“Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”
The Craft was released the summer I turned 15, 1996. I finally watched it on cable during my Junior year of high school. I watched it every time it was on.
Every single time.
The mid-1990s was when there were more Black people on television and movies. More visibility. More people that looked like me. As a burgeoning horror fan, to see Rachel True as a witch? That was powerful.
I talked about this last year on my pro Facebook page (click here). In this video, I talk about visibility and being invisible. There is a segment of media that can not comprehend that Black and supernatural is a thing! It is as if to be Black, in a role that is not fodder for serial killers, or the token, or as a Magical Negro is not was not possible.
Being a writer, being a creative person, and being forced in instances of media, visual representation, to be invisible is frightening. It is disheartening. It is artistically crippling!
I knew then, more so, that writing–being a writer–would change the world. As I writer, I could write the world I wanted. I could be anything!
Octavia Butler (Kindred, The Parable of The Talents, Wild Seed) said she wrote about power so much ‘because she had to little’. In seeing a girl that looked like me—was monumental. It was monumental. I had the freedom to be extraordinary.
Now, 23 years later, there’s talk of a reboot? I’m here for it! My nostalgia can make room for new time a space. The seasons and all that. Besides, let some other girl get inspired. Let her write about power—believing she has none—only to find out that she in fact, always had.
Pen and paper, too, are light as a feather, stiff as a board.
The Ideal Firestarter 