Witches have always been a part of our pop culture. For as long as books, movies, music, art and TV shows have been around, witches have somehow been involved. We have all watched Dorothy throw the bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch tell her to just tap the ruby slippers three times and recite “There is no place like home.”
Go into any Spirit Halloween, a plethora of witch costumes and decorations will greet you at the door. For Halloween, last and this year, I am dressing up as a witch. It is one of the staple costumes from this holiday.
Every year around Halloween time, I plop myself on the couch and watch the “Halloweentown” movie series that famously is about a family of witches.
Salem, Massachusetts, due to it being the location of the infamous witch trials between 1692-1693, incorporates these events heavily in their tourist displays. Looking at their website, I noticed many witch themed attractions.
I have always wondered why witches stayed so relevant with our consciousness. Why do people still flock to Salem, and why do people always gasp when I admit I have only seen “Hocus Pocus” in bits?
I think the reason they have stayed so persistent in our mind is because they make our imagination go wild and they have been interpreted in many different ways over the years. This keeps the concept of the witch fresh in our mind.
Playwright Arthur Miller wrote a fictionalized version of the Salem Witch Trials in his Tony Award winning play “The Crucible” (1953) as an allegory for McCarthyism, which was when the government in the late ‘40s to the ‘50s accused and questioned people on if they were a Communist. This shows how the witch has been used to comment on the social issues of the time.
The image of the witch has changed drastically. When I first think of the witch, the image of a woman riding a broom in the night wearing a black hat and matching robe might spring into mind. This witch labors over a cauldron, making potions to cause chaos or to put spells on people.
However, when you think of a witch you might think of the spunky blonde teenage girl of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” (1996-2000) played by Melissa Joan Hart. Sabrina was one of the first portrayals of witches I remember watching on TV. This character would find a new audience in the much darker iteration, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” (2018-2020).
Who can forget the fan favorite Sabrina’s talking black cat Salem? Also, did you know that Sabrina has her origins in Archie Comics? She starred in her own comic book series, appropriately named “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”
Another show that was in the same vein as “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” was Nickelodeon’s “Every Witch Way” (2014-2015) which, like Sabrina, is about a teenage girl discovering her new life as a witch. This demonstrates how the discovery of new powers, in my observations, can be seen as a metaphor for growing up.
More recent witch media like the popular Marvel comics mini series “Agatha All Along,” follows fan favorite Agatha Harkness who first popped up in the MCU’s “WandaVision.”
The witch is no longer just a one dimensional figure who wants to put curses on people, but is now a multidimensional person who is more than good or evil. Witches are not the antagonist anymore, but the main character of their stories.
Halloween can also bring music that sounds “witchy” in sound. For example, the first song that popped into my mind is the song “Season of the Witch” (1966) by Donovan. This song was later covered by Lana Del Rey for the movie “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” (2019).
Now I ask, who’s your favorite witch character and why?