Resident. She received her MFA in Fiction from New York University in 2021, teaches writing and interviewing skills through the nonprofit system, and is supported by Creatives Rebuild New York: Guaranteed Income For Artists.