‘Gretel & Hansel’ Puts Feminism at the Heart of a Familiar Story [The Lady Killers Podcast]

“So hungry was I to realize my own powers, I hardly even chewed.”

We’ve all grown up hearing the classic fairytale. A brother and sister are turned out of their home and sent by their wicked stepmother to survive in the deep, dark woods. The ingenious Hansel leaves a trail of pebbles and breadcrumbs to find the way home, but they eventually fall into the clutches of a sinister witch. While Gretel does get credit for pushing the old witch into the oven before she can roast and eat Hansel, most of the story’s heroism still falls on male shoulders. But what if Gretel was actually the one responsible for the sibling’s survival? What if it’s her courage and fortitude that saves the day while her brother is little more than a burden? Oz Perkins’s nightmarish film turns the classic fairy tale on its head in an enchanting exploration of feminine power. In their latest episode, The Lady Killers investigate the tale’s hidden horrors and celebrate the female villains lurking within these magical woods.

Gretel (Sophia Lillis) is a young girl on the verge of womanhood. When her recently widowed mother sends her to work for a lecherous nobleman, she returns home to face the sharp end of her mother’s ax. Cast out to find a new home in a nearby convent, Gretel and her little brother Hansel (Samuel Leakey) take a treacherous journey through an enchanted wood. Along the way they meet friends and foes before finally stumbling upon a house that seems too good to be true. The strange black cottage is filled with delicious smells that prove irresistible to the starving siblings and a kindly old woman named Holda (Alice Krige) offers them room and board with little in return. But where does she source these extravagant buffets? And who is the sweet little girl with the perfect pink hat hiding among the trees? When Gretel becomes apprentice to Holda, she’s faced with a horrifying choice: either abandon her brother and increase her own power or continue to care for him at the expense of her own ambition.

Co-hosts Jenn Adams, Mae Shults, Rocco T. Thompson, and Sammie Kuykendall venture into the forest and pull up a chair to this extravagant buffet of feminist themes. Which of the film’s witches would they most like to be? What do they make of Holda’s magical salve? Do they have any sympathy for Gretel’s frightening mother and why can’t Hansel figure out how to chop down a tree? As they continue uncovering a month of Hidden Horrors, the Lady Killers will devour these questions and more as they chat about cannibalism, triangles, witchcraft, and the brave girl with action in her bones who finally makes her way to the heart of the story.

Stream below and subscribe now via Apple Podcasts and Spotify for future episodes that drop every Thursday.

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