Guest Article: Inverting the Gendered Role of Witches in The Covenant (2006)
No one knows how the Power came into existence (convenient), but it did. Five families mastered the ability to wield it, and passed it down to their sons. The Book of Damnation recorded all the families’ histories, but nothing before that. The five families who established the Ipswich colony in Massachusetts formed a Covenant of Silence once the witch hunts started in America (they had already fled Europe/France) to not speak about their powers, which has kept them safe until recently. The annual Spenser party is happening (a private school) and the local dipwad is noticing a new girl, Sarah, who just transferred in. Sarah is being shown around by Kate, who is currently dating Pogue Parry, one of the Sons of Ipswich. All the sons are rich and hot, depending on your type of guy (though Tyler is a filler character and barely factors into the plot whatsoever). Sarah is hit on by Caleb Danvers and Reid Garwin, but is interested in Caleb. Cops have been called, so the boys escape and mess with the police by performing their stunts with their powers. A student dies, and Caleb suspects Reid, who is the most likely to use their magic to his own ends. Soon, Caleb suspects Chase Collins, another new transfer who he saw using the power. Chase soon reveals his plan: to have each of the boys will him their power because he wants to continue to be a god in human form, murdering as he pleases without the effects of aging the power will do to him. The power doesn’t work like that; the more you have, the more likely the body is to break down fast. Chase doesn’t believe him and threatens Kate/Sarah through a spider sickness/burrowing into their skin spell. Caleb and Chase duke it out witch-style at the old Putnam barn; Caleb wins after ascending and is matched with Chase once his own near-dead father wills him his powers, sealing his fate as death (Chase stole his own father’s powers + his own make him very powerful). Chase is nowhere to be found, so it’s assumed he’s probably not dead. Caleb and Sarah drive away.
Casual Sexism/Thirst Trapping/Irresponsible Boys.
The real problem with a mid-2000s movie about a group of young men is that they act like morons a lot of the time. Boys with powers? Doubly worse. They run around like demi-gods, forgetting what Spiderman taught all of us: “with great power comes great responsibility.”m’m guessing no one has had that talk with them or if they did, it’s not like they can be stopped, so they may have ignored it. We see them use their abilities in increasingly questionable ways; first, to jump off a literal cliff and survive to “drop in” on a party, to fix Sarah’s car, to lose the cops/play a trick on them (by acting like they went over the side then dropping the car behind the cops, who can’t believe their eyes), to cheat at pool, to blow up a woman’s skirt so they can bet on the kind of underwear/if she even wears any. (Also supernatural fighting between Caleb and Reid happens.) Young men who transition into literal gods are a recipe for disaster. Something I will say for this movie is that they don’t shy away from the thirst traps that are these men (there’s just no way they’re teenagers); we see them in various states of undress including Reid’s butt in a locker scene. We’re even given the guys in the tiniest swimwear I’ve ever seen to show off all their “young”/strong glory. While this sort of objectification has been happening for years to “teen” women (almost never are teens played by actual teens), it’s sending a very weird message that teens are sexy. Teens are not sexy whatsoever; they’re kids nearing adulthood but aren’t there yet. It sends the message that it’s okay to thirst over young men and women, but the truth is, they aren’t even done growing (their brains aren’t developed fully). We’ve also seen this kind of sexualization of teens in storylines for years about teacher-student relationships, as if that’s ever okay. It isn’t. There’s a serious power imbalance going on, not to mention someone much older thinking it’s okay to groom young men and women; it never is okay and those students eventually realize that they were preyed upon by predatory adults.
Women as Backdrops/Bechdel Test
Unfortunately, only one character passes the Bechdel test (a test to evaluate if the women characters are written with any depth), and it’s not a main character or someone we ever see again after this one scene in the beginning. Kira, the bitchy, popular (probably rich) girl talks to Sarah, the newcomer who hails from a Boston public school. She asks her condescendingly how Sarah getting in even happened. There is a little more to Sarah’s character in general than anyone else; she is clearly smart enough to get into private school, wants to go to Harvard, and trusts her instincts telling her there’s something weird about the Ipswich sons (which she investigates in the library then gets Caleb to fess up, breaking their Covenant of Silence). That and their budding romance feels shallow, like a high school relationship usually is at its core, based more on attraction and hormones than anything else. Clearly, Sarah means something to Caleb to tell her their big secret, and she wear this silk wedding-like dress to their prom with lots of cleavage (they’re only in high school, so seriously why are her breasts on display like this?). Yet the end of the movie has him being somewhat cooler towards her. This could be an acting issue, but it seemed strange after all that he went through (or he could be tired). Just a hand hold? You almost died for that girl. Other women in the movie number three: Caleb’s mom, whose part is far from meaty but important nonetheless. Then Kate, who never says anything that isn’t about the guys while talking to Sarah; she also plays the part of sick girl to further Chase’s convoluted plot to get to Caleb through Pogue through Kate’s illness via spider (what happened to simplicity, Chase? Get it together.) Women in this movie are either their romantic interest/girlfriend, picking on the love interest, or telling Caleb that he’s going to die in body just like his dad did. They operate as backdrops to men, making this movie somewhat sexist besides their questionable boys-being-stupid actions. Women don’t figure into these boys’ world very often and only in Sarah’s case is she her own person. All the other women are motivated/act in relation to the men of the movie and their decisions. Also, so all men know: women generally don’t lounge around in their underwear in front of other women when going to sleep; sorry not sorry to shut that fantasy down. And why were we watching Sarah in the shower in the first place? Again, she’s supposed to be a teen girl! The tattoo says she’s probably at least 18, but that’s never explicitly stated, so we can probably safely assume she’s 17 or so. We should not be watching a young woman in the shower. What I will say is that folklore explains bathrooms as being a liminal space--neither truly part of the house nor completely outside. What happens in bathrooms, such as a manifestation/electrical issues and ghostly experiences, is part of the this trope. However, women don’t wander down hallways in only a towel; normally clothes are grabbed. Again, wow guys. The male gaze of the movie made me seriously want there to be a sequel with a coven of women or nonbinary witches to kick their asses; this movie, however, pretends women/nonbinary witches don’t exist because male ones do. That’s a little boring. Speaking again of Sarah, we have a scene that feels like it really wouldn’t work in the real world,as much as I love Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. In order to draw Caleb back into her world, Sarah puts on “I Love Rock n’ Roll” and seductively dances with him and the other boys join in. I feel like if this was tried in the real world, they’d look at her, shrug, and go back to their game. Most guys I’ve ever met refuse outright to dance.
“Using” the Power as a Drug Metaphor
Periodically, the audience is reminded of the cost of this great power; it ages you horrifically the more you use it and becomes extremely addictive when used. Chase’s whole deal is that he loves “using” but can’t escape the effects of what it does to the body, so he needs to steal the other boys’ powers because he thinks that will help. He is consumed with what the power does for him and unable to disassociate who he is without it. More, he craves. Unfortunately, though it’s a good character breakdown, I just don’t believe Sebastian Stan as the villain of this sort; at this point, he seems too baby-faced and like he has no real inner darkness to draw on (which makes him a decent red herring). I’d believe Caleb was evil over Stan’s Chase. The way their power is talked about sounds like drug use: it steals your youth, breaks down the body, takes you from the people who love you, and is extremely addictive once used. In a way, it is drug use-something very powerful that makes the person feel amazing/invincible that also corrupts the body, mind, and soul until one is a broken shell from overuse. Caleb’s dad sure took a few hits too many, looking like a vampire that’s been a cave a few hundred years too long. I still absolutely love this mid-2000’s descent into the occult even though there are many issues with it, but it’s still a good time. Did the inversion of men-as-witches make the role of “witch” less gendered? Not at all in larger media. Is it completely problematic to have teens being viewed as sexy whatsoever? Yes, it is. Is it enjoyable and an interesting spin on an old tale? Absolutely, but there are 2006-aged societal stumbling blocks that make very little sense now (I hope). I watch it around Halloweentime.
References
Harlin, Renny, dir. 2006. “The Covenant.”
Raimi, Sam, dir. 2002. “Spiderman.”
Tolbert, Jeffrey A., and Michael Foster. 2015. The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a
Popular Culture World.