To be honest, this movie wasn’t on my radar until I heard about the controversy surrounding it. I follow a lot of disability advocates on Instagram, and just about every one of them called out the film after it was released.
Before I get into the controversy, here’s the premise of the book—it’s all about a young boy living in a world where witches hate children. The witches plot to rid the world of children entirely by turning them all into mice. When the boy and witches happen to be staying at the same hotel, the boy figures out what the witches want to do. In a confrontation with them, he’s successfully turned into a mouse. He hatches a plan to get revenge and turn all of the witches into mice—and get this, the boy succeeds too. It’s a pretty weird story, but what did you expect from the guy who brought us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and The BFG?
Sure, it’s a weird plot, but why is the film getting heat on Instagram? In the film, Anne Hathaway’s character, the Grand High Witch, only has three fingers on one hand. Throughout the movie, this limb abnormality is used to signal something evil and disgusting. In the original book’s drawings, the Grand High Witch had no such disability, causing further confusion about why she only had three fingers. Due to this, many people with limb differences started using the hashtag #notawitch to call out the film for vilifying a part of their everyday lives. The nonprofit Lucky Fin Project led much of the action, reposting individual’s stories and raising awareness about limb differences.
The hashtag gained so much traction that both Warner Bros. and star Anne Hathaway apologized for their insensitive portrayal. In a statement to NBC News, Warner Bros said that they were “deeply saddened to learn that our depiction of fictional characters in The Witches could upset people with disabilities”. On Hathaway’s social media accounts, she posted a video produced by the Lucky Fin Project and apologized. She ended her statement with, “I particularly want to say I’m sorry to kids with limb differences: now that I know better I promise I’ll do better. And I owe a special apology to everyone who loves you as fiercely as I love my own kids: I’m sorry I let your family down”.
While it’s unfortunate that a studio as big as Warner Bros. would produce a movie making fun of limb differences, hopefully something good can come out of this in the form of added awareness and sensitivity towards limb differences. People with limb differences aren’t automatically villains in the story and they don’t need to be pushed to the fringes of society—like the Lucky Fin Project says, ten fingers are overrated.