The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is going to be spooky, sure, but it might be pretty progressive, too.
That’s according to the stars of the show, anyway, who recently talked to Variety about the feminist intent of the series’ production and how they hope it’ll shine through in the final product.
This is totally the Sabrina for 2018, in so many ways. She’s a woke witch,” said Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sabrina in the upcoming show. “Her entire grappling with signing her name away in the Book of the Beast and questioning a lot of the more patriarchal elements of what she was raised to believe and to go into. I think that in and of itself is very feminist and she’s a strong independent woman and she stands up for herself and she does what she thinks is right.”
Lachlan Watson, who plays Susie, a friend of Sabrina’s, echoed those thoughts, and related them in particular to their own identity. Watson is non-binary, and said that their character is as well, and that a lot of personal intent went into translating that experience into the show.
“Susie provides a side of feminism that really represents that you really don’t have to be female to be a feminist. It really encompasses all minorities and all misunderstood people, or gender inequality as a whole, I think,” they said. “Throughout Susie’s sort of queer journey — specifically a bit of a genderqueer journey — which really speaks to me, it’s having that group of incredible feminists behind their back.”
It’s a thematic fit for the show in more ways than one. Witchiness—with its roots as a social category in the transgression and oppression of women—has long been an ideal claimed and toyed with by the LGBT+ community. A show about witches should be a feminist show, and it should be a broadly representative one, too.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premieres on Netflix on October 26.