Fate: The Winx Saga - A Tale of Racial Erasure, Wingless Fairies and Burned Monsters

Winx Club defined my childhood. Everyday after school, I would allow myself to be whisked away into the land of fairies, magic and friendship. For those of you who have no idea what Winx Club even is, it was a Nickelodeon (originally Italian) animated series that centered around a group of friends attending a magical boarding school named Alfea. The show's main protagonist, Bloom, is a fairy who grew up among humans and had no idea that fairies even existed let alone that she was one. She then attends Alfea and begins to learn more about her past, forms a group of friends and together they do really cool fairy things like transform and fight witches. This show was fire. Well, the orginal version was.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Nickelodeon reboot and redesign. It just didn't hit the same. You don't need to fix what's not broken in the first place.

When I heard that Netflix was spearheading a live action version of the series, I was nervous. I reserve this anxiety for every time some genius decides to drum up a live-action version from source content that wasn't live action in the first place *screams in Percy Jackson, the Last Airbender, Death Note and Vampire Academy*

Live actions are tricky because there is a delicate balance between preserving the original intrigue of content and carving out something new and exciting that works. I think for the most part, Fate:The Winx Saga achieved that balance but there were some major problems with the show that I wish to share.

The Race Issue

When this still first dropped of the cast of Fate: The Winx Saga, Twitter damn near lost its mind. And to be quite honest, as a long-time fan of the show, I understand. In the original show, the gang consisted of Bloom (red-haired white girl), Stella (blonde-haired white girl), Aisha (black girl), Flora (presumably Latina), Tecna (purple-haired white girl) and Musa (presumbly Asian). As I laid out, there was a fair bit of diversity among the cast of characters.

The girls looked different but they were still friends and they all possessed distinct magic that complemented each other's. Bloom controlled fire, Stella was a fairy of light, Musa controlled music, Tecna had power over technology, Flora was the fairy of nature and Aisha was the fairy of waves. Fast forward to Netflix's version and the diversity that the animated series enjoyed has all but disappeared. It's interesting because race wasn't really something that was discussed in the original series. Things just kind of were. And they just kind of weren't in Netflix's adaptation.

Musa was overtly Asian in the original series and in Fate, the role was taken up by a half-European, half-Singaporean actress.

Now, to be clear, I have nothing against this actress or her body of work but I was so disappointed by this casting. The film industry seems to struggle to cast fully-Asian actors in Asian roles. It's weird. I was watching a Youtube movie review by one of my favourite Youtubers, Kennie J.D. and she made an interesting point that Asians that are cast for roles are often "Asian-lite." I prefer to think of it as Diet Asian.

When they are cast, it's insofar as they are palatable to white audiences. Maybe they are half-Asian like this actress. Maybe they're written as adopted or have English names because for some reason, we can't survive Asian people just...being asian. Don't get me wrong, that statement is in no way meant to disparage the very real Asian identities of people who are half-white, adopted or have anglicized names. That, in and of itself, is not an issue. It becomes problematic, though, when that's the dominant Asian representation flooding the media. The black equivalent of this is biracial actresses being cast almost exclusively in roles meant for black women. Yes, they are also black BUT (and this is a big but), they are not sufficiently representative of the vast diversity that exists across the spectrum of black women.

Another issue I had with the casting was for the role of Terra. For those of you who are not fans of the original show, "Terra" did not exist. The creation of this character seems to have replaced the role of Flora, the nature fairy from the original show. That's all well and good. However, Flora was Latina and in the Netflix adaptation, this role is taken up by a white actress.

While it is true that the term "latino/a" describes an ethnicity rather than a race and there are white latinos, the character of Flora is clearly meant to be played by a brown person. Instead, they cast a white woman and I guess that's okay because she's curvy.

I don't know which casting director needs to hear this but 'fat' is not an immutable characteristic. I'm writing this as someone who's at least 15 pounds overweight. Being curvy is not a stand-in identity for race. Size diversity is not a substitute for ethnic and racial diversity. There are fat latinas. You can't whitewash a character and be like "it's okay because she's fat." That's not okay. In no world is that acceptable.

Despite my various grievances with the show's casting, I was happy about the casting of Aisha.

It gave me immense joy to see a black actress rocking her box braids with her edges gelled, not being forced to subscribe to eurocentric beauty standards. My happiness pretty much ended there though. They did absolutely nothing with her character. She was the typical black best friend, there for laughs, there to comfort the white protagonist. This is a theme that I noticed running throughout the show. Where were the people of colour?

There were two black characters with speaking lines. There were a bunch of black and asian people runnning around in the background who maybe got ten seconds of screentime and even fewer lines. The only BIPOC with significant speaking lines were Aisha, Dane and a white-passing Musa. That's unacceptable. Other people of colour were merely props in the background, tools so the show could appear diverse and all-encompassing. Having two black characters with lines among a sea of white characters is not diversity. I repeat, this is not diversity! I'd much rather you have no POC so I can flame you more intentionally.

The Premise

Onto the actual story. In Netflix's version of Winx, Bloom is an American who discovers that she's a fairy when she almost kills her parents by setting their home on fire. She is contacted by Ms. Dowling, headmistress of Alfea School of Fairies and begins to attend in a bid to learn to control her magic. She soon discovers that she was swapped out with a human baby at birth and left in the human world, raising questions about who her birth parents were. At the same time, a race of bloodthirsty burned creatures begin attacking and killing people and seem to have a connection with Bloom.

It differs from the original in a few ways. Firstly, everyone's British (except Bloom). This is an interesting change that I didn't hate. I mean, Americans take English shows and transform them all the time. *cough cough* Sherlock, The Office and Shameless *cough cough*

Also, whereas in Winx Club there were three separate boarding schools, one for fairies, another for specialists and one for witches, there's only one school, Alfea, that houses both specialists and fairies. Furthermore, the roles of fairies and specialists are no longer strictly divided along gender lines. That is, boys can be fairies and girls can be specialists. Again, didn't bother me.

What made me lose my mind, though, was the fact that fairies in this universe had no wings! What?

In Winx Club, there was always this cool power up sequence where the fairies transformed into their fairy selves. Music would play, lights would flash, their makeup and hair would suddenly be done up and they were beautiful.

It was amazing. I was bummed that they decided to go in another direction but I completely understand that in live actions, certain concessions have to be made. Plus, if they did do wings, they would have needed a BUDGET so that the CGI didn't suck. So my official stance on the no-wings thing is 'slightly disappointed but understanding'.

Moreover, they added a sub-plot about this race of monsters called the "burned ones" that kill people and mysteriously start appearing in incredible numbers after going underground for 16 years. I might be mistaken (I very well could be) but this didn't exist in the original show. I don't hate it.

The Characters

There were a ton of characters in this show so I'm only going to focus on the main girls.

Bloom

Unpopular opinion: she sucked which is devastating because she was my favourite in the original Winx Club. She always sounded like she was on the verge of tears, was generally selfish, didn't think ANYTHING through and also frankly, was just a bit dense. She would do something incredibly stupid and act surprised when it backfired. She was also wayyyy too trusting and lacked basic critical thinking skills. I can't say too much without spoiling the show but I just didn't vibe with Bloom and she's the main character.

Aisha

As a concept, I like Aisha. She can control water and she's beautiful. They didn't do very much with her character this season and we learned absolutely nothing about her besides the fact that she goes swimming twice a day and enjoys wearing blue. That's it. That's all we know. Which is unfortunate because in the original Winx Club, she’s a freakin’ princess and is friends with mermaids! Also they position her as this responsible, supportive friend whose only role is to portray a borderline stereotypical Black mammy figure for the problems of her white friends. It's weird.

Terra

Despite my misgivings about the casting for this role, I actually quite enjoyed Terra as a character. She was sweet and kind, if a bit overbearing at times. I don't have much else to say about her.

Musa

Again, despite my crabbiness about the whitewashed casting, I quite liked Musa as a character. Her magic was changed from what it was originally in the TV series. There, she controlled music but in Fate: The Winx Saga, she was an empath so she could read the emotions of others. It was an interesting change and I did think it added to the plot in the end.

Stella

Fate: The Winx Saga performed character assasination on Stella. Granted, in the original she could be a bit airheaded but she was also sweet and a loyal friend. Why is Netflix so determined to demonize every pretty, blonde woman? Why must popular girls ultimately be painted as bitchy and exacting? It's a tired and overused trope and I really wish that they would kill it. Stella was unlikable for 5/6 episodes of the season.

Overall Thoughts

I don’t know that the show is reminiscent of Winx Club per se. The vibe strikes me as a mix between the fantastical elements of Harry Potter and the mystery and intrigue of a show like House of Anubis. The absolute joy and childlike excitement that I felt while watching the original animated show didn't carry over with this show but I think that's okay. Fate: The Winx Saga is a distinct show that draws on the basic concepts of the original while not necessarily aiming to be a carbon copy. It was also aimed towards a more mature audience. The tone was darker and it was replete with conversations about sex, drugs and murder. This was a bold choice by the creators but I quite enjoyed it. I was watching Winx Club when I was 8 years old and I'm 22 now. Fate: The Winx Saga feels like a show that has grown up and matured with me.

The plot was incredibly rushed. Season 1 had only six episodes that were each 50 minutes long. For this reason, they tried to cram a ton of information about the characters, the world, the romance, the villians and everything else into these six episodes and it just didn't work out. One moment, Bloom is searching for clues about her parents. In another instance, we're discussing Stella's relationship with her tyrannical mom while fighting off a horde of burned creatures whose origin we have no idea about. There's a million and one strands of romance that co-occur with discussions of dead parents and past allegiances. It was entirely too much.

I think they spread themselves too thin. I wished they would have cut out the majority of the fluff they mentioned and focused exclusively on world-building and character development this season. After binging the entire first season, I know precious little about the lore and magic of this world and just as little about the motivations, backstory and personalities of the various characters.

Likewise, another issue I had was with the ambiguity surrounding the use of technology in this world. According to the lore of this world, there's the human world (called the 'First World') and the Otherworld where Alfea is located. They're technically in different dimensions BUT students in Alfea have access to Instagram and Snapchat and are able to make calls to people in the human world. Maybe it's the skeptic in me but that just makes no sense. What God-tier internet service provider do you have that their data is able to transcend literal dimensions? This aspect of the show made it less believable and harder to suspend my disbelief because there was no logical basis for it.

Overall, although I had some issues with the show namely the erasure of race, rushed plot, botched worldbuilding and characters, I ultimately enjoyed Fate: The Winx Saga quite a bit and binged it in one day. I will definitely be checking out season 2, if there is a season two and I'm excited to see the direction that the show goes.

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