The Power of Three: An Intersectional Sociolinguistic Analysis on Feminism and Power

Abstract

As Hollywood is progressing toward the era of breaking stereotypes, the CW network reproduced the series Charmed by excluding the original series’ cast members to emphasize the notion of feminism among the minority group of people. Although the reboot series which started in 2018 had received criticism and protests from fans of the original series, it garnered enough ratings for CW to continue with its production to this date. However, does the series over-emphasize the concept of feminism by centralizing the nonwhite female characters? This paper examines the portrayal of women’s empowerment among the female characters and the representation of feminism in the reboot series Charmed. The analysis reveals that feminism is mostly presented among the nonwhite females where they portray women’s empowerment using the ‘Power of Three’ – power-over, power-to, and power-with. In this series, the nonwhite women are no longer portrayed as subordinate, helpless or sexual objects of the white men. This study extends research on feminism in TV series by illustrating the way nonwhite female characters transform the traditional paradigm of nonwhite female subservience.

Keywords:

• Feminism
• power
• racialization
• nonwhite female characters
• reboot series Charmed

Notes

1 The terms ‘whitelighters’ and ‘darklighters’ were given by the original TV series Charmed. Whitelighters refer to guardian angels that protect good witches and future whitelighters. In Charmed the TV series, whitelighters were largely portrayed by white characters. Whitelighter hybrids, whose parents are both witch and whitelighters, were also portrayed by white characters. Darklighters, on the other hand, are the enemy of whitelighters as they are assigned by upper level demons to kill whitelighters so that good witches will lose their guardian angels and be vulnerable. The darklighters in the original Charmed TV series were also mostly portrayed by white characters, except Ronan the darklighter, a Hispanic male character played by Felipe Riojas. In Charmed reboot, when one becomes a whitelighter, his other half becomes a darklighter. This is equivalent to the concept of good and evil version of every human being. Hence, every whitelighter has an evil counterpart that is their darklighter. For instance, Jimmy is the darklighter of Harry Greenwood although both were portrayed by a white character. Nevertheless, unlike the original series, Jada Shields (Mel’s ex-girlfriend), a whitelighter hybrid where her parents are both whitelighter and witch, was portrayed by a black female character. This character was played by Aleyse Shannon, an African American actress. Hence, the concept of whitelighters and darklighters in both original and reboot Charmed TV series does not carry any connotation of racism as they merely serve to signify good and evil.