Satanic Temple threatens to sue Netflix over the use of a goat god statue
The statue appears in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a reboot of the '90s teenage witch TV show
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the Netflix reboot of the '90s TV show about a teenage witch living in modern-day Salem, Mass., premiered in time for Halloween this year, and it's managed to ruffle a few pagan feathers already.
The Satanic Temple (TST) is a religious group based in Salem, and the co-founder of that temple, Lucien Greaves, is threatening legal action against Netflix.
His complaint? The use of a statue in the set design of Sabrina. Sabrina attends the Academy of Unseen Arts, and at the school is a sculpture of the sabbatic goat god, Baphomet, that looks a lot like a statue designed and copyrighted by the Satanic Temple.
Lucien posted pictures of the two statues for comparison's sake.
For purposes of comparison... <a href="https://t.co/AZJvmq1Cks">pic.twitter.com/AZJvmq1Cks</a>
—@LucienGreaves"Having one's central icon associated with human sacrifice in an evil patriarchal cult is hardly good exposure and hardly a frivolous complaint," Greaves said on Twitter in reply to one user who suggested it is good publicity for TST.
In talking to Rolling Stone, Greaves said that, had the show asked permission to use the copyrighted image, he would have said no.
"Given the show's utilization of the Baphomet statue to represent an evil cannibalistic cult, a perception falsely associated with Satanism even in modern times, TST would have denied its use to the show creators," he said. "Not only does it contradict what Baphomet represents, we owe it to those who identify with us to not allow this image, and by extension them, to be represented in this way."
Update: On Thursday of this week, the Satanic Temple filed a $50M suit against the use of the statue. Details here.