For the Charmed Ones, Destiny is a particularly interesting concept because their destinies are so intricately intertwined. Yes, they can relinquish their powers, but it is an all-or-nothing proposition. Yes, they have amazing individual powers with which to battle Evil, but in the battles that really matter, it takes the Power of Three. That shared Destiny is the source of their strength, not just because their Magic is strongest when they work together but because it always reminds them that they are not alone in the fight.
Chris
If the Cole storylines were the most enthralling on Charmed, the Chris arc was the most profound in terms of the battle between Good and Evil as it intersects Free Will. Chris had seen a world in which Evil had taken over, and he was sent back to our time7 to prevent that from happening.
There were two ways for Chris to fix the future: either stop the event that would turn his beloved baby brother from Good to Evil, or kill Wyatt before he grew too powerful to ever be stopped. It was only because Chris had seen Evil at its worst—its most pervasive—that he could accept this mission. He was desperate to save the world without harming his brother, but if all else failed, he would have killed Wyatt.
At first we were appalled by Chris’ methodical approach to his task. Then we began to glimpse the pain it was causing him and we slowly began to trust him—to worry as much or more about him as we did about Wyatt, because Chris was just a child too in a sense, and saddled with the fate of the world and the prospect of killing a loved one.
Once again, Charmed at its best.
Demons
The Charmed Ones fight for Good. Do demons fight “for” Evil? Actually, a demon fights for himself or herself. Period. The show makes that clear again and again. Even the demons who do the Source’s bidding do it in hopes of moving up the demonic ladder, not out of any sense of allegiance. A demon who works for the Source has two options: gaining more or stronger powers if he succeeds in an endeavor; fiery, agonizing destruction if he fails. On the other hand, a demon who doesn’t work for the Source can’t get ahead at all. Not much of a choice. (But then again, they’re not really into choice, right?)
Evil
Okay, so what about Evil? Can it exist without its counterpart? Is it really trying to wipe Good off the face of the Earth?
Maybe some of the lower-level demons are that shortsighted, but the brainy ones know the truth. Evil likes to tempt. To corrupt. If everyone were Evil, then who would be left to corrupt? Isn’t that how demons move up the ladder? They need victims!
In theory, at least, Evil has as much a stake in preserving Free Will as Good does, but in practice, the preferred technique for a demon is to subvert Free Will with a spell, an illusion or, as noted above, a good old-fashioned sin ball. Why? If Free Will is the essence of Evil, why do demons keep subverting it?
The only explanation, other than their apparent inability to defer gratification, is that they seem to know that Good would triumph eventually if humans were given a real choice.
There’s also the fact that those who fight for Good have the purpose of protecting and advancing Goodness, while a demon has the purpose of protecting and advancing himself or herself. It’s all about the demon’s own self-interest. We often hear the expression “the greater good,” but never “the greater evil,” and there’s a reason for that.
And ultimately, that gives Good an edge in the battle, doesn’t it? True unity behind a common purpose—a greater Good—and the willingness of the individual combatants to sacrifice themselves for that goal is a powerful concept. And it’s never more evident than with the Charmed Ones, who know that their power is a legacy from Melinda Warren and countless other ancestors, and know also that their children will inherit it. Demons don’t waste time thinking about such things.
Another point in our favor? Humans have a lot of practice struggling against their own base tendencies. Demons, in contrast, don’t have any Good in them at all. Because of this, they can’t understand Goodness and can constantly underestimate it. And when they do have the bad luck to get infected with a little Good? Consider Cole as the Source: that little glimmer of human love that the Source couldn’t extinguish led to his downfall. He couldn’t understand it, so he couldn’t beat it.
Of course, Evil has its edge too. The warriors of Evil have no problem taking Free Will away from a victim, and oftentimes they choose as their victims the very warriors who have chosen to defend Good.
Demons resort to magic as a sign of desperation. The Charmed Ones use magic too, but only because the demons and assorted evildoers do, and only to restore balance and fairness to the battle. The sisters know in their hearts that when Good finally triumphs, it won’t be because of magic. It will be the power of love, the strength of unselfishness and faith in something greater than oneself that will carry the day.
Good versus Evil. It’s a story as old as humankind and destined to last just as long—which is very good news for Charmed fans.8
Post Script
I wrote this essay before the Avatars bullied their way back into the show, and now that their arc has come and gone, I thought I’d add a note about them. In many ways, the Avatar storyline reaffirms the basic principles of the show in regard to the concept of Good versus Evil, but was it necessary? First of all, Cole clued us in years ago as to their true nature, in an episode where they tried to recruit him, insisting that they were a power beyond Good and Evil, and he responded that he knew Evil when he saw it.
The Avatars claimed to be getting rid of Evil. Yet to do so, they employed Evil’s hallmark tactic, i.e., robbing humans of meaningful choice. Once again, it’s Charmed 101. We can’t blame Leo for forgetting it for a while, since he’s been through a lot lately. And apparently, the sisters needed a reminder as well. But like Cole, Charmed fans weren’t fooled for a minute.
When Kate Donovan isn’t watching escapist TV, she’s writing books or practicing law in Northern California, where she lives with her very understanding husband and two children. Her first published novels were time travels and paranormal romances, one of which, A Dream Apart—her first and still her favorite—was the story of a young woman who discovers that she’s really a witch and has to learn to embrace her powers and a very unusual Destiny. Is it any wonder Kate became a Charmed fan? Her latest is Exit Strategy, a female action/adventure story from Silhouette’s Bombshell line. Kate can be reached at [email protected].
THEIR
* * *
A DIFFERENT KIND OF REAL
* * *
MATERIAL WORLD
The Halliwells must pass for normal in San Francisco or face the consequences (the only time their secret got out, they lost Prue). Yet they dress in bad drag and don’t seem to be living in any recognizable place. This is real?
WHAT IS SHE WEARING?
A COSTUMING CONSPIRACY
* * *
TANYA HUFF
* * *
The Halliwell women are all beautiful but their taste in clothes is, well, Ho Lite. With the exception of Piper, who often dresses like a depressed nun, the sisters could be picked up for public indecency any day of the week. And then, to make it worse, sometimes Phoebe runs. . . .
IF THIS PIECE were an electronic presentation rather than print—if you were watching this rather than reading it—I’d open with a montage of shots in which the Charmed Ones themselves ask each other variations of the title question, ending with Phoebe’s season three observation in “The Primrose Path”: “Look at me. I am a fashion blunder. A ‘Mademoiselle Don’t.’”
For the curious among you, she’s referring to a beige scarf top decorated in an almost frightening number of clip-on feathers. That’s right: clip-on feathers, the kind you can buy by the bag at most decently sized craft stores. It’s . . . well, unattractive is putting it mildly.
Given the way the costuming on Charmed headed during season three, Phoebe could easily have been making a prophetic statement. Perhaps she’d had a vision of wardrobe choices to come. Probab
ly not the red and grey fleur-de-lis arm warmer ensemble of season six’s “Crimes and Witch-Demeanors,” or she’d have sounded more horrified than frustrated. Maybe her powers were kind and only allowed her a glimpse of that pink newsboy’s cap.
Yes, the Charmed Ones have clothed themselves in some interesting outfits over the years. Who can forget Paige’s green sleeveless mini dress from “Witch Wars”—not a time travel episode, however much this outfit may lead you to believe otherwise. Or the unfortunate incident in “The Bare Witch Project” when Phoebe’s head was attacked by a green burlap, blue denim, purple-ribboned thing masquerading as a hat. Or Prue’s stretch pants in “Bride and Gloom” that were the exact same shade as her skin tone and therefore essentially not present for much of the scene. Or Piper’s . . . actually, Piper comes off pretty well most of the time, being the responsible sister and all. Occasionally she’s crossed the line between practical and frumpy in what may be a valiant, if doomed, attempt at fashion balance.
We’ve had a variety of spaghetti-strapped, one-shoulder, no-shoulder tops—including a couple so low cut it must have taken very powerful magics indeed to maintain a PG rating. And while there’s clearly been a frequent application of spirit gum, there’s been a distressing absence of supportive undergarments. We’ve had cropped pants, flared pants, artfully distressed pants—where distressed is the operative word—and pants cut so low that the tattoo at the base of Phoebe’s spine gets full exposure. We’ve had miniskirts, translucent skirts, skirts over pants and dresses on all the sisters that were supposed to be alluring but, quite frankly, weren’t. The unflattering sleeveless pale crepe number Paige wore in “Charmed Noir” is a classic example—the color was bad (the tone was bad, at any rate, since her part of the episode was shot in black and white) and the fit was worse.
But it wasn’t always like this.
In season one in particular all three of the Charmed Ones dressed in ways that could only be considered normal. “Attractive young women on television” normal, perhaps, but normal nevertheless—if a tad heavy on the wearing of witchy jewelry. Prue had an interesting insect-dangling-off-of-a-necklace thing going for a while mid-season three.
What changed?
Two things.
The first change was obviously Prue’s death. Prue, the strongest-willed of the Halliwell sisters, had always been more than capable of keeping Phoebe in line. With her influence removed, Phoebe’s fashion choices became steadily more bizarre. Given those choices, poor Paige (as the new, youngest sister, never subjected to Prue’s eye rolls of disapproval) has to go to amazing lengths to be the blithe, young, free spirit she’s meant to be. Unfortunately, those lengths have included a pale blue fake fur jacket (“Hyde School Reunion”) and a pink plaid and lavender fantasy schoolgirl outfit (“Ordinary Witches”). Neither Phoebe nor Paige seems to have any concept of work-appropriate clothing. And age-appropriate? Phoebe’s age was given as twenty-seven in “Size Matters” in season four. Three years later, she’s thirty and still baring skin like a teenager.
Piper, who runs a club and could get away with a lot more glam, shows the only restraint remaining in the family.
The second change takes us outside the world of Charmed and into the world the rest of us have to live in, where “the rest of us” includes the people who produce the show. Charmed’s first episode aired on October 7, 1998. While various Christian coalitions for family decency no doubt existed back in the waning days of the last millennium, they didn’t have the power they acquired two short years later, during the middle of season three, when a new government came to power in the United States. Charmed is a show about witchcraft. Good witches battling evil and saving innocents, granted, but the new administration brought with it the prevailing opinion that there’s no such thing as a good witch.
Charmed, while never a phenomenal breakaway success, had a solid core audience that followed it from time slot to time slot—solid and loyal and large enough to make advertisers happy. Happy advertisers make for happy studio heads. They wouldn’t have wanted to cancel the show, but they certainly would have wanted to keep from attracting the attention of the religious right and the perception of its growing power.
What could they do?
They could rework the show so that no one could possibly take it seriously.
But Charmed was already a contemporary fantasy with little or no connection to the real world, up to and including a distinct disregard of San Francisco’s weather and its effect on what the sisters might be wearing. Season seven’s “A Call to Arms,” canonically happening in January in Northern California, featured gauzy summer clothing at an outdoor wedding. It also featured a sari and heaven only knows what to call that outfit Leo was wearing—but their foray into ethnic clothing is an entirely different story. Given that it is a fantasy, how could the producers of Charmed make the show even less real and therefore less likely to attract the attention of rising right-wing hysteria?
I have a theory. It came to me while shopping for a present for my eldest niece. As I walked down the bright pink aisles at the toy store, I recognized the clothes: the Capri pants, the gauzy flowered blouses, the out-of-scale accessories.
The Charmed Ones are now dressing like the world’s most famous eleven-inch doll.
Some of this doll’s clothes have to be very, very tight in order to stay on. Some have to be loose enough to get over inflexible legs and arms, so they fit badly in other areas. Just generally, the way that they fit has little actual relevance to the bodies of most women. Your average little girl is perfectly happy to slide a pink mini dress on a redheaded doll. And at forty-plus, Barbie is still wearing clothes designed for teenagers.
The Halliwell sisters have been turned into Barbies with enough cunning little outfits that they never have to wear the same thing twice. Let’s not even talk about the shoes. Some of the ridiculous footwear on this show is remarkably familiar to anyone who has ever rolled over and been rudely awakened by the presence of a purple plastic pump in the sheets.
Is there anything less threatening to Middle America than a doll that’s been around for over forty years? Mothers played with these dolls as children, dressing and undressing them, and now, as feminist author Tracy Quan has observed, their children are playing with the dolls “in homes all over North America. Barbie has become one of the family, and nothing can stem this tide. Even the most committed feminists have been known to buy Barbie dolls for their daughters, as have fundamentalist Christians.”1
Barbie can be a witch because it doesn’t mean anything. She’s Barbie. Barbie can be anyone—from astronaut to veterinarian to equestrian to member of the USMC. It’s been that way right from the beginning and we’re all used to it by now.
What’s that? What about Barbie’s blatant sexuality? The completely out-of-proportion figure? Well, you said it yourself: it’s completely out of proportion. So far out, in fact, that it can be dismissed as unreal, plastic, de-sexed. Neuter the witches, neuter the sexuality that has always clung to witchcraft.
So, my theory in a nutshell: after observing the changes in the costuming over the seven years of the show, I conclude that the producers have disguised the Halliwell sisters as Barbie in order to slip a show about witchcraft past the rising power of the religious right.
Is this a bad thing?
I don’t think so. Okay, let me qualify that: some of the outfits, yes, they were bad things—I’m thinking particularly of that pale blue fake fur jacket here—but overall, no.
Just as Barbie is ultimately a toy to be played with, slipping the Charmed Ones into Barbie outfits has given the writers more room to play. Freed by their adoption of a classic symbol of childhood, the writers have walked off with a barely disguised Hogwarts as well. Phoebe became a mermaid—a terrific-looking costume by the way. Paige slipped into a gritty detective novel. Piper became Death’s assistant—and picked up pretty much her only “What are you wearing?” of the series for the shapeless black coat that seemed to come with
the job (although Death himself looked considerably more nattily attired). The girls ended up on reality TV, demon style. Even Leo got captured and caged by Amazons.
A moment’s digression about the men of Charmed; the bad guys are significantly better dressers. Cole was always well dressed—when the writers allowed him to be dressed at all. Julian McMahon spent a fair bit of time out of his shirts (season three’s “The Primrose Path” and “Power Outage” being prime examples). Poor Leo not only had to spend most of his time in baggy t-shirts, flannel, saggy butt jeans and white socks in brown shoes, but when he became an Elder the poor man had to shrug into a gold velour robe. He didn’t catch a break with the wardrobe department until his alignment got dicey in season seven and he became an Avatar. And Chris . . . actually, Chris’ clothing mostly suited his age, and that’s really the best that can be said about it. Young men aren’t generally the picture of sartorial elegance, nor do they want to be.
It’s not easy being an accessory, and that’s really all the men on this show ever were. Good luck finding Ken even half a dozen outfits in the double aisle of Barbie pink; Ken has always had significantly fewer fashion choices. And the less said about what isn’t beneath Ken’s saggy butt trousers, the better—like Barbie, Ken has only the appearance of sexuality, having also been safely neutered.
This is not to say that Charmed is totally free of sexuality. It’s there. But it’s bad.
The bad guys wear a lot of tight black leather, shiny boots and metal studs. The bad girls also get the leather, boots and studs, but also show considerably more cleavage. When any of the Charmed Ones go temporarily bad, the black leather and cleavage is a dead giveaway. This costuming shorthand allows us easy identification of evil without having to think about it much, which is always a big crowd pleaser with the religious right. Barbie in black leather? I don’t think it’s ever happened.
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