Spooky and Feminist Halloween
With midterm studying, work, organizational commitments, and also trying to eat, sleep, and maybe see your friends when you get the chance — it can be hard to find time to get into the Halloween spirit. Fortunately for us, we have a myriad of spooky-seasonal movies and tv shows to help with this. And even more fortunately for us, a lot of these Halloween-related stories feature extremely badass and inspiring female lead characters.
SO, if you’re interested in content that fulfills both your Halloween and feminist voids, check these out!
#1) The Halloweentown Series
There is so much to love about the four-film- Disney Channel original movie series Halloweentown. It features 90s-era cheap monsters, a town centered around a giant pumpkin, and a host of future fellow Disney Channel stars as supernatural characters (I’m looking at you Lucas Gabriel AKA Ryan from High School Musical.) Most importantly, however, the story’s hero and protagonist is Marnie Piper (Kimberly J Brown) a witch, who is confident, ambitious, powerful, and also a teenage girl. Although it’s fantasy, of course, it’s fun and empowering to see that it’s Marnie whose actions dictate the events of the films; and Marnie who gets to defeat the villain (usually a monster) by each film’s end. Even more, her mother and grandmother are spotlighted alongside her and equally as capable and active in the plot.
#2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Although not exclusively made for the Halloween season, it would be a crime to not mention one of the most famous badass female-lead supernatural shows in the history of television. Okay that could be a slight exaggeration, but Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer has certainly cemented her place on the female characters from television hall of fame. The 7-season series followed heroine Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) as she fought a multitude of monsters (mainly vampires) with the help of her friends (and school librarian). The progressive aspects of Buffy could be a dissertation on their own (as could the less-progressive aspects, but alas, this isn’t an essay) but the important thing is that Buffy herself not only used her intelligence to fight monsters, but also her prime combat skills, a quality not often offered to heroines.
#3) Hocus Pocus
Okay, now considering that the main character of Hocus Pocus is Max, an angsty teenage boy who accidentally revives three evil witches from the dead, it may not be the first movie on your feminist radar. However, hear me out. Obviously it’s important to have strong female protagonists in media but it’s just as important to have strong female villains. Female villains only work when there’s non-villainous female characters to counter in the same piece of media to counter them. Hocus Pocus is a great example of media that has villainous (but fun) female characters AND morally upright ones which lets the movie’s portrayal of women be multidimensional. Aside from the feminist critique, the movie is filled with virtues, which include: a colonial-boy-turned-talking-cat, a witch flying on a vacuum cleaner, and Bette Midler’s iconic cover of “I Put A Spell on You.”
#4) The Scream Series
For those who prefer Halloween content of the horror/slasher variety, consider the classic Scream series. All four films in the center on Sidney, (Neve Campbell) a kind-hearted young woman who has terrible luck with serial killers who target her peers, loved ones, and unassuming suburban California town. Although horror as a genre--with its normalization of violence and violence against women in particular — isn’t known for its feminist quality, Scream while yes, still being a slasher film, is a satire of the horror genre and consequently self-aware of the tropes it utilizes. Sidney’s character isn’t anything revolutionary in a relative lens but she’s still a female protagonist who’s capable and smart and if you’re looking for catharsis in the form of women kicking ass (quite literally) then give it a chance.
#5) Charmed
You can’t make a list of female-lead supernatural enterprises without mentioning the series Charmed. Charmed, which ran for 8 seasons on the WB (now known as the CW network,) followed the lives of three sisters who discovered they were witches and dedicated themselves to using their power to help those in trouble as well as stop the end of the world on occasion. The series is fun, heartwarming, and spooky — and everything perfect for Halloween. Also, fortunately for fans of witchy women, Charmed has been remade for Netflix with a new cast of sisters, and is currently airing on The CW Sundays at 9pm!. (Also, relevant side note: if you’re looking for more witchiness and maybe some cats, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is also hitting Netflix on October 26th!)
