From Disney’s ‘Hexed’ to Barbie songs: How kids’ entertainment sells self as savior

Walt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming fantasy-comedy “Hexed” — which follows teenage witch Billie Doe as she discovers her magical powers and leaves behind normal life to join the world of witches — is set to hit theaters this November.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey already has major concerns about the film, starting with the premise.

“It's presenting witchcraft and being a witch not as a bad thing — not as like the evil witch from 'Snow White' — but actually possibly as a good thing, as a neutral thing, or even as a superpower,” she says.

On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie is joined by Jenn Nizza, a former psychic medium who left the New Age after converting to Christianity, to explore how witchcraft and occultism have seeped their way into mainstream culture, including the areas that most impact children.

While movies like “Hexed” and “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” among others, deliberately lean into open witchcraft and demonic themes, other kid films and forms of entertainment take a more subliminal approach.

Allie shares that she recently had to stop her young daughter from listening to Barbie music.

“Every single song is about loving yourself and believing in yourself ... and if you are just more yourself and you live out your authentic expressions, then you'll have all the power that you need to accomplish anything that you want in life,” she says.

“It’s laying the exact opposite theological foundation than the one that I want to be set for her, which is that all of your sufficiency and strength and wisdom and power is going to come from Christ, not from yourself at all,” she adds.

Nizza argues that even something as seemingly benign as Disney’s classic “wishing upon a star” trope is designed to confuse and corrupt a child’s identity.

“It just looks like something ... hidden in a Barbie movie. I mean, nostalgia plays a big part. It'll be something again that focuses on yourself, on the idea of your heart, of love, wishing on things like the Disney wishing upon a star,” she says.

“Unfortunately, we're seeing such disastrous things going on in our culture that are very terrifying quite honestly that revolve around 'you can be whoever you want, and if you're not comfortable with where you are, you can change things about yourself.’ ... It's a confusion of identity. That's what it is,” she declares.

It’s no surprise to Nizza, however, because she believes Satan almost always “attacks through identity.”

“Sex, gender, weight, hair color, whatever it may be. Anything to confuse that person and get them away from having a real identity, a liberating and salvific identity in Christ Jesus,” she says.

“We want [our kids] to know they're made in the image of God, that He fearfully and wonderfully made them and all of those things, but we need to make sure that they are deriving their confidence from the right places — not from their own power because to me that's what lays the groundwork for some of this really, really dark and evil stuff,” adds Allie.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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