I love watching television shows and movies that involve witchcraft. Some of them are quite fun. Some manage to get at least a small amount of factual information about witchcraft — or at least certain traditions/expressions of witchcraft — in there with the Hollywood sensationalism. Some days, I even enjoy that Hollywood sensationalism, as I’m a huge science fiction, fantasy, and horror buff.

And yet, there are times I wish they’d give a more realistic portrayal of witchcraft. One where all the witches don’t have supernatural powers and/or are locked in some sort of cosmic battle between good and evil.¹ I’d just like a nice movie or television show about some witches living their everyday lives.

I’ve often described this wish as a vision of a show I have. In the 1990s and 2000s, I used to watch 7th Heaven. I want a show like that one, but where the parents are a lesbian² couple. One of them is Wiccan and the other is an atheist. They’re just raising their kids together and navigating the world and the challenges they face together like any other adults. To be honest, I wish I had the chops to write this show.

Personally I think my favorite show that has witches in it right (though it got canceled too soon) is Disney’s The Owl House. Granted, that show’s portrayal of witchcraft was pure fantasy and bore virtually little to witchcraft as most real people practice it. But the showrunner didn’t pretend otherwise. The witchcraft and magic in the show was jut a tool put forward a story and share some ideas. The show wasn’t so much about witchcraft as it was discovering your authentic self and being true to it,³ building friendships, and sticking up for what’s right. I totally respect that.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. For more information and a list of topics, please check out this post by Yvone Aburrow.)

Footnotes

1. Such a cosmic battle seems to be more a Christian thing. So it’s both amusing and annoying that Hollywood keeps taking witches and then throwing them in a universe that still seems to be run by the principles of Christian cosmology. ↩︎
2. Because in addition to being a witch, I’m a gay man and want queer representation as well. ↩︎
3. I maintain that this is the real reason that show upset most evangelical Christians and other conservatives. That message is more toxic than any talk of witchcraft could ever be. In that sense, it was also one of the things about the show I found most “authentically witchy.”
   As an aside, I owe the evangelicals a great deal of gratitude regarding that show. I never would have even heard of it if they hadn’t raised such a huge fuss over it. But they did, and it prompted me to check it out and become a fan. ↩︎