Browse: Home / Must Be the Archetype of the Witch

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Disney Byways: THE ADVENTURES OF BULLWHIP GRIFFIN
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Changing the Story
  • Film on the Internet: Leo Noboru de Lima (The Guy Who Shows Up Late to Threads) on SET IT UP
  • Year of the Month: THAT NIGHT'S WIFE
  • Miller's 2020 Double Features: Know Your Place

Must Be the Archetype of the Witch

Posted By Gillianren on June 1, 2016 in Short Articles | 2 Responses

A group of us have taken to doing script readings online. Table reads, working as hard as we can to stay ahead of the script enough so that there are no awkward pauses while we figure out who’s going to take the part. This Saturday night saw a group of us doing a read of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. I hadn’t seen it, which is okay; the script apparently deviates in some interesting ways, but neither was very good. Anyway, after the reading, we got to talking about the archetype of the witch.

Of course, the Witch is older than film. So old we don’t know how old she is. She comes with a lot of baggage. Old stories do. The stories change with time and with social development, but their roots run deep. It’s impossible to liberate the old stories from their origins entirely, and it’s certainly true that not all creators try.

The script at least paid lip service to the idea; the character named Heather in the script (I don’t know which character she is in the finished film) is a self-declared Wiccan. She gives one of the little “living in harmony with nature” speeches that can make you feel embarrassed to be a Pagan. I’ve heard it many times before, and I was willing to let that go. But then, as the story progressed, she, too, was willing to slip into “witch” to mean “evil woman.”

At her heart, the Witch is a figure of feminine power; remember that, in Harry Potter, “wizard” is the universal term, but “witch” means “female wizard.” In his last book, Sir Terry Pratchett started exploring the idea that the whole thing might not be so cut-and-dry as all that, but that’s after decades of declaring that Witch=female and Wizard=male. L. Frank Baum? Witches, be they Good or Wicked. If we go back to history, we have the Salem Witch Trials; men and women were tried, convicted, and hanged, but it was women first. Nowhere near as many women were killed as some people will try to convince you, and a heck of a lot more men, but the easiest way to be accused of witchcraft was to be a woman doing what you weren’t expected to.

But, the odd Glinda or Esme Weatherwax or Hermione Granger aside, the Witch is also a symbol of darkness, of—well. Take your adjective. Wicked. Evil. Things like that. She is in the Halloween pantheon along with the Vampire, the Werewolf, the Ghost, what Stephen King calls the Thing With No Name. What’s more, she is one of the few really old yet lingering female archetypes with anything approaching power, and often, her power is rooted in her very femininity. Her evil is rooted in fear of her power.

I don’t think all uses of the Witch are misogynistic, not even all uses of the Wicked Witch. But I think the archetype itself has a fair amount of misogyny behind it. I think it’s rooted in a fear and distrust and, yes, even hatred of women, and I think it’s all too easy for that fear and distrust and hatred to come to the surface when she is used. The word is so old that its etymology is uncertain; conversely, its theoretical equivalent, “warlock,” is only from the sixteenth century. And means, originally, “Oath-breaker.” But witchcraft has been women’s work for over a thousand years.

What makes the Witch wicked, as she usually is? She has failed in some way to be properly feminine. She holds wisdom or magic or just raw power of some sort. She can make you do what you don’t want to do—in the Book of Shadows script, she’s been dead for a long time and still warps Our Ostensible Heroes’ perceptions of reality. In the book of The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is able to enslave Dorothy, and in the movie, the Good Witch holds knowledge that she keeps from Dorothy to make her tramp all over Oz instead.

Frankly, the Wicked Witch of the West is in many ways driven by sympathetic aims. Her sister has been killed, and her sister’s property has been stolen by the murderer. Put in those terms, her anger is completely reasonable, as is her drive for revenge. Hence Wicked. But the other perspective is engrained so deeply that “wicked” is just part of her name. Which she doesn’t have, in the original. But Glinda does, and Glinda is much closer to our perception of the Fairy Queen. It’s the wicked one who’s the witch as we think of them.

Posted in Short Articles | Tagged feminism, folklore, meta, witch

About the Author

gillianmadeira@hotmail.com'

Gillianren

Gillianren is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a daughter up for adoption. She fills her days by watching her local library system’s DVD collection in alphabetical order, watching everything that looks interesting. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s. She has a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/gillianren

Related Posts

Hollywood Witches→

Proving Adulthood→

Feminism, Sexuality, and Menstruation in CARRIE: A Women’s+ Canon Article→

Incompetent Husbands Aren’t Feminism→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    21932 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    17288 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    17132 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    11575 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • B.O.O.: The DreamWorks Animation Movie You Will Never See

    7953 views / Posted January 28, 2016
  • Disney Byways: THE ADVENTURES OF BULLWHIP GRIFFIN

    February 26, 2021 / Gillianren
  • Most people forget that The Man Who Fell to Earth was based on a series of successful Clearasil ads.

    The Friday Article Roundup: Changing the Story

    February 26, 2021 / The Ploughman
  • Film on the Internet: Leo Noboru de Lima (The Guy Who Shows Up Late to Threads) on SET IT UP

    February 25, 2021 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Year of the Month: THAT NIGHT’S WIFE

    February 25, 2021 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • City Hall, What in the hall do you want?

    Miller’s 2020 Double Features: Know Your Place

    February 25, 2021 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

  • Disney Byways: THE ADVENTURES OF BULLWHIP GRIFFIN - https://t.co/MZGn106nnv, 14 hours ago
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Changing the Story - https://t.co/QKDbTCidju, Feb 26
  • Film on the Internet: Leo Noboru de Lima (The Guy Who Shows Up Late to Threads) on Set It Up - https://t.co/9NoUg3mU59, Feb 25

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!