Earlier than Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina introduced us a narrative of teenage witchery, sacrifices, and satan worship, the Sabrina character gained fame on ABC’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Vastly totally different from the darkish and disturbing Chilling Adventures, Sabrina was a lighthearted sitcom about an adolescent with magical powers.
Sabrina was humorous and relatable to each teenager who wished they might magic away their issues. She was an excellent witch with a cute boyfriend, a supportive household, and a sassy cat sidekick.
I beloved Sabrina rising up, however trying again, I see some obtrusive points with this seemingly harmless world. The 2 most notable contain the function of the cat sidekick, and the query of whether or not or not Sabrina and her Aunts have been actually good witches?
Let’s begin with the cat. Salem was a fan-favorite. Voiced by Nick Bakay, Salem was a speaking black cat who toed the road between buddy, father or mother, annoyance, and pet.
He was widespread among the many followers; all of us needed a Salem of our personal. Apart from Sabrina herself, he was the one character to be in each episode of the collection.
After all, Salem wasn’t your common cat. He had as soon as been a completely grown male witch. He tried to take over the world, and he received punished by being became a cat. He lived with Sabrina as a result of her Aunt Hilda had been one in every of his followers, and that was her punishment.
Now, let’s again up. This cat who frolicked always on this teenage lady’s room whereas she was in a nightgown was truly a completely grown man?
Sure, that’s right. Salem could have acclimated to being a cat, and had cat-like traits, however he additionally was a heterosexual male sufficiently old to be Sabrina’s father.
He frolicked in her room. Sabrina would pet him, and let him hang around on her mattress. And for some purpose, most likely as a result of he regarded like a cat, neither the characters nor the viewers discovered this disturbing.
True, Sabrina and her Aunts had the pleasure of cleansing out Salem’s litter field. He was roughly weak to them as this innocent creature that they needed to care for like an emasculated aged individual or youngster.
However nonetheless. What number of instances was Sabrina holding Salem the place he was proper up in opposition to her chest, and he or she wasn’t even considering, this can be a absolutely grown man?
They do indicate that Salem got here to see Sabrina as household, so perhaps it is like when you took your father and rubbed him up in opposition to your boobs? How’s that picture for you?
In all seriousness, I really like Salem. He was an amazing character. However when you understand that’s an grownup male, it’s arduous to reconcile the connection he has with the harmless teenage lady.
Shifting proper alongside to the larger query. Had been Sabrina and her Aunts truly good witches?
The present appeared to maintain with the idea that when Sabrina did magic, it was both innocent, like altering her garments, or teenage foolishness that she would endure the implications of and be taught from.
Sabrina was an adolescent, so after all, she would need magical options for her issues. But when she ever crossed a line, don’t be concerned. It would backfire, her Aunts will take her to job, there can be some massive lesson, and the spell can be reversed.
More often than not, it labored out that method. However not all the time. In truth, there are a couple of instances when Sabrina crossed that line, and her Aunts did not appear to thoughts. Typically they’d ignore it. Different instances, they’d encourage it.
Let’s speak about Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season 1 Episode 2. On this episode, individuals are gossiping about Sabrina and her buddy at college. Sabrina decides to make use of reality sprinkles to get all people to inform the reality.
She learns that the reality might be arduous to swallow, and a few issues are higher left unsaid. Easy sufficient.
However let’s take a more in-depth look. Is honesty an excellent coverage? Positive. And if somebody chooses to be trustworthy, nice, extra energy to them!
Nonetheless, utilizing one thing referred to as reality sprinkles to power somebody to inform the reality is basically taking away their proper to decide on what to reveal.
Governments have used issues like reality serum in life and demise conditions. And Surprise Girl has her Lasso of Fact whereas she’s on the market saving the world. Little question, when an adolescent is nervous about gossip, it feels like life and demise.
However similar to we would not condone waterboarding your common highschool bully, taking the free will from even one scholar must be a no-no.
We get why Sabrina would need to do it, similar to we get why you may want revenge in your somebody who bullied you. Ordinarily, that is the place the dad and mom would step in.
As an alternative of telling Sabrina that it’s not her place to basically power individuals to share their truths, her Aunts encourage her to observe her magic, as long as she’s cautious of damage emotions.
When her emotions do, in reality, get damage, her Aunt Zelda encourages her to degree the taking part in discipline and eat some reality sprinkles herself.
Sabrina then turns into empowered to inform her crush she likes his sideburns, and he or she is relieved to find that he and her buddy will not be all in favour of one another.
When its throughout, Sabrina by no means suffers any actual penalties. Granted, neither does the bully she enchanted, however this episode marked the start of a mentality that it’s okay to make use of magic to change, affect, and management the individuals.
This brings me to Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season Three Episode 13. That is the episode that made me understand how disturbing this present really is.
Within the episode, Sabrina’s boyfriend Harvey tells her he doesn’t plan to take The SATs as a result of he does not need to go to school. He desires to repair vehicles. Sabrina is anxious about their future collectively. What sort of life would they’ve?
Sabrina proceeds to purchase a bottle of ambition cologne and sprays Harvey with it. Harvey turns into extra formidable … however solely about fixing vehicles, so Sabrina hits him with different ambition bathtub merchandise with out his data or consent.
In some way this teenage boy finally ends up working his personal firm and making some huge cash. However he does not care in regards to the “little individuals” anymore. When Sabrina realizes this, she goes to her Aunts for assist.
Aunt Hilda chastises cousin Zsa-Zsa for promoting Sabrina blind ambition. They steadiness it out by dosing Harvey with perspective within the type of a magical eyeball to the mind.
Word, the decision was not to remove the added ambition however so as to add one thing else to it.
Sabrina mainly mentioned, “I really like my boyfriend, however he is not precisely how I need him to be, so I will alter his character to my liking.”
Then, as a substitute of telling her that that was improper, her Aunt mainly mentioned, “Honey, you did not add the correct stuff. This can make him your best bae.”
So, each Sabrina and her Aunt assume it is completely effective to tailor Harvey to Sabrina’s specs with out his permission. They usually by no means change him again!
Once I used to observe this present, I used to be so unhappy when Harvey and Sabrina broke up. I believed he was so prejudiced to dump her for being a witch.
Now I see that she messed him up loads! She performed together with his reminiscence, his free alternative, she even made him pregnant as soon as.
Actually, it is arduous to consider they ended up collectively. He is a saint to forgive all she’s accomplished.
It type of makes you marvel, did she use a spell to make him forgive her?
As a result of the boundaries of free will appear to not matter to Sabrina or the adults who’re educating her methods to responsibly use magic.
There are different examples. Sabrina forces individuals to love and spend cash on her buddy Josh’s pictures on Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season 5 Episode 11.
When somebody truly likes Josh’s stuff, she actually asks him, “You imply you wanna purchase it? Like… of your individual free will?” This makes it clear that Sabrina is aware of what she is doing, and he or she does not have an issue with it.
On Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season 6 Episode 8, Sabrina doses her self-centered roommate, Morgan, with Humble Pie, in order that she’ll go get an actual job. Morgan owes her cash.
When Aunt Hilda, who employed the newly humble Morgan at The Espresso Home, finds out what her niece did, does she inform Sabrina it wasn’t her place to change Morgan’s character?
Nope. She merely bemoans the truth that it will put on off as quickly as Morgan meets somebody who “takes the cake,” and he or she’ll be out an excellent worker.
On Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season 6 Episode 16, when Sabrina’s then-boyfriend Josh is not jealous sufficient that her ex tried to kiss her, she re-writes his response, making him unhappy/insecure jealous, offended/loopy jealous, and Indiana Jones jealous (I by no means understood that one).
The take-away on this case was that Josh’s present of belief in his girlfriend was a present of affection, versus him doubting her constancy. The true Josh is a good boyfriend; he’s the superior model of Josh.
However, you realize, if he wasn’t, it could have been completely cool for her to re-write his character and feelings so she may really feel higher about herself.
Is Sabrina a nasty individual? A foul witch? Effectively, she’s not training necromancy or something, in order that’s a plus. However she makes use of magic to vary individuals to her liking, and he or she thinks it is okay as a result of her role-models do not name her on it.
In truth, typically, they do the identical factor. On Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Season four Episode 3, Zelda casts a spell on her boyfriend to make him trustworthy and weak as a result of she is aware of he is protecting one thing from her.
On Sabrina the Teenager Witch Season four Episode 14, Zelda spells her boyfriend once more with an “at peace with your self,” spell. I imply, lots of people would possibly like that, however you need to nonetheless ask permission earlier than casting it.
And method again in that episode with the reality sprinkles, Aunt Hilda makes use of the sprinkles to seek out out that the postman had a crush on Aunt Zelda, getting away with a small with a minor reprimand from Zelda.
Then Zelda pretends to make use of the sprinkles on Sabrina, going for a placebo impact. I assume you would say that in that case, at the very least, she asks Sabrina to eat the “reality sprinkles” as a substitute of simply mixing them into some dessert.
I do know Sabrina could not have requested anybody’s permission to do magic on them with out revealing her secret.
Nonetheless, typically, I believe had she requested, they’d have mentioned no, and it could have been a query of, is she going to do it anyway? Indicators level to sure.
So, was Sabrina a enjoyable present? Positive. Seeing unrealistic wish-fulfillment is all the time enjoyable.
However have been Sabrina and her Aunts good witches? I do not really feel snug saying sure to that one. They only did not respect individuals’s free will. They performed god too many instances.
And Salem could not have taken over the world or had magic, however he did get to have a lower than applicable relationship with a reasonably blonde teenager.
Watch It. Re-watch It. Have enjoyable with the zany hijinks and the sassy feedback. However don’t look to those individuals as examples of excellent witches. If Westbridge have been Oz, a home would have fallen on them way back.
Do you assume Sabrina was an excellent witch? Do you assume Salem’s relationship along with her was creepy? Tell us within the feedback.
Leora W is a workers author for TV Fanatic..