I’m sure to make everyone mad with this post, but I’ve been looking at the back and forth between the stars of the original Charmed and the reboot and just hoping everyone would just …stop talking? Would that be so hard? I mean, both sides have a point, and yet, both sides are also wrong; so this is really one of those situations where the best thing to do would be to just stop talking.
Yes, this all goes back a long way. When the reboot was announced there were a ton of marketing problems, which I’ve talked about before, and there were also some ageist comments made by the actresses in the reboot. None of which was any reason for the racist vitriol the actresses got from fans of the originals. That’s unacceptable, period. Like what you like, but when you put down WOC just because they’re stepping in the same spaces as your white favorites, that’s problematic, at best.
There is absolutely no way to deny that the original Charmed was peak white feminism. I enjoyed it anyway, at the time. We all did. Doesn’t mean we can’t call out its problems. Or at least, the many ways in which the reboot could have gone ahead with a good concept and presented it in a respectful, inclusive way that paid homage to what the original meant, yet forged its own path.
However, the thing is …the reboot did none of that. At least, it didn’t do so at first, and its original sin is so egregious, I’m not sure it could have done so since the time I stopped watching. Because the original sin was this: Charmed cast two African American actresses to play Latinas, lied about the reboot being all-latinx, hoping we wouldn’t find out all three actresses weren’t latinx, and when we did …they tried to tell us that they just were never meant to be latinx, despite the fact that their mother is.
It’s us who didn’t understand.
So yeah, the Charmed reboot isn’t exactly standing on some moral high ground. But that doesn’t mean I find it above water for the original Charmed stars to continue harping on about how much the show sucks. I don’t even watch the show – not because of its quality or lack thereof, but because I would rather invest my times in shows that don’t lie to me about my representation – but I can understand getting upset at the continued digs.
For one, because they’re not necessary. The original Charmed already has a legacy, them dunking on the original won’t make it stronger – but it might just be taken as permission by the worst people in that fandom, to go after the Charmed reboot not for its merits, but because their actresses are WOC. That is, after all, the way it always goes.
All that being said, what does anyone involved with the reboot gain by responding, by getting into this back and forth with the original Charmed stars? They’re certainly not going to change their minds, their fans are not going to start thinking the reboot is amazing because they “stood up” to them, or something, and though I fully believe that sometimes you need to stand up for things, and to people …in the end that’s just …their opinion? You might think it’s in bad taste for them to express it, but all the back and forth isn’t really going to make it all better.
The Charmed reboot is still going on, despite the fact that they are not the representation anyone wanted, and they still refuse to answer questions about the numerous lies they fed us while trying to promote their show. And the original Charmed is still beloved in people’s minds, despite the fact that, in retrospect, it was really peak white feminism. Though it was groundbreaking for its time, it never truly broke as much ground as we thought it was breaking.
So really, the best thing to do, for all involved, right now, is just to stop talking. Seriously. Just stop. Please.
