Teen Witch (1989) - by Biff Ackley

As a kid I never questioned why the Wicked Witch of the West, vicious and powerful as she was, could be melted by a pail of water. As a child you expect to be confounded by the movies. Life was confusing enough, so it would only make sense that the movies – free to be as fanciful as they please – would be all the more unfathomable. A belligerent witch getting taken out by a pail of water was every bit as strange as a talking bird nesting on the sidewalks of Harlem, and every bit as logical. But at some point we come to that unfortunate age where we try and solve the mysteries of life and art, to figure out why the sky is blue, how a light switch works and why Bert and Ernie don’t get separate apartments. And eventually we wonder about that pail of water.

The strange logic of The Wizard of Oz is co-opted by a later movie about witches, the 1989 film Teen Witch. Teen Witch tells the story of an awkward suburban high schooler who, like so many heroines of teen movies old and new, observes the popular kids from afar, longing to join their closed circle while toiling at the margins of social acceptability. A padded bra and a better haircut might have done the trick, but fate has other ideas, and upon turning sixteen she is unexpectedly granted magical powers. With the help of an elder witch she is soon using her powers to command the wind, turn her brother into a dog, and enable her nerdy pal to rap awkwardly with the boy she loves. (As a side note, where is that guy’s place in the social hierarchy? Is he meant to be cool or is he the school’s biggest loser? Or does he operate entirely outside the social caste system, set apart by his ability to turn common speech into a series of thudding raps?)

Sadly, however, Teen Witch is also vulnerable to water. Water may not melt her into oblivion, but it will reverse even her most potent spells (I guess she won’t be able to command the wind on rainy days). Again, water is presented as the witch’s kryptonite, even if its power is diminished for Teen Witch. But why?

The role of water in Teen Witch and The Wizard of Oz betrays a primary theme shared by both films, despite their different styles and approaches to witchcraft. Teen Witch and The Wizard of Oz are both movies that, in the first case explicitly and in the second covertly, are far more interested in female sexuality and gender roles than in the nuances of witchcraft. Maternity and the role of homemaker has always been linked with water – from that first trickle of amniotic fluid on through the routines of bathing, cooking and cleaning, and doing the wash. A witch isn’t just a woman who has magical powers, she’s a woman who gleefully subverts the role of womanhood, turning her broom upside down and flying on it. When the Wicked Witch takes a bath, courtesy of a farmer’s daughter who still believes there no place like [the] home, she finds the stuff fatal to her existence as a free-flying, liberated woman.

For Teen Witch, her one brush with water is far less deadly. After turning her little brother (a strangely androgynous, food-obsessed little creep who might be the offspring of Paula Dean and Dr. Frank-N-Furter) into a dog, water even comes to her aid as she splashes him back into a human state (or something approximating it). Armed with a birth control prescription and backed by a half-century of feminism, lovable Teen Witch is not as vulnerable as the Wicked Witch of the West. Water is no longer the domesticating, annihilating force it once was - it is a limitation to her power, but one she can harness for her own purposes.

Her independence secure, Teen Witch has no intentions of subverting traditional gender roles and tearing across the sky on an inverted broom. Teen Witch’s sole desire, and the primary aim to which she will apply her new powers, is to experience coital pleasure with the school’s reigning toolbox, Brad.

Brad could be characterized as the typical teen male with only one thing on his mind, if only he had a mind to begin with. Brad is one of those lucky individuals not to have been burdened with a single thought. He is quite literally a tool, a chiseled piece of flesh with no thoughts, no fears, no anxiety. In this way he is no different than the studly golem conjured by Teen Witch’s mentor for her own sexual purposes. Except that Brad talks, and takes a little initiative in luring the 16-year-old Teen Witch into a vacant house for their first tryst. At this point in the film Brad is supposedly acting under the influence of Teen Witch’s powers, but as Brad acts no differently under her spell than he does otherwise, we wonder if her efforts aren’t going to waste. If a romp in a condemned building is all she’s after, a plunging neckline can work wonders.

Eventually, Teen Witch does discover her other set of powers, those bestowed upon her by the miracle of puberty. At the close of the film we get what passes for a happy ending, as our heroine decides to eschew her magical powers in favor of some hair teaser and a tutu as she completes her seduction of Brad. Success! She got Brad in the sack and she didn’t even have to use her spells! She only had to slut it up a bit.

Fifty years after The Wizard of Oz, the witch’s greatest fear is not domestication, but reaching her 17^th birthday without a bedmate. Teen Witch has tossed out the broom and survived the water, but her newfound powers amount to little more than an extra set of tools for getting sex from teenage boys. What a world indeed.