Editorials
Where is Tituba? Examining Contemporary Historical Erasure of Race in the Salem Witch Trials
The Halloween season is upon us. Scores of people will soon head to the capital of witchery, eager to take a historical tour of sites and memorials. While most Salem tours are historically accurate and informative, they, and the museums, tend to overlook the significance of race and slavery in 17th-century Salem. According to the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, Salem’s early economic prosperity, being an active port, “was tied to the slave culture of the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries. As early as 1638, the first enslaved Africans were brought into the Massachusetts Bay Colony […] Slaves worked as servants and skilled labor in the homes and businesses of Salem until the late 1700s.” They explain that most wealthy households in Salem at the time, including the tourist attraction The House of the Seven Gables, housed enslaved people. The townspeople’s initial scapegoat for alleged witchcraft in Salem was Tituba, a black and indigenous enslaved woman. For historians, this fact is not new. However, it is imperative for people planning a trip to Salem to know this overlooked yet incredibly important piece of the Salem story, one we have a responsibility to think about critically when we enter Witch City.
Since early American history has been recorded mainly by white men, the story of Tituba from those who knew her is practically nonexistent. Historians have scoured town and family records for bits and pieces of Tituba’s life experiences beyond being a catalyst for the Trials. Author Elaine G. Breslaw took it upon herself to dig up Tituba’s origins: Tituba was purchased and enslaved at an unknown age by Samuel Parris, along with her future husband John Indian, while he was visiting a sugar plantation in the Caribbean Island of Barbados that he inherited from his father. He was known to be “rough” with the people he enslaved. Author Diane E. Foulds explains in Death in Salem: The Private Lives behind the 1692 Witch Hunt (2013) that Tituba and John endured whippings “if found idle.” Tituba lived with the Parris family during the time when girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter and niece, started acting erratic, blaming Tituba and her “magic” for their hysterics.
The Myth of Tituba and Fortune-Telling in Puritan Salem
Throughout the retelling of the Trials, mythic stories formed about Tituba allegedly being instrumental in teaching the young girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter Betty and niece Abigail, fortune-telling games that led them, in their boredom, to conjure up stories of being bewitched, throw violent fits, and speak in tongues. Initially, all fingers pointed to Tituba for the sake of blaming an outsider whose culture did not align with their own God-fearing Puritan way of life. However, historians have illuminated that Puritans were less averse to perceived-Pagan spiritual practices as legend would have it. Puritan spiritual and fortune-telling activities were, for the most part, widely accepted by Puritan culture, as well as abroad in both the Caribbean and Europe. Salem presented for the first time in America a cultural diffusion of magic. For Salem, the practice used that was in direct relation to the Trials themselves was a fortune-telling game. The shape of an egg white dropped into a glass of water would allegedly reveal your future. When Betty and Abigail played this game, their egg white took the shape of a coffin which spurred their bizarre behavior.
There is no concrete evidence of Tituba partaking in this fortune-telling game with the girls, nor any supporting evidence that she taught them this game. However, Tituba would not be opposed to the game. Breslaw elaborates: “She most certainly accepted the usefulness of such practices because, like most seventeenth-century people, she believed that human action could influence the spiritual realm […] The magical fortune-telling practices were not unusual in Puritan communities […] None of these techniques… was exclusive to English folklore […] The egg as a part of divining and curing ceremonies has an even more ancient history. As different cultures met in the New World, similarities of form or function would permit an easy borrowing of magical techniques by one group from another.” Thus, it was not the presence of spirituality that fed into townspeople’s paranoia, but rather the possibility of dark magic bewitching the young white girls of Salem, a magic supposedly conjured by black and indigenous people.
Tituba as a Scapegoat
The girls of Salem, fainting, sputtering bizarre phrases, contorting their bodies as if possessed, were first to blame Tituba. This must continually be stressed when discussing the Salem Witch Trials, for this is an early example of white people using BIPOC as scapegoats in American society. Puritans associated dark skin with evil and viewed Native Americans as such due to being non-Christian. In Maryse Condé’s historical fiction I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1996), written to examine Tituba’s life despite the lack of historical data, Tituba states: “she was convinced my color was indicative of my close connections with Satan. I was able to laugh it off, however, as the ramblings of a shrew embittered by solitude and approaching old age. In Salem, such a conviction was shared by all. […] “’You, do good? You’re a Negress, Tituba! You can only do evil. You are evil itself.’” BIPOC folks are still scapegoats in America today; I could even posit that this is one of the foundations of American culture, with links to one of the earliest white communities.
Tituba, after being accused by Betty Parris of witchcraft, eventually testified that yes, it was she who cast a spell on the young girls of Salem, though her admission was a well-thought-out tactic to avoid hanging. Tituba leveraged her testimonial position of being an “expert” in the subject of dark magic to stay alive. Breslaw evaluates Tituba’s testimony during the Trials by presenting the following facts: 1) Tituba was a stranger in a strange land, having to become accustomed to female Puritan life immediately after stepping off the ship from Barbados, 2) she used the Puritan mindset to her advantage during the Trials, in that, she saved herself by appeasing the Puritan idea that she was a witch based on her cultural background and her race, and 3) she used the Puritan fear of Native Americans, with whom several of the girls had past violent encounters, to “prove” her delving into witchcraft, since Puritans believed Native Americans to be involved with the occult. This saved Tituba from death, unlike many of the other alleged witches of Salem. Although Tituba “confessed,” she later recanted and spent thirteen months in prison due to Parris refusing to post her bail. An unknown person paid her bail, speculated to be an enslaved persons’ trader, and Tituba’s fate thereafter is unknown.
The Salem Witch Trials have been inspiring horror cinema for decades, with films such as The City of the Dead (1960), Lords of Salem (2013), and, most importantly, The VVITCH (2015). These films focus on white female trauma while Tituba is nowhere to be seen. Only in The Crucible (1999), with Charlayne Woodard as Tituba, do we see her involved in the narrative. The only horror movie that comes close to alluding to Tituba’s story is Fear Street 1666 (2021), where sexuality takes the place of race in blaming Sarah Fier for the sinister witchcraft befallen in the town.
Reassessing Salem’s Narrative: Balancing History and Tourism
Race and religion are pivotal in the historical discussion of the Salem Witch Trials. Salem’s town narrative, however, favors tourist-friendly history rather than a critical discussion of race in the 17th century. While Tituba is included in the town’s Wax Museum, her importance in the story of the Trials is largely glossed over to tell the stories of bewitched white girls and the subsequent white accused. Salem must find balance between accurate history and aesthetic tourism. Salem, Massachusetts is not in its own spooky little bubble: its history is rooted in the original thirteen colonies which enslaved human beings and used them shamelessly as targets of blame for wrong-doings and happenings. If we are in pursuit of honoring those who were wrongfully detained or murdered during the Salem Witch Trials, we have a responsibility to accurately remember the Trials as not only a wrongdoing by the zealot Puritan men and women of Salem, but as having severely harmed BIPOC lives, the legacy of which permeates current social and political discourse concerning race.
I was late to the Radio Silence party. However, I do not let that stop me from being one of the loudest people at the function now. I randomly decided to see Ready or Not in theaters one afternoon in 2019 and walked out a better person for it. The movie introduced me to the work of a team that would become some of my favorite current filmmakers. It also confirmed that getting married is the worst thing one can do. That felt very validating as someone who doesn’t buy into the needing to be married to be complete narrative.
Ready or Not is about a fucked up family with a fucked up tradition. The unassuming Grace (Samara Weaving) thinks her new in-laws are a bit weird. However, she’s blinded by love on her wedding day. She would never suspect that her groom, Alex (Mark O’Brien), would lead her into a deadly wedding night. So, she heads downstairs to play a game with the family, not knowing that they will be hunting her this evening. This is one of the many ways I am different from Grace. I watch enough of the news to know the husband should be the prime suspect, and I have been around long enough to know men are the worst. I also have a commitment phobia, so the idea of walking down the aisle gives me anxiety.
Grace Under Fire
Ready or Not is a horror comedy set on a wealthy family’s estate that got overshadowed by Knives Out. I have gone on record multiple times saying it’s the better movie. Sadly, because it has fewer actors who are household names, people are not ready to have that conversation. However, I’m taking up space this month to talk about catharsis, so let me get back on track. One of the many ways this movie is better than the latter is because of that sweet catharsis awaiting us at the end.
This movie puts Grace through it and then some. Weaving easily makes her one of the easiest final girls to root for over a decade too. From finding out the man she loves has betrayed her, to having to fight off the in-laws trying to kill her, as she is suddenly forced to fight to survive her wedding night. No one can say that Grace doesn’t earn that cigarette at the end of the film. As she sits on the stairs covered in the blood of what was supposed to be her new family, she is a relatable icon. As the unseen cop asks what happened to her, she simply says, “In-laws.” It’s a quick laugh before the credits roll, and “Love Me Tender” by Stereo Jane makes us dance and giggle in our seats.
Ready or Not Proves That Maybe She’s Better Off Alone
It is also a moment in which Grace is one of many women who survives marriage. She comes out of the other side beaten but not broken. Grace finally put herself, and her needs first, and can breathe again in a way she hasn’t since saying I do. She fought kids, her parents-in-law, and even her husband to escape with her life. She refused to be a victim, and with that cigarette, she is finally free and safe. Grace is back to being single, and that’s clearly for the best.
This Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy script is funny on the surface, even before you start digging into the subtext. The fact that Ready or Not is a movie where the happy ending is a woman being left alone is not wasted on me, though. While Grace thought being married would make her happy, she now has physical and emotional wounds to remind her that it’s okay to be alone.
One of the things I love about this current era of Radio Silence films is that the women in these projects are not the perfect victims. Whether it’s Ready or Not, Abigail, or Scream (2022), or Scream VI, the girls are fighting. They want to live, they are smart and resourceful, and they know that no one is coming to help them. That’s why I get excited whenever I see Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s names appear next to a Guy Busick co-written script. Those three have cracked the code to give us women protagonists that are badasses, and often more dangerous than their would-be killers when push comes to shove.
Ready or Not Proves That Commitment is Scarier Than Death
So, watching Grace run around this creepy family’s estate in her wedding dress is a vision. It’s also very much the opposite of what we expect when we see a bride. Wedding days are supposed to be champagne, friends, family, and trying to buy into the societal notion that being married is what we’re supposed to aspire to as AFABs. They start programming us pretty early that we have to learn to cook to feed future husbands and children.
The traditions of being given away by our fathers, and taking our husbands’ last name, are outdated patriarchal nonsense. Let’s not even get started on how some guys still ask for a woman’s father’s permission to propose. These practices tell us that we are not real people so much as pawns men pass off to each other. These are things that cause me to hyperventilate a little when people try to talk to me about settling down.
Marriage Ain’t For Everybody
I have a lot of beef with marriage propaganda. That’s why Ready or Not speaks to me on a bunch of levels that I find surprising and fresh. Most movies would have forced Grace and Alex to make up at the end to continue selling the idea that heterosexual romance is always the answer. Even in horror, the concept that “love will save the day” is shoved at us (glares at The Conjuring Universe). So, it’s cool to see a movie that understands women can be enough on their own. We don’t need a man to complete us, and most of the time, men do lead to more problems. While I am no longer a part-time smoker, I find myself inhaling and exhaling as Grace takes that puff at the end of the film. As a woman who loves being alone, it’s awesome to be seen this way.
The Cigarette of Singledom
We don’t need movies to validate our life choices. However, it’s nice to be acknowledged every so often. If for no other reason than to break up the routine. I’m so tired of seeing movies that feel like a guy and a girl making it work, no matter the odds, is admirable. Sometimes people are better when they separate, and sometimes divorce saves lives. So, I salute Grace and her cathartic cigarette at the end of her bloody ordeal.
I cannot wait to see what single shenanigans she gets into in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. I personally hope she inherited that money from the dead in-laws who tried her. She deserves to live her best single girl life on a beach somewhere. Grace’s marriage was a short one, but she learned a lot. She survived it, came out the other side stronger, richer, and knowing that marriage isn’t for everybody.
I’ve come to the kind of grim conclusion that sooner or later we’re all going to succumb to horror franchise fatigue. Bear with me, this editorial is more stream of consciousness than most of the ones I’ve written for Horror Press. For those unaware, the forthcoming Camp Crystal Lake show spent a short period of time shooting at a beloved local North Jersey restaurant near me in August. This meant progress for the A24 project that has been radio silent for a while; it also meant no rippers while it was closed for filming, but who said Jason’s reign of terror would be without consequence?
When Horror Franchise Fatigue Becomes An Issue
My friends mentioned it on an idle afternoon, and I carried that conversation over to another friend later that week. It inevitably turned into what all conversations of long-lived franchises do. Talking about how far the series had come, how influential it was, and how it died. Or at least, died without a death certificate. Nothing will keep a studio from coming back to a franchise if that’s where the money is, barring legal troubles and copyright shenanigans.
Revisiting Friday the 13th: A Franchise Rewatch Gone Wrong
As I fondly thought about the Friday series, I was spurred to watch the films. I would watch it all, from start to finish, all twelve movies. Not for any particular article, though the planned process was similar. They’re fascinating films that were both helped and harmed by their immense financial success, so they were as good as any franchise to analyze the changes in. I would note the difference between directors, the shift in tone. How cultural consciousness changed the films as they went on. I would dissect them to see what was at the heart of these movies.
I got about 15 minutes into Part 4 before stopping my marathon.
Horror Franchise Fatigue and the Loss of Enjoyment
Now, this might sound strange. I liked The Final Chapter, I like pretty much all the Friday films (especially the worst ones). And I know that I enjoy them, not from some abstract nostalgia driven memories, but because I had seen several of them recently enough to know that. What it came down to was a very simple question of whether or not I was having fun watching them. The enjoyment was the point, but by the fifth day, I wasn’t feeling anything. I wanted to love the Friday the 13th films the same way I did when I previously watched them, but it just didn’t happen.
And I was confused, how a franchise I had enjoyed so much had just become so unmoving. It wasn’t the experience I had had before. But the truth was that experience couldn’t be restored, and that desire to bring it back was actively harming my enjoyment of the films.
Why Standalone Horror Experiences Still Matter
In contrast, I showed my favorite giallo film to some friends recently. Dario Argento’s Opera is a film I’ve seen plenty of times, and it was a big hit thanks to its Grand Guignol sensibilities and one-of-a-kind cinematography. As far as tales about an opera singer being forced to witness murders go, it got a warm reception. It was crass, it was odd, it was provocative.
And watching my friends’ reactions, from intrigue to disgust to enjoyment, was the exact kind of experience I was hoping for. It was a memorable experience that stuck with me as much as seeing the film for the first time did.
We Don’t Love Horror Franchises, We Love the Experience
It may sound ignorant, but largely, I feel we don’t love franchises. We love the experience. We love the feeling of seeing something come together over the course of hours, the novelty of characters growing and changing if it’s allowed by the scripts. The special emotion invoked when you spend so much time with a piece of media; it’s the same emotion that gets you hooked on a good TV show.
Now for some of you, this is splitting hairs. But I think the core of this is important to recognize: the franchise is just a vessel for the experiences the media provides. It’s shorthand for what you’ve felt and how you feel, a signifier rather than what’s really being signified. The Friday, and Nightmare, and Halloween “series”, as concepts are abstract enough to mean a million different things to a million different viewers, but at the end of the day they are all a collection of viewing experiences to someone.
Fan Culture, Shared Horror Memories, and Closure
Those experiences are the core of “fan culture”. We love how our experiences link with those of others, registering flashes of recognition at a turn of phrase or a reference to a scene. That nebulous tangling of thoughts and feelings with other people is at the essence of shared enjoyment. And if you’re lucky enough, we love to see the book close on a franchise. To see a film series end, having completed its journey is a reward of its own.
But unfortunately, we often don’t get the privilege of watching a series end gracefully or even end at all. The Halloween series and The Exorcist series with their latest entries are obvious examples, and they’ve put the two franchises at arm’s length for me. But they’re far from the only ones.
Scream, Legacy Characters, and the Cost of Overextension
I especially don’t think I can return to the Scream films for a good long while. Putting aside the absolute trash fire made by Spyglass Entertainment firing its lead, then rushing a 7th film so badly they lost the Radio Silence team, I had already tapped out the minute I had heard the film’s premise. If there ever was a horror protagonist who should have stayed retired, it was Sidney Prescott.
All respect to Neve Campbell for finally getting her paycheck, but I can’t think of something less appealing than Sidney coming back. I’ve always been a Scream 3 purist, so I firmly believe that she shouldn’t have been in any of the films after that. She had gotten her happy ending, and left horror as one of the greatest of all time.
But then dangling a legacy character of that significance over a shallow inflatable pool for a third time, and treating it as shark infested waters, just feels ridiculous. The trailer that dropped for it did very little to assuage the notion that it would be anything but predictable.
This isn’t to say I’ve written off Scream entirely, but familiarity in this case has bred some level of contempt. I can identify pretty clearly what I loved about the experience that the Scream franchise used to offer, and this is not it. It’s made me more or less sulky about what it has to offer now; that is, very little of the novelty and shock factor I loved it for.
Why It’s Okay to Walk Away From Horror Franchises You Love
All of these thoughts and encounters led to a series of questions I kept revolving through. Why do we play a game of loyalty to something so abstract as “the franchise”? Is the collection of experiences we attach to a series supposed to be an emotional wage we’re paid to stick around? Is that payment enough? Why should we keep watching a series if we’ve fallen out of love with what it has to offer?
I know as much as you do that the answer to that last question is “we shouldn’t”, and yet we still do. For those of us who have fallen into a similar pessimistic state about the franchises we enjoy, I guess this is all just a way of stating the obvious: it’s okay to leave a series behind. If it’s not fun or engaging or challenging, you can and should set it aside, at least temporarily. While I’m not a proponent of killing fond memories or condemning all nostalgia, that’s just the problem: I want to feel something more than I want to remember that feeling.
Choosing New Horror Over Nostalgia
The old experience of media we once loved can be nice, but there are more new experiences out there than we can have in a single lifetime. We have a near infinite amount to choose from. So, if we’re fortunate, one of them belongs to a series we love, and we can enjoy it once more. But for those of us who don’t have that luck, consider this a reminder that there is a lot more than these familiar faces to see. Next time you feel down about a series you miss or find yourself unable to continue watching, reach for something new. Something odd. Something you haven’t seen. It might just help.
Happy watching, horror fans.
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