Rachel True Is Calling Out the ‘Casual Racism’ That Still Surrounds One of Our Favorite Movies
If you’re a fan of the 1996 movie The Craft — starring Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Rachel True and Neve Campbell — you’re well-familiar with its premise: Three outcast high school girls who enjoy dabbling in the dark arts are finally able to “call the corners” and make real magic happen once they meet their fourth. (As the story goes, eventually that ‘real magic’ gets all too real, and for one of the ladies, the unbridled power that comes with embracing her witchiness proves corruptible.)
What isn’t so apparent on the film’s face is the “casual racism” The Craft‘s only Black star, Rachel True, claims took place during the casting process and after the film’s release — and which even continues today, 23 years later.
There’s apparently more than one fan convention currently looking to reunite the cast of The Craft, which has long been a popular film among millennial women and queer people. But these conventions aren’t interested in reuniting all four women, as Rachel True, now 52, has revealed on Twitter.
“I think it’s interesting these conventions are booking Neve, Fairuza & Robin all together, but excluding me. Sounds about white,” True posted on Jan. 25.
I think it’s interesting these conventions are booking Neve, Fairuza &, Robin all together, but excluding me. Sounds about white.
— Rachel True (@RachelTrue) January 26, 2019
That’s of course a slap in the face to True — still a working actor and Tarot author — as the film very obviously centers around a foursome of women. She said as much on Twitter: “Maybe it’s just an oversight but … I mean .. it’s a film about 4 f*cking girls not 3.”
True declined to call out any one convention by name, saying more than one is guilty of only attempting to book three of the film’s four stars. And True says she only found out about these potential The Craft reunions because her former co-star Fairuza Balk tipped her off to them.
“I’m not calling out any one convention in particular because it’s more than one & they don’t realize the casual racism to the choice. So if you attend those sorts of things let them know.. especially if you’re white, I guess,” True said on Twitter, also posting, “A Hollywood lifetime of sucking up racist aggressions, micro & macro while white actors insisted right up until [Donald Trump] took office that racism was over… takes a toll, I’m fucking tired as fuck some days.”
Also interesting about Rachel True putting the truth out there regarding these conventions is that the conversation has led her to speak out about the racism she encountered when making the film back in the ’90s, too. “When we did the movie, I was already told by production, ‘Take this money offer, take it or leave it. We have another Black girl,’” True said during an Instagram Live post on Jan. 26.
She also says that she was excluded from press opportunities and junkets following the film’s premiere. She was also excluded from the MTV Movie Awards that year. “Even though I had two movies coming out, the other three girls got to present while I sat in the audience,” True says.
From the Instagram Live post by Rachel True:
So I guess it’s less about whining about how I was left out of certain things, but more it just kind of hit me on a level that as a person of color, during my career, I had to deal with these things and suck them up and just stick ’em somewhere.
And a lot of Black people or people of color know exactly what I’m talking about. You kind of have these things that happen to you, these microaggressions or macroaggressions, and you kind of just have to suck them up.
And I think yesterday I just sort of realized that maybe that’s why I was OK with taking a little break from Hollywood, because I was just tired of sucking up shit like that.
Regardless of whether Rachel True is excluded from these conventions looking to draw fans of The Craft, she’s got more than one project currently in the works herself. She’s currently wrapping up a book on Tarot, and has said she’ll appear on the FX comedy series Better Things a little later this year.
That aside, it’s unfortunate and, frankly, disgusting that actors of color (and, yes, diverse gender identities and sexualities) are still dealing with remnants of the Hollywood boys’ club. And let’s never forget that even things which may appear to be minor sleights to others can have a real effect on people’s financial and mental well-being.
