The Winx generation is much more than we think

Once upon a time there was a red-haired girl who came from Gardenia, with a little rabbit and many friends with great powers. They were Bloom, Stella, Flora, Tecna and Musa to which Aisha will be added and if you were children in the early 2000s you should know who they are: the Winx, born in the Marche from an idea of ​​Iginio Straffi, but a worldwide phenomenon still very much followed and loved, as demonstrated by the new live action on Netflix called Fate: The Winx Saga. First a confession: for years I have made fun of my sister, born in 96, and her total admiration for any notebook, diary, pencil case, pen and eraser with Tecna in plain sight, but Winx Club, the name of the animated series, is a subject of study with data and analysis that explain the intergenerationality of the cartoon and its pedagogical project.

I can’t say that the Netflix series has succeeded, its being in the wake of The terrifying adventures of Sabrina, referring to the American high school model and its class division, screeches for all six episodes, and the pilot indebted to Stranger Things and the dark universe of young adult production quickly tires. For once we could have skipped the conflict between the bitch blonde and the protagonist or the moment when the beauty of the school notices her immediately, even if there are a thousand new students. The reason will be explained, but in an unconvincing and forced way. There are two big news: Earth, and the possible sexual fluidity of a couple of characters that are missing in the original.
To better understand the Winx and the strategy behind animated fairies, I spoke to Nicoletta Marini-Maio, full professor of Italian and cinema at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and Ellen Nerenberg, full professor of Romance Languages ​​and Literature at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, who , in 2019, they did a study on children who today watch the Winx and are working on a book to be released for Rubettino and entitled The Winx nation. Educating the future consumerist. 64.3% of their respondents were female, 32.4% male and 4% non-binary, queer or genderfluid, from different countries around the world.

Winx Club is it a queer series?
Ellen: This is it the great question. I would like to point out first of all that males are among the biggest Winx fans and experts, according to our analysis.
Nicoletta: When we approached the Winx world we considered it a product for girls, only to discover a much less obvious universe. Fandom includes many transgender people or people who identify with the LGBTQI + community.

The Winx are transformed, as happened with Sailor Moon and her companions, and this transformation is the metaphor of change, but not of physical growth, a passage from childhood to adulthood, but of socio-economic growth, of achievement of autonomy and the satisfaction of one’s desires. This whole core has practically disappeared in the Netflix series.
Ellen: We are facing a reboot. The goal of Fate is to use the original story to create a new beginning. I would compare it to Casino Royale, the James Bond reboot, which clearly begins by taking up elements of the original franchise, but in that film the protagonist must mature, transform. At the end of the film we arrive at the beginning of the project, the incarnation of the James Bond that we recognize, but with differences that make it new, different.
Nicoletta: The neoliberal and consumerist project is missing in the series, while it is very important in the cartoon. The transformation of girls is the attainment of the capacity to act, the aspiration to intervene. This is fundamental for the Winx as they fight against evil. The Winx are self-determined and they light up, they shine when they reach that power. This approach corresponds to the ideal of the contemporary post-feminist girl, exposed, responsible, able to change the world.

The rhetoric of the girls who make it. The other side of the coin where we find the sissy, the weak princess to be protected, the damsel in distress
Nicoletta: Exactly. The Winx are part of a pedagogical project based on the Catholic values ​​of honesty, friendship, sisterhood, commitment. It is not our interpretation. Rainbow is part of an entrepreneurial project that also owes its success to Don Lamberto Pigini, a Catholic priest. There is an educational function and for that Fate it is surprising since it shows things we would never see in Winx Club. Smoking, sex, drugs, bad words… The concept of team is also missing, initially. There is less friendship and trust, because they have to be earned along the way. In our studies the children said they were more interested in the sense of community, in the relationships between the Winx and between the Winx and the Specialists and in transformations. But Fate it is not meant for children.
Ellen: In Winx Club there is a crypto Catholicism, the ecstasy of the fairies to be associated with angels, with beatification, is not explicit, but there is. Netflix has secularized history and recovered ancient and Celtic magic, the connection with nature and the elements.

It is not the only change. Towards Fate there is talk of whitewashing and the cancellation of a diversity that we are struggling to see today, while the Winx took it to Rai as early as 2004.
Nicoletta: I would talk about diversity up to a certain point. In Winx Club Flora is almost imperceptibly Latin, Aisha is not very dark skinned and Musa has no elements that make her visibly Asian, but only sketchy. They could as well as they could not belong to a minority. While the real problem was their wiry bodies. For this comes Terra (actress Eliot Salt, ed) and also the other protagonists have such a physical variety that they seem more normal. However, there is a whitewashing operation despite having a really black protagonist, Aisha, but not being in depth as a character, she remains a shoulder and we have not solved the problem.
Ellen: It must be said that Fate is being released in 190 countries and Terra and Musa are just the two most popular additions, so they seem to be working a lot with the public.

Winx Club it had a certain degree of indeterminacy: the world was an indefinite background, there were no real references, the girls and boys were different from each other but in a kind of universal diversity. Streaming platforms have the same approach.
Ellen: This comparison is very interesting… When you get the chance to go on air all over the world you inevitably have to negotiate cultural differences. Don’t cancel, don’t cancel, but negotiate. You have to adapt to all needs, who transforms better is more successful, just like a Winx.

On the other hand, “if you want it, you will be one of us”. The change is up to you, but you have to follow certain steps to join the group. A sort of American dream made in Marche.
Nicoletta: Society does not adapt to you, it is you who must continually make a project of yourself and it must be noted that it is always the girl who has to do it. To trace an itinerary valid for many, certain concepts are watered down. A flat universe is not created, but certainly a little diluted with respect to the complexity of the world’s cultures.

I know Winx Club it was never a conventional kids’ series, it is Fate? This series speaks to the teens it is meant for?
Nicoletta: The protagonists have to make decisions and react to a hostile world by managing their emotions. I find it less conventional than usual, especially seeing negative emotions that are immediately cut into the cartoon. The presence of adults is interesting, I really appreciate the existence of loving fathers. They seemed to me to be good attempts at representation. The power of Musa seems conventional to me, the old story of female empathy, of women’s emotional care. One of our collaborators, Jacopo Benini, a student at the University of Bologna and a scholar of the Winx phenomenon, found the verbalization of consent in different scenes and simplified feminism very annoying. However, we believe that Netflix wanted to make fun of this “American” attitude, responding to a cultural need. I am studying a lot of teen dramas and the goal is to have less childish series, realistic languages ​​studied with sociologists and psychologists.

Some episodes are just directed and produced by Brian Young who did The Vampire Diaries, an example of a teen-drama where one empathizes with those who represent evil.
Ellen: There’s a different aesthetic for an audience that’s bigger than the Winx one, but it also acts as a bridge. There are more warrior aspects and there are armed women. We have the bad-then-not-so-bad Beatrix, instead of the Trix, the call in the name is evident and even at the end of the season we return to the trio, but it has a side we could empathize with, it doesn’t seem pure evil. The girls and boys of the Winx generation grow up, so the Winx also grow up and even evil has its own psychology, which is lacking in the original series.