RECLAIMING WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE TEENAGE COVEN: FEMALE AGENCY AND COLLECTIVE FREEDOM IN HOCUS POCUS 2 (2022)

Oleh :
Delia Pramudita - B0322034 - Fak. Ilmu Budaya

This thesis examine how female agency and collective freedom are represented through the teenage coven Becca, Izzy, and Cassie within the framework of third-wave feminism. in the film Hocus Pocus 2 (2022), directed by Anne Fletcher. As witch narratives have gained increasing prominence in contemporary popular culture, this film represents witchcraft not as a source of fear but as a consciously chosen cultural practice through which young women articulate autonomy, resist social stigma, and build collective identity. This study employed a qualitative approach using Christian Metz's Grand Syntagmatique theory to identify the cinematic structure of selected scenes, combined with Roland Barthes' concepts of denotation and connotation to interpret visual and narrative meaning. The analysis was conducted through a paradigmatic examination of cinematic elements including cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène, performance, and sound, interpreted through a third-wave feminist lens. The finding reveals that female agency is represented through two primary patterns that is, first, as self-determined identity formation, in which the coven independently defined their witchcraft identity and resisted external stigma and second as the coven exercises agency under constraint through adaptability, knowledge, and persistence in threatening situations. Collective freedom is represented through the development of collective identity and belonging, sustained by mutual recognition and shared responsibility, as well as through collective empowerment, in which the coven's strength was shown to be relational and collaborative rather than individual. This thesis concludes that witchcraft is cinematically represented as a cultural practice through which young women articulate both individual autonomy and collective liberation, reflecting third-wave feminist principles of self-definition, solidarity, and power-with.