“I’ll get you, my pretty...
and your little dog, too!” It’s the season of the witch—
and on some level, it always has been. This fascinating figure
has long represented our society’s complicated attitudes
towards female power. “Now is the time,
now is the hour. Ours is the magic,
ours is the power.” When we look at
onscreen witches through the decades, we can see some recurring qualities: She’s an outsider... “I really felt quite distressed
at not receiving an invitation.” “You weren't wanted.” “Not wa--” Whether by choice
or against her will, the witch often exists on
the margins of her society. “Banished and exiled
and practically starving.” Or, if she’s largely
assimilated into the mainstream, her great challenge may be
reconciling her difference in a world full of normals. “I have to be a witch,
I have to be a mortal, I have to be a teenager
and I have to be a girl all at the same time.
That's what's the matter.” If the witch does have a social circle,
it usually consists primarily of other women—her coven. “It's not a sorority.
It's a coven.”
She has magical powers—
like the ability to fly, cast spells, shapeshift,
or transform people. “So what's it to be,
Prince Charming? Frog or tadpole?” The witch uses all
this mysterious knowledge to exert her will
on the world. “People always ask me
why I’m a witch.” “All it is is using your will
to get what you want.” Thus, she represents a departure
from the stereotype of the helpless, submissive woman. “I put a spell on you.
And now you’re mine.” In her archetypal form,
she’s not conventionally attractive— and her ugliness is presented
as a reflection of her inner nature. “Only bad witches are ugly.” Yet she’s also deeply vain,
as expressed through an obsession with making herself
young and beautiful. She’s almost always unmarried,
and hates children— in fact, they’re often
her primary victims. “Witches spend their time
plotting to kill children, stalking the wretched child like a hunter.” In short, as Jess Bergman writes,
“witches are women whose embodiment of femininity
in some way transgresses society’s accepted boundaries—
they are too old, too powerful, too sexually aggressive,
too vain, too undesirable.” Because of her transgressive personality,
the witch has long been persecuted— and this sets up
a fundamental question: is there something wrong with her,
or with the society that can’t accept her? “Why is it when a woman
is confident and powerful, they call her a witch?” Here’s our take on the witch—
what really makes her scary, how any story looks
different through her eyes, and why there’s
a little witch in all of us. “I am innocent to a witch!
I know not what a witch is.” “If you know not what a witch is…
how do you know you are not one?” Hi everyone!
So if you haven’t checked it out yet, we have a brand new series
on the Netflix film club YouTube channel. It’s called Take Two,
and it features us debating some of the big ideas
that define movies, tv, and pop culture. If you’re anything like us,
then you know that discussing movies, and even disagreeing about them,
is all part of loving movies. Whether like me, you're drawn to stories
that don’t give you what you want with endings that destroy you, or like me, you prefer heroic journeys
that lift your spirits, Take Two is the place to hash it out.
Take Two lets us play out these conversations that
we are always having as a video essay. to open up the debate
and get your take. So after you watch this video,
please go watch the new episode of Take Two on Netflix Film Club YouTube channel
and you can really show us your support by liking, commenting,
telling us what you think, and sharing with your friends. Two takes, two sides, one new series.
Take Two. Check it out, on the Netflix Film Club YouTube channel. Today, the witch falls into
the same category as other supernatural—
and fictional—Halloween characters. But throughout history,
the idea of the witch has provoked genuine fear and panic,
and even led to the executions of those accused of witchcraft. “Witchery's a hangin’ error…
like they done in Boston two year ago.” So what’s at the root of this terror? Real life witch hunts usually
sprung from a period of hardship— crop failure, bad weather—
that led communities to look for someone to blame. Still, that’s not the whole story. The witch also embodies
cultural worries specific to women. “The whole history of witchcraft
is interwoven with the fear of female sexuality.” As Roald Dahl writes
in his 1983 children’s novel The Witches, "A witch is always a woman…
There is no such thing as a male witch." “Real witches dress in ordinary clothes
and look very much like ordinary women.” We can see this same sentiment
at play hundreds of years earlier in the Malleus Maleficarum,
a 1486 treatise on witch hunting that was second in popularity
only to the Bible. This definitive text is steeped in misogyny,
arguing that women are inherently deceptive, wicked, and more prone to witchcraft because
they are “feebler both in mind and body.” Witches continue to speak directly
to the fear of certain behaviors in women— starting with… our culture’s fear
of female knowledge or intuition. Take one of the earliest
popular representations of witches— the “weird sisters”
of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “The weird sisters,
hand in hand, posters of the sea and land.” Many critics have noted
that the witches resemble the Fates of Greek mythology—
three goddesses who spun threads that determined
how long a mortal’s life would be, how much suffering they would experience,
and how they would die. In Macbeth, the witches likewise
seem to know how everything will play out, and they strategically reveal information
without ever giving the characters the full picture. In the end, Macbeth’s folly
is thinking he fully understands one of their key prophecies. “For none of woman
born shall harm Macbeth.” This arrogance is
what leads to his death. “l bear a charmed life
which must not yield to one of woman born.” “Macduff was from
his mother's womb untimely ripped.” Shakespeare’s tale offers
an implicit warning— never assume you know as much as a witch. Another common trait of the witch
is that she dislikes children. “Repulsive sight of hundreds…
thousands… of revolting little children.” This characterization hits
on something important— female reproduction has always been
part of the demonization of witches. The Malleus Maleficarum includes a section
titled “How Witches Impede and Prevent the Power of Procreation,” an anxiety that manifests
in both the old witch who’s clearly past childbearing age,
and the hypersexual yet childfree witch. As Jessie Kindig writes, both represent
mistrust of “women not reproducing within the sanctioned family structure,
or not reproducing at all.” But it’s not just that the witch
has chosen not to have kids— it’s that she’s
more than willing to harm them. “You know I always wanted a child—
and now I think I’ll have one… on toast!” Grimms' Fairy Tales, published in 1812,
features two witchy figures: the evil queen in Snow White,
who uses witchcraft in a plot to kill her stepdaughter, “The old Queen's a sly one,
full of witchcraft.” and the witch in Hansel and Gretel
who eats children. “All that is left
is to make him delicious.” Bergman notes that both women
“are perversions of the virtuous and repentant mother.” “Please don't send me away!
If you do, she'll kill me.” “She's an old witch!” Many stories drive this point home
by casting the bad witch as a dark mirror of a more feminine,
nurturing maternal figure. “Not my daughter, you bitch!” If the witch is sexualized,
it’s often in the context of using her sexuality
to manipulate men. “Lust delivered the
Reverend Steenwyck into my power.” This portrait is a stark departure
from the witch’s male counterpart, the wizard, who is usually
heavily desexualized. The Malleus Maleficarum spells it out:
“All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable…
for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils.” “You bewitched thy brother, proud slut!
Did you not think I saw thy sluttish looks to him, bewitching his eye as any whore?” The witch’s love or sexuality
is often portrayed as overwhelming. “If any man dared take on an Owens woman…
he'd live briefly in the euphoria of her love…
until meeting an untimely death.” In 2016’s The Love Witch,
the romance-obsessed Elaine uses love potions on men,
leading them to become so overcome by emotion that they’re driven to death. “You’ll never get enough love.
Even when a man loves you so much it kills him.”
The witch also defies societal expectations
for women by having the gall to be ugly. Yet she’s also often characterized as vain,
and this vanity is framed as inherently evil— as expressed by witches
who try to regain their youth and beauty through violent means. “I shall take my great knife...
and cut out her heart while she still lives. And the glory of our youth
shall be restored.” Meanwhile, stories where the witch
disguises herself as young and beautiful evoke the fear of women
using their appearance as a tool of deception. “But it's only skin-deep
Zim zabberim zim I'm an ugly old creep.” Of course, the irony of villainizing
the witch for her vanity is that not being young and beautiful
is supposedly what makes her terrifying in the first place. Scariest of all is that
the witch’s abilities make her extremely powerful. “As I will it, so shall it be.” This open threat to
the patriarchal status quo is often central
to the witch’s story. “They were powerful men.
This woman...is more powerful than all of them combined.” It’s the very premise
of the classic show Bewitched: after finding out his wife,
Samantha, is a witch, her mortal husband demands she
stop casting spells and become domesticated. “I mean you’re going to have to
learn to be a suburban housewife.” “I’ll learn, you’ll see, I’ll learn!” “Now you’ll have to learn to cook,
and keep house…” Interestingly, all these anxieties
surrounding female power extend to non-witch characters, too. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible,
the villain of the story isn’t a witch, but a young woman, Abigail,
who spreads witch paranoia through her community. Yet the nefarious Abigail still embodies
several witch-like qualities— an aggressive sexuality that effectively
destroys her lover and his family, an unusual ability to
manipulate those around her, and a callous disregard for human life. “I will come to you
in the black of some terrible night… and I will bring with me
a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth
may not technically be a witch, but she shows an unquenchable thirst
for power and is ruthless in obtaining it. This childless, overtly sexual woman
distances herself from femininity and motherhood so she can
dedicate herself completely to evil. “Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,” even implying she would
murder a baby to further her goals. “l would, while it was smiling in my face,
have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
and dashed the brains out had l so sworn,
as you have done, to this.” The attributes we associate
with the witch aren’t really about a fear of the supernatural,
but of any woman who doesn’t follow the traditional expectations of her sex. “You spirits that
tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.” The longtime villainization of the witch
conceals a dark truth— those accused of witchcraft
have historically been not villains, but victims. “Hansel and Gretel run home
to tell everyone about the mean old witch.” “And then she and probably dozens
of others are persecuted by a righteous mob. It's happened all throughout history.
Happened in Salem.”
In real life, those accused of witchcraft
have usually been the most vulnerable members of society. During the Salem Witch Trials,
the first three women accused of witchcraft were Sarah Good, a homeless beggar
who was already unpopular with the townsfolk; Sarah Osborne, an invalid outcast
who may have been suffering from depression or senility; and Tituba, an indigenous slave. In other words, these were
disempowered women who already stood out in their puritanical world,
making them easy scapegoats. “Tituba! Come out here! Now!” “She made me do it!
She made Betty do it!” “Tituba not do bad thing!” In recent years, we’ve started to see
increasingly empathetic depictions of witches— some of which revisit iconic characters
we’ve been trained to see as one-dimensionally bad—
that give them backstories, motivations, and more three-dimensional
character arcs. These stories reveal how much
a narrative changes when it's seen through the witch’s eyes,
rather than the lens of the community that shuns her. “You don't know what it's like
to be an outsider! To be ashamed of how you were born;
to have to hide who you are.” Moreover, they openly interrogate
the culpability of the witch’s society. [chanting] “Burn the witch!” In her youth the witch character may have
been made to feel ashamed of being different. “I'm sorry. I can't help it.” “You mean you can't control it.” “Maybe if you could let me learn how to—” “Then everyone would see
what you really are. Wicked.” Thus, self-hatred drives her to live up
to the world’s negative expectations of her. Or, a formative trauma
may lead her to resolve to become all-powerful as a means
of healing those scars of disempowerment. “The landlord who showed us no mercy
and left us to starve, whilst Baltus Van Tassel, and his simpering wife and girl child
stole our home. I swore I would make myself mistress of all he had.” 2014’s Maleficent shows that
its title character— who’s technically a fairy, but fits the witch criteria—
starts out as a vivacious, strong, “good” young woman,
before a devastating betrayal crushes her spirit. “I had wings once,
but they were stolen from me.” The story also complicates Maleficent
by showing that she comes to love Aurora and bitterly regrets cursing the girl. “I will not ask your forgiveness,
because what I have done to you is unforgivable.
I was so lost in hatred and revenge.” In the end, it’s this pure depth of feeling
that makes Maleficent the only person capable of saving the princess. “No truer love.” 2015’s The Witch reveals how
the tendency to misunderstand witches can even extend to a
woman’s own confusion about herself. After the young Thomasin’s family
leaves their Puritan colony behind, they endure a series
of strange phenomena that they blame on her,
conflating her blossoming sexuality with wickedness and casting her out. “I am no witch, father!” “What did I but see in my house?” “Will you not hear me?” Eventually, Thomasin does
dedicate herself to the devil, joining a coven of witches. The film poses an interesting question:
Was her family right about her all along? Or did their cruel treatment
leave her with no other ally but Satan? “I cannot write my name.” “I will guide thy hand.” As Glinda puts it in
the Broadway musical Wicked, “Are people born wicked,
or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" In these stories, we can understand
how being a witch would seem a lot more appealing than
continuing on as a victimized woman, trapped by her society. “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” “Yes.” Our most villainous portraits
of the witch imply that she is what’s wrong in
a morally pure world. But looked at another way,
it’s often quite the opposite— society’s dysfunction and hypocrisy
provokes the evil within her. “No one in this God-fearing town
would take us in because my mother was suspected of witchcraft.” Harnessing her full power,
even if it causes harm, seems reasonable. Why not be wicked,
in a world that treats her wickedly? "So I decided to find my
own power and I found that power through witchcraft.” Witches - they’re just like us! After many years of villainization,
the witch has become a mirror that all women can see
a bit of themselves in. “That's the broom you're
going to be leaving on?” “Yep. I just made it this morning.
All by myself!” “Honey, it's too small
to be really safe. I'd rather you took my broom,
I know it better.” So, how did we get all the way
from the Wicked Witch of the West to Sabrina? This trend of the relatable witch
can be seen as early as 1942’s I Married a Witch and 1958’s
Bell, Book and Candle, up through the TV show Bewitched—
all of which normalize the character and give her the rom-com treatment,
focusing on the humorous misunderstandings that come from
loving a mortal man. 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks
even frames its witch character as a loving friend
(and eventual adoptive mother) to children and shows her
using her powers to do good. “You see, the work l'm doing
is so important to the war effort.” These stories suggest that most
of our superficial ideas of witches are based on silly,
outdated stereotypes. “Okay if you’re a witch,
where’s your black hat and broom, and how come you’re out
when it isn’t even Halloween?” “Mother was right,
you’re prejudiced.” More recently, the Harry Potter series
made sorcery fun and desirable, cementing the witch’s normality—
as Jess Bergman notes, “practicing the Dark Arts is not
a particularly gendered affair.” “It’s Leviosa, not LevioSA.”
Making the witch more relatable
has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of the teen witch. “I'm not a full-fledged witch.
That takes years. I just did a couple of pagan blessings
and a teeny glamour to hide a zit.” Rather than tales of horror, these are stories of fantasy
and wish-fulfillment, where young women use their powers for lighthearted fun. They’re also meaningful allegories
for coming of age: The teen witch doesn’t have complete control
over her abilities yet, “I'd just like to float something
bigger than a pencil someday.” so becoming the best witch she can be
means discovering the best version of herself. “Well I'm gonna be the very best witch
that I can be, Mom. And I know having
a good heart is important.” Most significantly, the teen witch story
shows a girl reckoning with her unique strength, within a world that often makes her feel weak. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Willow starts off as a shy wallflower before her witch abilities transform her
into a confident woman who fears no one. “The magicks I used are very powerful.
I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you
to piss me off.” In the series finale, Willow even uses
her powers to empower other women. “Willow will use the essence
of the scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world
who might be a slayer… will be a slayer.” In 1996’s The Craft, four teenage girls
form a coven and use magic to take back their agency after being made to feel helpless. “The only way you know
how to treat women is by treating them like whores,
when you’re the whore! And that’s gonna stop!” As Sinead Stubbins writes,
“Suddenly, a teen girl isn’t someone to be protected by men;
she’s someone they need to fear.” “You girls watch out for those weirdos.” “We are the weirdos, mister.” More broadly, in recent years
the witch has become an increasingly mainstream feminist symbol. “Who’s the baddest witch in town?” Around 2016 the line
“We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn”—
from Tish Thawer’s 2015 novel The Witches of BlackBrook—
began appearing on signs at Women’s March protests,
and the women’s coworking space The Wing announced,
“We're a coven, not a sorority.” Interestingly, this has coincided
with a revival of the term “witch hunt,” “There is a bit of a witch hunt happening.” lobbed by men who complain
that they’re being unfairly persecuted, by the very women they’ve oppressed
and marginalized for so long. As always, it comes down to fear—
this time, from those who worry their own power is no longer enough. Part of why the witch
has been embraced as an icon of female empowerment
is that she embodies a message many young girls aren’t used to hearing:
that they can do anything. “Half the battle of having powers
is believing you do.” The ability to levitate
or brew effective love potions remains the stuff of fantasy
for most of us, but these gimmicks aren’t what
being a witch is really about anyway. All you have to do is channel
your inner magic, weird individuality, and steadfast self-determination—
and you too can know the power of the witch. “Maybe one day people will
come to see magic as a force for good.”
