Written by Rachel Redfern
With the recent season finale of The Witches of East End, the start-up of The Vampire Diaries, and then a whole slew of 90s rerun watching, the realization came: the occult is overwhelming the province of women. TV shows and films about the supernatural are always marketed to women—it’s one genre in fact where female characters have the lead and outnumber their male counterparts.
For some reason women seem indelibly drawn to representations of the cult, but within the context of wicca and paganism. Either that or they have been marketed as the exclusive province of women. Why is that?
Since paganism revolves around the ideas of female and male deities, with special emphasis placed upon the role of women’s bodies and their natural connection to the earth, its accessible and inspiring.
In the end, most of these films and shows end up being a tangled dichotomy of supernatural darkness and violence, contrasted with very standard aspects of career and love; also, usually a lot of “girl talk” about boys and shoes.
Therefore, it begs the question, do women ask for these shows? Or are they merely consuming what media executives think they want?
Probably both. And that’s not to put down such shows because in reality there’s been some beautiful acting and surprising plotlines and characters: the harried, independent woman, saving the world from evil while also trying to pay her bills and get a decent haircut is apparently an image that resonates deeply for female viewers.
But more than that, these shows of the supernatural aren’t action dramas of heroism, but rather, a discovery and exploration of female growth and power outside of physical strength.
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Bewitched (1964-72)
Beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery was a trickster domestic goddess. She was elegant and all-knowing while always in some crazy family shenanigans, but not the ditzy shenanigans of I Dream of Jeannie (which no one is knocking). Bewitched occupied the number two spot in American television and ran for a total of eight season, but its popularity never really died and its been a staple of middle-American reruns ever since. And its longevity is deserved, within Bewitched we find a mysterious and powerful woman, otherworldly even, accessing a magic her adorable, albeit frazzled husband can’t even begin to understand. Within all of that, Montgomery struggled to mold into her suburban housewife role, making her infinitely relatable as well as fascinating.
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The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
In The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike’s novel of the same name isn’t perhaps done justice with the offbeat, camp of the 80s in this film, despite the efforts of Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
These witches are not sisters, but what they do have is a far more naughty, realistic sort of paganism than the other (slightly goody-goody) witches used. Here, the witches are powerful, but also bitter, petty, lonely, silly, smart, independent, sexy, and seduce-able. Unfortunately, in the film version, the delightfully real woman aren’t aware of their supernatural powers until they basically start sleeping with the devil and have a sexual awakening and a threesome (Hollywood really decided to play around with the original plot).
Either way though, there’s fierceness and female connection, again the standard themes for female self-discovery (albeit couched within desire and lust).
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Practical Magic (1998)
The Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman remake of the classic Alice Hoffman novel, Practical Magic, repeated again the overwhelming wiccan theme of sisters, although this time there are three sets of sisters, rather than just two: the wise and ancient aunts, the bickering, bitter adults, and the bickering, hopeful youth. These women are grounded in their very normal, strained, familial relationships and in trying to repair it, but in this version they are also outcasts seeking acceptance from the town’s women.
There’s also a strain of dark violence running through the film, and it is this, a sort of communal fear, and a desire for safety and control, even for power, that brings all of the town’s women together as a supernatural shelter for a battered woman.
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Charmed (1998 – 2006)
Charmed followed the “everyday woman with extraordinary life” formula with great success for an entire eight-season run: three sisters battled the forces evil and transitioned from young 20-somethings to successful 30-somethings. Each sister had her bout with her own dark side and an obligatory date with a demon, but hidden within a pretty fun, entertaining, often silly show, was the story of three women growing up and transitioning into confident, generous women who actually did have it all: career, family, money, good sex and great hair, and magical powers.
Perhaps most notable, aside from the early seasons special effects, was that Charmed really did manage to portray the growing pains of adulthood for women in the 21st century, dealing with job-hunting, career changes, dating, infertility, divorce, marriage, death, all bound together through the ties of family: grandmother, daughter, sisters, motherhood.
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Witches of East End (2013 -)
Witches of East End is less of an East Coast Charmed (Charmed took place in San Francisco and had a distinct West-coast vibe) and seems more like a Practical Magic TV show. It features two sets of sisters, the older played by the incomparable Julia Ormond and Madchen Amick, and the younger by Jenna Dewan Tatum and Rachel Boston. The sisters are forever cursed to die young and be constantly reborn to their powerful mother (Ormond) and witness the antics of fun-loving wild, cat transforming aunt (Amick). The show’s plot settles on the witchy powers of the women and the events of their past lives and the men who wander in and out of them; but Witches of East End finds its center in the up-and down relationships of the two sisters, especially Joanna (Ormond) and Wendy (Amick), whose interactions are fantastic.
Because these women live hundreds of year together, their lives completely entwined, Witches of East End highlights the bonds of sisterhood beyond just blood relation.
There are other examples of the female witch story, a substantial portion of which are geared for younger audiences: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Craft, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Beautiful Creatures, Wizards of Waverly Place and a whole slew of Disney films (Hocus Pocus must be mentioned here). Overwhelming, the characters are female as are the audiences who watch them; many of these stories were first bestselling novels and series with incredibly active fan bases.
Through so many variations of the powerful female witch arising to power and self-realization, these shows are also showing generally relatable women struggling to balance intense power with their personal lives of love, family and career. It’s a theme that seems to echo the ongoing debate surrounding women; “Can we have it all?”
In these shows, she can, and more.
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Rachel is a traveler and teacher who spent the last few years living in Asia. Now back in her native California, she focuses on writing about media, culture, and feminism. While a big fan of campy 80s movies and eccentric sci-fi, she’s become a cable acolyte, spending most of her time watching HBO, AMC, and Showtime. For good stories about lions and bungee jumping, as well as rants about sexism and slow drivers, follow her on Twitter at @RachelRedfern2