Witchcraft & Pop Culture by Christina Scheiman

Witchcraft and Pop Culture: A Love Affair on the Silver Screen

by Chris>na Scheiman

To the casual observer, pop culture has an infatua4on with all things supernatural, spooky, and unexplainable. Our TV shows, movies, books, and art are filled with vampires, werewolves, and of course, witches. WitchcraA has a long, storied history stretching back millennia to the earliest years of humanity. There are fun posts on Pinterest about how the Vikings supposedly considered mathema4cs a type of witchcraA, and thus their women were always in charge of household finances, and illustra4ons on Instagram of women dancing in the moonlight in forests or on beaches.

The concept of the ‘digital witch’ offering tarot readings, selling purified crystals, and crea4ng resin smudge s4ck holders has flourished in recent years. Where did this newfound glory in witchcraA come from? Does our propensity for embracing the unknown in our media influence our prac4ce of witchcraA or Wicca or paganism in this day and age?

In the United States, the concept of witches living among us is as old as our very na4on. The Salem witch trials are regarded as the most famous condemna4on of witches in the world, even though there have been numerous religious ‘purifica4ons’ throughout history that involved hanging and burning those convicted of witchcraA. Today, Salem MassachuseMs is seen as a historical site that tourists flock to every year, and is home to mul4ple preserved historical loca4ons, such as the Pickering House and Hamilton Hall, and museums dedicated just to the trials of 1692 and associated ar4facts.

The town of Salem and its unique history have inspired a mul4tude of books, songs, TV shows, and movies, including the immensely popular Hocus Pocus by Disney. Disney has always been known for family-friendly content, being almost militant in their standards, so the crea4on of a movie making light of evil witches back in 1993 was a bit surprising, and it did not perform well in theaters at the 4me. Hocus Pocus

is now a beloved cult classic, and has hit a certain nostalgia level with younger people who weren’t able to appreciate it at the 4me.

Disney was not the first produc4on company to make witches seem familyfriendly in m e d i a , however. The first witch that America fell in love with was Samantha Stephens, the lead character in the charming Bewitched . Un4l this point, there had been some books and a handful of small plays exploring the concept of witches who were mul4dimensional, not simply horror characters driven by evil or greed. Bewitched was the first widely accessible and popular program to show a woman with aspira4ons and warmth who had access to magic but had to deal with how magic influences everyday life. Samantha, in a way, was also an example of what we would consider a privileged individual learning to live without the trappings that made her life easier before she got married. The show was funny, relatable, and just quirky enough that most people did not have a nega4ve response to the use of magic, as Samantha’s inten4ons were portrayed as posi4ve and innocent. Bewitched was a par4cular stand out, though, and the next widely recognized piece of film involving witchcraA took over 20 years to appear: The Witches of Eastwick.

The Witches of Eastwick had an all-star cast, including Cher and Jack Nicholson, and seemed to be the key to opening the door on witches in mass media at all levels. AAer 1987, a flood of hits kept rolling out. We saw Elvira hit the horror scene and bring a sense of levity and camp to dark produc4ons, and classics such as The Witches, inspired by the Roald Dahl novel, The CraC, PracDcal Magic , the previously men4oned Hocus Pocus and more come to movie theaters. Even Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese anima4on studio of Hayao Miyazaki, released Kiki’s Delivery Service back in 1989, giving a child’s view of magic a bright perspec4ve. Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch all came to our television sets in the ’90s, giving us magic, fashion, love troubles, and the always difficult concept of magical powers versus real life consequences.

Most of these representa4ons of magic were not realis4c in their portrayals. The Witches, Hocus Pocus, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and the ever popular Harry PoNer series used simple versions of spells and magical cas4ng that clearly don’t have an effect in our universe (don’t get me started on finding a unicorn hair for a wand core). Other entries in this list, such as Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, took elements of Wiccan and pagan prac4ces and u4lized these elements in conjunc4on with CGI and demonic en44es appearing around every corner. As modern prac44oners will tell you, there is not a set ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to prac4ce the craA, but a book of shadows or book of spells, candle magic, and the mixing of po4ons or poul4ces of herbs and minerals are very common in all aspects of prac4cal witchcraA.

The ’90s was a point of satura4on for witches in pop culture, and this has not subsided in the past 20 years. The Harry PoNer film collec4on is rated the 3rd-best grossing series of all 4me, and the top-selling book series of all 4me. The Witches of East End, The Magicians, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and now Wanda Maximoff as the Scarlet Witch in Wandavision are poignant examples of how our love of magic, and witchcraA in par4cular, is not subsiding.

The key to nearly all of these movies, TV shows, and the books that inspire them is that the principle characters are almost all women. Witches are a character archetype that has persisted, showing women as being diverse, powerful, well-rounded individuals, even when other stereotypes are being perpetuated in other areas of media, such as the quintessential ‘Bond Girl’. When discovering or refining their powers, their potential seems endless, the limits nonexistent. No two witches go on the same journey, and the way they interact with their worlds, their loved ones, and the responsibilities they have to take on are a beautiful tapestry of what it means to be a woman. Being raised with these heroines has taught generations of women to embrace their inherent power and revel in time honored traditions of witchcraft and spiritualism. This is not a novel concept for me personally. I have ardently studied witchcraft, Wicca, and various pagan religions and practices since I was a preteen, and I took multiple years of Latin in high school to learn more about their religion and lifestyle practices. I have always felt that there is too much of an ‘other’ in the universe for us to name, narrow down, or explain, with science or with a singular religion. When I was growing up, there were strong, clever, badass women role models who happened to be magical that I was in awe of. The Charmed Sisters, Willow Rosenberg, Hermione Granger, and their counterparts filled me with a sense of empowerment and a feeling of being ‘seen’. However, my inclination towards these non-traditional religious studies was a closely guarded secret, even from my family, because I grew up and still live in a conservative Midwestern area that is not progressive in these matters. I do not mean this article in jest, I have the utmost respect for everyone who is on their own magical journey.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

It would be nearly impossible to list every witch we love (and some4mes love to hate), so here’s an honorable men4on for: I Married a Witch, Discovery of Witches, Death Becomes Her, The Good Witch, Yennifer of The Witcher, Evil Queen (or Regina) of Snow White & Once Upon A Time, Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty, Ursula of The LiNle Mermaid, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Howl’s Moving Castle, Salem, and all of the characters who charmed their way into our hearts.