Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the Immediacy of Secrets.

by thekevinmikel

“Hi! My name is Sabrina! I hope I haven’t disappointed you!”

What an unusual first line for a comic book. Sure, sensibilities were different when she was first published in 1961, and it’s likely that a vernacular shift has left that particular idiom in the dust. Still: “I hope I haven’t disappointed you,”?

 Whatever.

Since her inception some 57 years ago Sabrina has been reimagined for each generation in different ways, and to varying levels of success.

First, and most famously, she was introduced as a slightly malevolent, sexy girl-next-town-over in Archie Comics.An initial cartoon spin-off of Sabrina’s adventures began in 1972 with her first televised adventures.

She would go on to star in two more comics series by the time the mega-hit TV show began in the 1990’s (that I still watch to this day, ask the boyfriend) starring Melissa Joan Hart.

And while this show is what most people remember when they hear the name Sabrina, and it remains the main societal focal point for what the show is about (Melissa and her celebrity friends) it has been revamped at least four more times since then.

She starred in a series of books that spun off of her 1990s adventures

Don’t worry, I own the entire series. I’ll let you borrow them.

As well as three tv movies.

Pictured above is the first one, and the best one. There’s one about her hanging with mermaids that’s also pretty good, but MJH is no Daryl Hannah

Splash joke, anyone?

Anyway, she’s also been two other cartoon series “Sabrina the Animated Series” and “Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch.” Both of which are targeted to a younger demographic, and probably continue to make Melissa Joan Hart a bunch of money.

She was also the star of a four-volume manga-inspired series “Sabrina: The Magic Within.”

She also currently stars in her own horror comic monthly series that is  both well-written and beautifully-drawn and you should totally go out and get yourself the series because it’s killer. (Literally! ha!)

But what is it about Sabrina that is so lasting? What is it about the adventures of this 16-year-old witch that keeps creators and audiences coming back for more?

Certainly her introductory panel speaks volumes about what may have been her intended impact: a leaned back, suggestive pose, pants, blonde bob, and wicked smirk? To me, it seems that she is supposed to strike us as a sexy, bad girl who is able to float in and out of the lives of the mostly kind-hearted Riverdale teens.

(Here’s in image again, for your consideration of my own consideration)

Whatever her intended impact it is clear that Sabrina had made a huge one indeed and to me that impact is clear.

I believe that Sabrina’s impact is due to the immediacy of her relation to her readers, as well as the immediacy of her secret.

But what does this even mean?

If you ask me the multitude of comics characters act in one of two basic ways – and I know that there are exceptions to every rule – but hear me out. The first is the most common.

The Mythological: It’s my feeling that these comics characters are the modern day equivalent of mythological heroes that dominated the cultural landscape of centuries past. Here we have our heavy-hitters, our big guns, our Wonder Woman and our Storm and Superman, Batman, Cyclops. These characters, while wonderful and bombastic and important function on a plane that is fundamentally different than the way the second set of characters function. They function on the hyperbolic, they live there and they breathe there and they are important there. These mythological characters aren’t working within the confines of society, they are extra-societal, super-societal, and are thusly able to engage with and reflect society in ways that are important.

Just look at Wonder Woman! A daughter of Olympus and highly identifiable feminist hero. This is due, in part, to her mythological status. The company she keeps is identifiable, and she has all around her this incredibly complex and wonderful iconography that is immediately associated with her. Her breastplate symbol, her gauntlets, and her lasso.

Wonderful.

But not Sabrina.

How does Sabrina function? In the second way.

The Mundane: Equally important are the characters who don’t function on the hyperbolic. These are characters who live in a world that directly mirrors our own. These characters include Archie and his gang, Kevin Keller (who is deserving of his own entire article), the entire cast of Dykes to Watch Out For, the cast of Love and Rockets, the entire cast of Wendel, and our own Sabrina.

These characters exist nearer to the parameters of our own society, and are able to create friction when held up against modern society. It’s their reflection of society as well as those differences that strike the central nerve that leads from the brain down to the heart which is where Sabrina lives.

But, wait Kevin, Sabrina’s a witch. How does she not live and love and breathe and whatever in the hyperbolic? She’s got magic.

Sure, she’s got magic, but that’s not why people like her. People like her because she has something better than magic.

Sabrina’s got a secret.

An important secret.

A secret that could get her kicked out of both communities she lives in.

A secret that, if it got out, would alienate her from her friends at school and from society at large. A secret that, if it got out, would remove her from the world of her hereditary legacy and destroy the lives of her extended family.

Now this sounds familiar, right?

Sabrina’s magic comes not from a flick of her finger or the sparkle of her spells; her magic comes from the fact that at the center of her story is a story that is the center of nearly every young person’s life.

On one hand there is her secret, truest self. On the other there her her public face.To be her true self is to be rejected by her friends and her community and to be accepted by her community she must hide an integral part of her identity.

These two things together create a beautiful and dynamic tension in her story.

Which is really our story.

Sabrina is every teenager who is struggling with their sexuality. She is every teenager who struggles with their gender identity. She is every teenager who tries to balance cultural heritage with personal desires.

Sabrina is all of us.

And that is magic.

Sabrina’s story, in its many incarnations, has been focused and refocused on many things. From her first adventures just trying to fit in, to the star-studded adventures of the Melissa Joan-Hart version from the 1990s,

Sabrina’s story is our story, how she manages the pitfalls of puberty and of learning to manage her magic in secret mirror our own management of puberty while learning to manage our secrets.

And I think that is pretty cool.

So don’t worry, Sabrina, you haven’t disappointed me.