By Gretchen Uhrinek
“With this little cobweb potion
You’ll fall into dark devotion
If you ever lose affection
I can change your whole direction”
— The Hex Girls, Scooby-Doo! and
the Witch’s Ghost (1999)
Picture this: you’re five years old and sitting on the living room floor. The floor is carpeted, because it’s 1999. Your mom (who is probably hungover, let’s be real) just pushed a new VHS into the machine—well, new to you, at least. It came from the local video rental shop, the one with the dimly lit back room you’re not supposed to enter. But you accidentally stumbled into that room, once, and saw breasts that didn’t belong to your mom. You were too young then to understand that you’re not supposed to see breasts that don’t belong to your mom. Not yet, and if society had its way, probably not ever.
But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the film playing before you: Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost.
Within the first ten minutes, you’re hooked. There’s a mystery writer man with a black goatee voiced by Tim Curry (again, it’s 1999). A quaint village in New England boasting perfect fall foliage. Candles—you see how candles are made! And how butter is churned! This is paradise, you think. This is how life should be.
(In the background, your mom is spreading I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter on burnt Wonder Bread. She hands it to you on a styrofoam plate. The plate melts under the hot toast.)
But it gets better. You learn of Sarah Ravencroft, a—gasp—Wiccan. To this day, her name rolls delicious and dark in your mouth. Then, less than twenty minutes into the direct-to-video cartoon that would spell your bisexual awakening, you meet them.
The Hex Girls.
Dusk, the curvy blonde. Luna, the racially-ambiguous redhead. And Thorn, the frontrunner. Thorn is all black and red and pale evening shimmer, confidence and brain and fang. Later, she would tell the Gang that the Hex Girls are eco goths. You are five and don’t know what that means, but somehow you internalize that statement; in high school, eco goth would become your platonic ideal.
(When you are 18 you will spend Christmas alone in a friend’s basement after your father threatens you for being vegan and liking women as well as men.)
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Let’s focus on the music instead.
The Hex Girls aren’t just eco goths. They fucking shred. In “Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air,” a rock song about loving the planet, the chorus includes a line about how the Hex Girls don’t care if they look bad. Of course, it’s a moot point—they look amazing. Dusk, Luna, and Thorn are veritable hotties, and not just in how they’re animated, although that certainly plays a role. It’s their confidence and dedication to causes greater than themselves that really cemented them as kick-ass icons of female empowerment. (Your parents are alcoholics. You often hear them call you worthless through the thin walls of your home. You are a child, already small, and their words make you smaller.)
Then there’s the eponymous song, “Hex Girl.” You are much older than five today and yet you still remember every word. You cannot play guitar, or any instrument for that matter, but that’s beside the point. The song’s heavy riffs are burnt into your soul. From the first lines, Thorn promises to cast a spell on you, one that causes you to obey her every command, one that makes you lose control. It’s a lusty promise for a children’s cartoon, but nevertheless it works. You would do anything for the Hex Girls.
(The thing about drunk people is that they’re unpredictable. You must be hypervigilant to make sure they’re always happy. You are drawn to the idea of someone who clearly tells you what they want.)
The rest of the movie is immaterial. The Gang solves a mystery.The mystery turns out to be a red herring. There are actual supernatural forces at play. Tim Curry is a warlock. The angry ghost of Sarah Ravencroft traps him in a spellbook. Some pumpkins and a turkey transform into evil aberrations. It’s all typical Scooby Doo fare, more or less. But in the end, it’s Thorn who saves the day. She vanquishes the supernatural evil plaguing the small Massachusetts town. And if that’s not enough, she and the rest of her band immediately organize a benefit show to raise money to restore the town following the magical destruction. Once and for all, the Hex Girls prove themselves to be selfless and kind and strong. And you love them for it.
(For the rest of your life, you will want women who are selfless and kind and strong. And you will love them for it.)
Gretchen Uhrinek (she/her) is a Pittsburgh-ish (U.S.) writer and editor.