“This isn’t a witch hunt, this is a reckoning,” say Marisol Vera, played by Valerie Cruz, in the first few moments of the CW’s reboot of “Charmed” which premiered last night after months of anticipation and controversy. It’s a sentiment that touches on the show’s dabbling into #MeToo and, inadvertently or not, the debate between the original series’ fanbase and the one CW has attempted to harness by some pretty dubious means. Whether you’re with it or against it, the CW’s “Charmed” has finally made its television premiere and audiences are already doing reviews.

“Charmed” battles the punches of  #MeToo in its very first episode.

It doesn’t feel like much of a coincidence that a TV show heavily marketed as a feminist reboot of the OG 90s cult classic starts its pilot episode with a pointed utterance. “This isn’t a witch hunt” comes off as a direct hit to the words of Woody Allen, Liam Neeson and Donald Trump this year in response to some of the highest profile investigations of the year including those that dove into sexual harassment claims against the now scorned Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The opening liner does well to steep itself in a new era of feminist transitions like the witchy shows and films that came before it. “Bewitched” of the ’60s did well to subvert images of the traditional housewife, George Miller’s 1984 film “The Witches of Eastwick” debuted at the cusp of the feminist movement’s full embrace of sex-positiveness, Aaron Spelling’s original “Charmed” show came at a time when Girl Power was all the rage. CW’s new reboot does well to make sure audiences see what side of our feminist #MeToo era they stand on, immersing its story in themes involving social justice, gender identity, workplace harassment, and women’s rights. Still, despite the various positive feminist themes the show does pack in, fans of the original series and those who’d originally bought into the network’s misleading marketing of the series as a “Latina reboot” and came out jaded when they discovered holes.

Controversies surrounding the series production and cast seem to have more than eclipsed what the series’ efforts.

In the months after CW first announced the series reboot, not everyone has been so charmed by “Charmed.” Original cast members of the first show and their fans disputed intensely about claims that the new show would bring a feminist twist to the power of three and criticized the reboot’s showrunners for failing to recognize the hard work they’d put into the show. Then came reports that the cast members of the show, who were brought onto portray the band of Latina sisters, weren’t all Latina. The news sparked backlash, online protests, and criticism of the creators pointed efforts to tout the show’s diversity and representation without actually going all in on either.

Not all were displeased with the series.

Oye pues he visto la nueva serie de #Charmed y ni tan mal, me ha parecido una buena adaptación a la original.

— DifferentIsBeautiful (@AlbaWorlds) October 15, 2018

It looks like the new reboot might have some serious new fans on their hands.

Still, some proved to dislike what they saw.

Today is the last day of #HispanicHeritageMonth and @LatinxGeeks wanted to know how I feel about a certain white latinx telling Afrolatinx should just accept the half-assed representation the new Charmed reboot is trying to hand out and I've got time today. pic.twitter.com/Th1HmFnXlX

— ???????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ???????????? ???????????????????????????? (@Maria_Giesela) October 15, 2018

And were even kind of mad it.

Even fans of the show’s cast got real  with the actors

I'm sorry but… after one episode it got me do frustrated that I didn't see or hear anything original. I changed the channel. #OriginalCharmedOnesForever

— Red_Chrystal_85 (@Red_Chrystal_85) October 15, 2018

What direction “Charmed” and its future is headed remains to be seen, but we’re crossing our fingers with hope that at the very least the show’s creators will ensure Latinx voices are heard and represented.

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There’s no denying that when we first learned that the CWs beloved 90s hit Charmed would be turning it’s three witches into brujas that we were massively thrilled. News of the series reboot and its trio of Latina sisters felt like a huge win for all mujeres mostly because up until that point our very real thirst for representation in the media we consume has gone unsaturated. So much so, that we weren’t just thrilled about the Latinx reboot, we were excited, enchanted, embrujado. So, you can imagine our massive disheartenment and disappointment when we first learned that reports of the show’s seeming commitment to ensuring Latina representation were grossly over exaggerated. The ultimate stab to the wound, however, was our realization that the big time TV network behind shows like “Jane The Virgin” and “Riverdale” has done nothing to correct the misinformation surrounding its cast.

In a recent roundtable discussion of the upcoming series, two of the three lead roles confirmed that they aren’t Latinas. 

#ICYMI: EIC and podcast host @OhMyMithrandir addresses her concerns about the upcoming #Charmed reboot in regards to Latinx representation: https://t.co/hD8BciGk0f

— But Why Tho? ???? #TwitchCon (@ButWhyThoPC) October 10, 2018

The revelation came during this week’s New York Comic Con when two of the show’s actresses Madeleine Mantock and Sarah Jeffery set to portray the Latinx charmed ones acknowledged that they were actually Latina at all.

“Playing the Afro-Latina character I think for me I’m just trying to be open,” Mantock shared. “I’m open with the writers and trying to be respectful because I’m Afro-Caribbean. I’m not actually Afro-Latina and I want to make that inquiry because Melanie [Diaz] is actually the only person in her real life who is Latina.”

Mantock did go on to say that she learned Spanish to prepare for this role. Additionally, Jeffrey added, “Yeah, I know that we are representing the Latina community. I actually am African-American. I’m not Latina, which is a common misconception.”

Of course, we’re excited any time we get to see women of color achieve success, particularly in Hollywood when they’re so underrepresented. Black, Asian, disabled, Latinam, and LGBTQ women have been underrepresented and ignored in mainstream television and film for so long that any time we get to see just one cast in a role it feels like we’ve finally come across an oasis. Still, the latest reveals around the cast’s ethnicities do highlight the very real fact that in their effort to promote a reboot, the CW used colorism and exploitation to spark our excitement and interest.

The biggest issue with this “misconception” is that the television network responsible for the reboot, CW, has not bothered to correct it.

The biggest source of hype for the new reboot has been the reports of it’s Latina representation. Not correcting the error outright is equal to endorsing it as true. Let’s not forget that the CW has largely benefited from the false claims of representation which in my opinion is just plain shady. Our Latin American community has long struggled with the Anti-Black nature of its culture and its one that has long been hawked and perpetuated by Hollywood which has only in recent years begun to cast women who don’t look like Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz as Latinas. (In the entertainment sphere, Afro-Latinas just barely squeak by with representation. Just look at the range of Black Latinas who have actually been able to play the part of Latinas on screen and you’ll see that even then Hollywood prefers its Black girls to be as light skinned and straight haired as possible.) So, as you can imagine, having a series that said that not one, but two Afro-Latinas were set to take on iconic roles in a TV reboot was a pretty big deal for us. It made us believe that we were one step forward towards inclusion. Now, knowing that these roles will be played by non-Latinas doesn’t just feel like Afro-Latinas have been left out on a major opportunity but it also feels a bit like a threat to the future of representation on screen.

Ultimately, it isn’t the fault of the actresses mistakenly playing these Afro-Latina sisters.

I am Afro-Caribbean and Caucasian. The internet is wrong about a lot of things! https://t.co/8xPD5Zx5G6

— Madeleine Mantock (@missmads) July 4, 2018

Old Twitter interactions between the actresses and fans have shown that both Madeleine Mantock and Sarah Jeffery have disputed reports that they are Latina. Jeffrey also cleared up claims that she is Latina during a press roundtable in which she identified herself as African-American and her mother as Indigenous Canadian. Nope, the blame falls entirely on the CW network team and “Charmed” showrunners who promoted the series by boasting of its Latinx characters and never once explaining that two out of its three protagonists were not Latinx in the first place. In fact, a superficial google search into the new series will reveal a mass of media coverage that praises the show’s Latinx casting while also featuring interviews with the show’s producers and creators. 

Besides the blatant issue with casting, writers and show creators are rooting the Charmed ones magic in European traditions. Instead of exploring the vast mystical world of Brujeria, they have chosen to ignore it. Instead, they have forced European folklore— like the use of the triquetra as their symbol of power— into their narrative. These Celtic traditions don’t align with the “Latina” series that the CW claims they’re making. These inconsistencies seem to add up to a television network attempting to capitalize on our culture and demographic.

Instead of hiring non-Latinx to tell our stories, we need people from our communities representing us. Hiring Latinx talent in front of and behind the camera is an absolute necessity. Simply put, media that attempts to represent us without us has lost its charm.

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