Forever Charmed: Nineties Witches

Witchcraft is… an attempt to assert power by the powerless – Joyce Carol Oates, Afterword to We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Growing up, I had two great loves that other children probably didn’t have as their special interests:

Vampires.

And witches.

I desperately wanted to be a creature of the night and had a possibly slightly concerning habit of licking my own blood, but even more than that…

I wanted to be a witch.

And in the Nineties, it felt like witches were everywhere and witches were being seen; even more importantly, they were being seen as good and cool and normal, considering their exceptional powers.

This was the decade that gave us Willow and the Halliwells (a great band name, by the way), just the crest of a wave of witchy content for young women to absorb and digest and desperately try to emulate.

What all these witches had in common is that they, unlike Samantha in Bewitched for example, were independent young women exploring their complex identities while juggling real life with their magical responsibilities or wants. And, interestingly enough, we often saw the consequences of, well, witchcraft gone wrong. These witches faced the same anxieties and heartache as the rest of us, modelling to a whole generation of girls what to do (and often, what not to do).

Here are my five favourite Nineties witchy pieces of media. Spoilers ahead!

The Best Nineties Witches

1. The Craft (film, 1996)

Definitely the darkest entry on this list, but then again, being a teenager can be pretty awful sometimes. This is the one about outsiders, for outsiders, empowering themselves…

Until things escalate.

Quickly.

Here, we learn that female friendship can help us reach our full potential – but it can also be perilously fickle. Perhaps aside from Willow in Buffy, this is the clearest demonstration of how magic can be abused and its consequences as Nancy (Fairuza Balk) ends up in psychiatric care after turning on Sarah (Robin Tunney. Nonetheless, Sarah ends the film far more confident and at peace with herself than at the start – the question is, would that have still been the case if she’d never entered the coven?

2. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2003)

Now, I loved (most of) Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – it was gothic and pulpy and looked lush. However, my absolute highlight was when she did the clothes changing spell because…

Well, I’m the generation who grew up with a talking Salem. I had the books. I had the Windows 98 game. I even subscribed to the makeup magazine (that plastic purple box was my go-to for school discos). I loved Sabrina and her aunts and her ridiculous cat with delusions of grandeur.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch probably owes quite a lot to Bewitched – it’s definitely the lightest approach to witchcraft on this list, although it still has dark undertones. After all, as soon as she turned sixteen, Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) found out she was a witch, was forcibly estranged from her parents, and had to start a new high school – quite the coming of age tale.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

Ah, where my special interests intersected. This six-year-old was accidentally allowed to watch Buffy on BBC Two back in the day, because ‘Buffy’ sounded like a kids’ show. Thanks, Mum. Of course, the focus was on the vampires and trying to survive high school, but seemingly ‘normal’ Willow (Alyson Hannigan) slowly came into her own as she discovered her innate power. This went hand in hand with her exploration of her sexuality (justice for Tara) and her abuse of magic later became an allegory for addiction and recovery.

4. Practical Magic (film, 1998)

I will acknowledge that Practical Magic is a bit of a tonal mess of a film, but to me, it’s peak Nicole Kidman (Gillian) and Sandra Bullock (Sally) and their sisterhood is so credibly intimate. Gillian’s abusive boyfriend who just won’t stay dead and then possesses her is a chilling metaphor, while Sally’s fear of the family curse that may have killed her late husband means she faces that common struggle of knowing when and how to move on. At times, the film is a bit cutesy and cottagecore, but it has a twisted heart and an important lesson about family and community.

5. Charmed (TV, 1998-2006)

How I wanted to be Prue when I was a little girl, totally aware that I was really probably a Phoebe (the baby of the family and the seemingly least powerful). For me, the first three to four seasons were the strongest, as they focused more on the sisters’ difficult transition from their early to late twenties, dealing with going back to college, changing career, and losing lovers to demons (maybe that last one is less relatable).

Like Practical Magic, early Charmed was grounded in this phenomenal family – eldest girl Prue struggled with letting go of being the mother figure and middle sister Piper tried to find her voice, while Phoebe’s greatest fear was losing a sister at all. Their love and frustration and support for each other was palpable as they learnt two important lessons: no magic for personal gain and everything happens for a reason.

Coldharbour

When I think of any of the witches above, I feel a weird kind of nostalgia/pride for Sarah, Sabrina, Willow, Sally and Gillian, and, of course, Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige.

And to be honest, their reasonably realistic take on what it means to be a woman with a complex identity and rich inner life hugely inspires my own writing. Not only is the first Coldharbour book set in 1999, the protagonist Alex Wilde takes her cues from these incredible characters. She’s an outsider but not afraid of it, with Prue Halliwell’s determination and Sally Owen’s heart – and that might be the only way she can survive a haunted town like Coldharbour…