Girl power began with the Spice Girls and the Charmed Ones pushed that belief on tenfold.

Not every modern show features women sticking together through the hardest times in their lives, unless you count Orphan Black of course. In a world where women are taught from an early age that jealousy and competition between one another is healthy, the Charmed Ones showed us that it’s more healthy for women to support instead of bicker.

Charmed- Spelling Television
Sure, the Charmed Ones were unique. They may have been sisters and witches, but they still drove the point across that communication is key in any kind of relationship. It shouldn’t take special circumstances to treat those around you with compassion and kindness.

These sisters were television’s late 90’s prominent feminists who showed that uplifting and encouraging one another literally resulted in magic. The only other examples we had of this were Xena and her sidekick Gabrielle, and of course the Spice Girls (though they weren’t the true example of feminism but were produced to represent it). Backstabbing and pettiness of modern day women doesn’t produce the charm and magic that these girls had shown us how to achieve through feminist empowerment.

The show began with three sisters who had no idea that they belonged to a particularly powerful bloodline of witches. It wasn’t until Phoebe came across the Book of Shadows that the Halliwell girls started to treat each other as more than mere relatives. They banded to protect the innocent all while often being targets of attacks from Demons themselves.

While the girls together were unstoppable, each of the Charmed Ones had personalities, strengths and weakness of their own character. The original trio consisted of Prue (Shannen Doherty- please get better soon!), Piper (Holly-Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano). Prue started off as an ambitious auction house worker bee and ended up running it at some point before her death. Her powers linked directly to her expressive eyes and power of telekinesis. Piper could explode items with a flick of her wrist and even stop time when needed. Phoebe was the empath and and experienced premonitions involving the innocents.
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Charmed- Spelling Television
They tackled issues such as unity through dark times, conquering love even when it seemed like they weren’t meant to experience such happiness, and even went so far as to tackling the aspect of death when Prue met her death. Despite Doherty’s absence, the show pushed on and eventually introduced Paige (Rose McGowan) who seamlessly fit into her newfound family.

While the trio did miss Prue’s power hugely, Paige’s white-lighter blood did prove useful as the girls gained the power of summoning and teleportation.

Throughout everything and all the seasons, the girls always fought for one another and protecting the good in the world. There just seems to be a shortage of women uplifting other women in the world of television. With Hollywood re-vamping all the other shows I’d love to see them tackle this series, even if the girls are portrayed by other actresses. As much as I love Holly-Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano, I feel they brought everything they could to the characters. Perhaps fresh faces will also bring new life to the Charmed Ones. Either way, television isn’t the same without the Halliwells on air.