The amazing Crucible corner of Tik Tok saw you speakin’ with the devil
Aux Features great job internet
There’s a pretty decent chance that you read Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, written in 1953 as a response to the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee*, in high school. Or college. Or maybe you were a nerdy teen who loved history and/or bonnets. If that’s true, and you still find yourself thinking “wow Mary Warren you are such a drag,” then your people are on Tik Tok, and they are calling for you.
They also might have seen you speaking with the devil.
@bequietjoe i swear to god mary warren you cant tell anyone.#TimeforTENET #VinylCheck
Welcome to CrucibleTok! Have you checked under your bed for poppets lately?
For those unfamiliar with Miller’s play or any of its adaptations and revivals (it’s an opera and a ballet!), The Crucible dramatizes the Salem witch trials and largely focuses on John and Elizabeth Proctor (played by Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen in a 1996 film version), Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder), who accuses the latter of “speakin’ with the devil,” and the people of the town who get swept up in the fervor. (Giles Cory, it didn’t have to happen that way.) It is not a story one expects to have a whole corner of TikTok to itself—it’s not exactly Frozen or Mean Girls, though it does include suspicion of dark magic like the former and some mean girls, like the latter. Yet here we are! CrucibleTok! What a time to be alive.
The undisputed queen bee of CrucibleTok is @bequietjoe, who is, bless him, unafraid to let the bit get truly weird.
@bequietjoe what if abigail williams got a tv show? #crucibletok #HelloFall
This piece could consist of nothing but Hegyes-as-Abigail videos and still go on for some time, but he’s not alone! Crucible Tok is not just his thing, it’s a whole thing.
https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6873415824108047618
There are some deep cuts.
https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6879032965930831105
There’s even some commentary on the goings-on of Salem and who is and isn’t speaking out.
https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6868427748373712133
It’s just… it’s so specific.
https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6878481489441361158
Has anyone alerted the mad geniuses behind the SparkNotes Twitter account of this development? It seems like the kind of thing they’d be into.
The morals are these: First, never underestimate the power of a joke you think is too niche to appeal to others; second, don’t accuse people of speaking with the devil.
* Miller writes in the essay linked above, a lengthy piece timed to the release of the 1996 film adaptation, “As with most humans, panic sleeps in one unlighted corner of my soul.” It seemed like that might be a quote that would resonate with some of you out there? Maybe? Have a nice weekend?
2 Comments
For anybody who wants a different take than the familiar versions, there’s a terrific French production made in 1957, as Les Sorciéres De Salem, with Yves Montand as John Proctor and Simone Signoret, his actual wife, as Elisabeth Proctor. Black and white, and quite stark and brutal, it’s the best film or TV adaptation I’ve seen. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050997/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_45
I’ll track down a copy. Thanks Diabolik.
You have to wonder what is going on in these kids’ minds, dressing up as puritans and expressing random persecutory fantasies.