Speaker 1: Does something wicked this way, comrades something wicked this way
Speaker 1: is about to come all over your face. No, if
Speaker 1: you had a familiar, you know, a which is familiar,
Speaker 1: what would it be you? Cat girl? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not a cat. Toad girl, not a dog girl,
Speaker 1: not a toad girl. Some kind of bird. I think
Speaker 1: it would be some kind of bird. An owl? No,
Speaker 1: not an owl? No? Um, what would you while I
Speaker 1: think about this, what would yours? Because I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have an immediate answer. Okay, well I'm allergic to cats,
Speaker 1: so that's not gonna work. No. Dogs are a lot
Speaker 1: of work. Dogs are a lot of work. I think, um,
Speaker 1: a wild animal who was kind of independent and just
Speaker 1: was like there when they needed them, So like a
Speaker 1: wolf who did did he did my bidding? But also,
Speaker 1: I mean a bird is nice because they can sort
Speaker 1: of like carry messages for you. They can, but maybe
Speaker 1: a snake. Wolves are really good as defenders, though I
Speaker 1: like not like a wolf. Also because of the sort
Speaker 1: of vampiric implications, you know, like Dracula can turn into
Speaker 1: a world. I would pick a big cat. I would
Speaker 1: do like a bobcat, a jaguar, a wildcat of some kind.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have a wolf who can turn into
Speaker 1: a dog when I need them to, like when we
Speaker 1: go to Arawan, becomes a dog and they're like a
Speaker 1: service dog. That's an anxiety dog. An anxiety dog. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we have our familiars. Today we are talking about witchcraft.
Speaker 1: We're talking about witchcraft, witches, um, the occult covens, magic um, mysticism, mysticism,
Speaker 1: hocus poky, spookies, something like it this way, colm uh,
Speaker 1: and we're going to dive deep into our own experience
Speaker 1: as witches. The formative media about witches that have made
Speaker 1: us the witches we are today, and um prevalence of
Speaker 1: witch culture. What does it mean in Yeah, so hop
Speaker 1: on your roomstick, because this is like a virgin the
Speaker 1: show we give yesterday's pop culture, today's takes armors. Damn you.
Speaker 1: I'm Fran Toronto. So that's really that's too good. That
Speaker 1: was just a normal laugh. That was actually fully my
Speaker 1: normal law Rose. The visions need to know that when
Speaker 1: you and I go to an anci theater, especially you
Speaker 1: know if it's at like a mall like the Grove
Speaker 1: or like a MC CityWalk or whatever, the price of
Speaker 1: dressing cool is that teens feel comfortable walking up to
Speaker 1: us and asking us if we'll be in there TikTok's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it finally has happened. Um, we have we have been
Speaker 1: stopped by those people who make TikTok's where they have
Speaker 1: a microphone and ask people questions. We were stopped and
Speaker 1: in Unison, this little girlie said, Hi, can we ask
Speaker 1: you a question for a TikTok? We just in Unison
Speaker 1: went no and kept and kept it push it. Oh.
Speaker 1: We didn't even stop, like we were just like no, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. We had our Saphora bags and we were
Speaker 1: up up in a way and uh. We have to say,
Speaker 1: we had a handful of things to talk about this week,
Speaker 1: but I think that just for today we're maybe only
Speaker 1: going to talk about one movie we saw this weekend. Yes,
Speaker 1: because as queer podcasters, it is our sacred duty, yeah,
Speaker 1: to have an official take on Bros. Starring Billy Eichner,
Speaker 1: which is kind of if you've heard of it. We're
Speaker 1: being jokey because it actually might not have heard of
Speaker 1: it because a lot of people haven't seen it. Someone
Speaker 1: two people texting me this weekend and they were like,
Speaker 1: what is this Bros. Controversy. Um so, if you're not aware,
Speaker 1: Billy Eichner's first mainstream rom com starring a gay man
Speaker 1: who felches or whatever the funk it is, came out
Speaker 1: this weekend. It's about a queer podcaster, triggering. It's about
Speaker 1: a gay podcaster who is also a history buff and
Speaker 1: is on the board of directors for New York City's
Speaker 1: first l g B, t Q plus museum, who meets
Speaker 1: a man who is very much the type of gay
Speaker 1: that he really has no time for, which is like
Speaker 1: Chelsea Hell's kitchen, Jim bro And yet somehow they managed
Speaker 1: to fall in love. Yes, Yes, And that really is
Speaker 1: kind of the whole movie, Like it's that simple. It's
Speaker 1: a rom com. You and I had similar takes about
Speaker 1: the movie, but a different overall experience, like when you
Speaker 1: walked out, Like, how did you feel about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I just care about it less than I
Speaker 1: think you do. Um okay, And interesting framing of that. Well, No,
Speaker 1: I I guess it's it's more that I would agree
Speaker 1: with that I'm able to just kind of simplify the
Speaker 1: way that I feel about it, which is I think
Speaker 1: it's very flawed in terms of um, the way it's
Speaker 1: trying to overrepresent queer people as a community. That being said,
Speaker 1: I do think it's a pretty good romantic comedy and
Speaker 1: I enjoyed watching it. And if I was, you know,
Speaker 1: at my mom's house in Florida and it came on
Speaker 1: a HBO, I would totally watch it again, which I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. I'm shook by, but I completely respect.
Speaker 1: And I walked out of it feeling like I didn't
Speaker 1: really like it that much. I didn't hate hate it
Speaker 1: by any means. You were you were fired up. On
Speaker 1: the ride home. I was okay, okay, I'll be real.
Speaker 1: I was mad, you were mad. I was mad. We
Speaker 1: were driving on and you were angry, but I thought
Speaker 1: we were going to hit someone. But I'm taking accountability
Speaker 1: for the fact that I'm not angry about what the
Speaker 1: movie offers. The movie is a perfectly fine movie that
Speaker 1: belongs in an echelon of bro comedies like forty year
Speaker 1: Old Version and Knocked Up or whatever these other movies.
Speaker 1: And I think I want to clarify, I think we
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit this weekend. When you
Speaker 1: say bro comedy, like we're talking about this, Judd Apatow
Speaker 1: asked mainstream comedy from the male perspective, Anchorman, super Bad,
Speaker 1: like Step Brothers. We have had some of these types
Speaker 1: of films from the perspective of women and so, and
Speaker 1: that's why I'm trying to like tone back my anger,
Speaker 1: because my angers around like the sentiments surrounding the film,
Speaker 1: how the film has been presented to us from a
Speaker 1: press perspective, but like just on the film level in
Speaker 1: and of itself, like the movie's fine and and I
Speaker 1: flaud but fine, and like I'm just not the target
Speaker 1: demographic for a bro comedy. Like all of those movies
Speaker 1: I listed are like my least favorite movies ever. And
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm not. I'm not They're not for me,
Speaker 1: and that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: they shouldn't exist. You know, Um, I do think you
Speaker 1: would like Knocked Up. I Knocked Up is fun. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've never seen it. I've never seen it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I should also say, like, I love Billy's comedic stylings.
Speaker 1: The jokes in this movie are really really good. Not all,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are really good jokes. No,
Speaker 1: there's um, I'm still giggling about one that references the
Speaker 1: Greatest Showman and if you know, you know, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: loved Billy Eichner's Difficult People. I want it back. I
Speaker 1: felt like it was great, which is shocking to me
Speaker 1: because a lot of these jokes are like quintessential Billy
Speaker 1: in the Bros. Movie. Um, but I don't like that show.
Speaker 1: I don't like the woman who plays his friend. I
Speaker 1: find her unwatchable. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. And even
Speaker 1: though I love Difficult People, the things that make it
Speaker 1: difficult to watch is that these characters are really really miserable.
Speaker 1: And I felt that way kind of watching Bros. As well, Like,
Speaker 1: it was hard for me to really appreciate sometimes the
Speaker 1: movie as a whole, because every single character is so
Speaker 1: miserable and like really like hates other members of the
Speaker 1: community and hates everyone around them. And I was like
Speaker 1: looking for reprieve from that. And there was a lot
Speaker 1: of salient critique about like gay men in general, Like
Speaker 1: this movie talks a lot and says a lot of
Speaker 1: very accurate things about what it means to not be
Speaker 1: able to communicate your emotions properly to a partner. How
Speaker 1: hook up culture or polyamory really convolutes um romantic relationships
Speaker 1: and comes out of that really good humor. And it
Speaker 1: also exploits how even though you know, polyamory or open
Speaker 1: relationships or hook up culture or whatever are things that
Speaker 1: are liberatory and freeing and define us as queer people,
Speaker 1: they also complicate our relationships when we don't have the
Speaker 1: fluency to navigate them, which most men don't do not
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But like, part of the
Speaker 1: reason this movie doesn't hit as hard is because it's
Speaker 1: coming out like five to ten years too late, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I'm sure that a movie like
Speaker 1: this takes so much longer to make than any other
Speaker 1: movie because it's a gay movie. Like, I get that,
Speaker 1: and that's not the movie's fault, but it would have
Speaker 1: been a lot easier to watch ten years ago. I
Speaker 1: would have a lot less to say about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think ten years ago they wouldn't even have
Speaker 1: attempted to try to make it about queerness outside of
Speaker 1: the gay mail experience, which maybe would have been ultimately better,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of what this movie gets
Speaker 1: wrong is in trying to make it a statement about
Speaker 1: queer community and queer history and A big plot line
Speaker 1: in this film is that Billy is a director of
Speaker 1: this lgbt Q plus history museum that opens and we're
Speaker 1: told again and again how historic and important it is,
Speaker 1: and it's that's clearly coded also his language about the
Speaker 1: movie we're watching, which in no way is historic, Like
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's a good movie, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's historic or groundbreaking or anything. And
Speaker 1: I think if they had just focused on the parts
Speaker 1: of it that worked, which we're you know, being a
Speaker 1: rom com, that would have been so much better than
Speaker 1: trying to shoe horn in all of this stuff about
Speaker 1: representation and community and queer history. And I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I think it would have just been better if Billy's
Speaker 1: character had been a dentist. Yeah yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: a firefighter or like I have like an Etsy store
Speaker 1: or something. No fire fighter at theaster would have been great.
Speaker 1: I would have bought that. That's that is actually such
Speaker 1: a good point, Like this character is kind of like
Speaker 1: an Eric Servinis, kind of like passionate, right, like loves
Speaker 1: like the legacy of like queer history and thinks it's
Speaker 1: so important. Like I didn't buy that from Billy at all.
Speaker 1: Because of the way the character acted for the rest
Speaker 1: of the movie when he wasn't a gay podcaster, And
Speaker 1: I was like, it's just it just was disingenuous and
Speaker 1: to your point, like the moments where the movie tries
Speaker 1: to make jokes or make the movie about because it
Speaker 1: does about queer and trans people at writ large, like
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community writ large, are the least successful parts
Speaker 1: of the movie. Like I mean, just to like exemple fight,
Speaker 1: like this movie talks about Marsha P. Johnson throwing the
Speaker 1: fucking first brick at stone Wall like at least three times. Seriously,
Speaker 1: it was just it was very like, um, I know
Speaker 1: that the people that go and see this movie, they
Speaker 1: might not have the queer one oh one on the history.
Speaker 1: So I would have forgiven it if it didn't come
Speaker 1: back so many times, and also if it just did
Speaker 1: income fromability. It's just like I didn't feel like the
Speaker 1: movie was at any point really trying to represent anything
Speaker 1: other than gay men. And I would have very much
Speaker 1: so appreciated a movie that was just about gay men. Sure.
Speaker 1: I would have also, especially in terms of how it
Speaker 1: was marketed and how people are talking about it, because
Speaker 1: what I really don't appreciate is this conversation that's that's
Speaker 1: happening not just through Billy and the press tour of
Speaker 1: this movie, but even people that I see on TikTok
Speaker 1: saying it's our responsibility as queer people to go see
Speaker 1: this film so that it sends a message to Hollywood
Speaker 1: that they should make more gay movies and that if
Speaker 1: this film flops, that's it. That's it for queer media.
Speaker 1: There's never gonna be another queer film made again. And
Speaker 1: I just don't buy into that argument. I think, like,
Speaker 1: make a better movie. Yeah, And as as like that
Speaker 1: sentiment is, I understand reparative to like years and years
Speaker 1: of the ways gay keepers like repress the movement of
Speaker 1: like queer stories, but like it's an asinine take. Like
Speaker 1: if you think that we are all contractually obligated to
Speaker 1: consume all of like the gay culture that exists out there,
Speaker 1: it's like you have like a lot of Adam Lambert
Speaker 1: like albums to listen to, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like you like all y'all like are trying to pretend
Speaker 1: like you have this like broad fluency and have seen
Speaker 1: everything gay that has ever come out, Like I sincerely
Speaker 1: doubt that Billy Eichner has seen I don't know, the
Speaker 1: handmade in or like other amazing like queer and trans
Speaker 1: films that looks like such a random like kind of
Speaker 1: romance that I'm thinking of like a guest maybe more
Speaker 1: of an erotic thriller. I doubt he's even seen Portrait
Speaker 1: of a Lady on Fire. But anyways, my point really
Speaker 1: is that, like it is a really righteous and unhelpful
Speaker 1: thing to do to say that if you don't see
Speaker 1: this movie, your homophoone. Righteousness is really the right word
Speaker 1: for it, because that is you know, his he needs
Speaker 1: to just get off Twitter because his thread the other
Speaker 1: day about how this movie flopped because straight people didn't
Speaker 1: show up for it and because people are homophobic, which like,
Speaker 1: of course that's true, but he needs to step away.
Speaker 1: I know he's trying to sell this movie. But what
Speaker 1: has served Billy so well in his career, which is
Speaker 1: that he'll say anything to anyone, is really not working
Speaker 1: right now. No, it's not. And like, okay, I actually
Speaker 1: do think straight people should see this movie, Like I
Speaker 1: agree with that. Um, it's just yeah, to your point,
Speaker 1: like this whole like the movie failed because of X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z it's like, just take accountability for your movie, man.
Speaker 1: And it's not like there's not a market for gay
Speaker 1: love stories for straight people. Like a lot of six
Speaker 1: hetero women consume content about gay men, like I read
Speaker 1: fan fiction. I know they do. Um, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why fucking Red, White and Royal Blue it's as popular
Speaker 1: as it is, or the Song of Achilles or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like people are consuming gay love stories. They're just like
Speaker 1: not really consuming this one. And I I really I
Speaker 1: feel the pain of like what it means to make
Speaker 1: anything for a queer audience. Right to like to sign
Speaker 1: up and say I'm going to make something for historically
Speaker 1: marginalized audience is setting yourself up, in part for failure,
Speaker 1: because you're going to make a lot of people mad,
Speaker 1: because the people that see themselves represented are going to
Speaker 1: feel that you're not doing it accurately, and the people
Speaker 1: that don't see themselves represented are going to feel erased.
Speaker 1: And that is the paradox of representation and why it
Speaker 1: will always fail and why we just need to as
Speaker 1: a whole get away from representational thinking rit large, because
Speaker 1: that is why the movie didn't succeed. And like we're
Speaker 1: trying to like you, you and I like really try
Speaker 1: to like separate this movie from its press rollout, right,
Speaker 1: but like it actually could not be separated because Billy
Speaker 1: and the team were so insistent they didn't want us
Speaker 1: to separate. And every part of this rollout and the
Speaker 1: film itself is in conversation with each other. And I
Speaker 1: think it should be able to stand on its own
Speaker 1: and and for me, like that's the thing is Ultimately
Speaker 1: for me, I did still enjoy it. I can, I
Speaker 1: can be critical of it and think all these things,
Speaker 1: and I still think it's like a pretty good movie.
Speaker 1: I still enjoyed it exactly the same way. I can
Speaker 1: say that like they were hysterical jokes and that a
Speaker 1: lot of the casting was amazing. Guy Brandam phenomenal. I
Speaker 1: also think, like outside of the movie, Guy Brandam is
Speaker 1: like a perfect and incisive voice around like representation and
Speaker 1: all these different things. Bowen was so good and it
Speaker 1: was some of the best parts of the movie. Debra Messing,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, amazing Christian Chaw the lolliest cameo is
Speaker 1: so funny. Um. But to like get back to the movie,
Speaker 1: there are several scenes in like boardrooms where this the
Speaker 1: board of lg bd Q museum is like present, right,
Speaker 1: and of course it's like a lesbian, a white trans girl,
Speaker 1: a black trans girl, a non binary person, and like
Speaker 1: a gay man. It's like this perfect panel of like
Speaker 1: you know, LGBTQ board members or whatever. And the lesbian
Speaker 1: in these scenes is just like this loud, cantankerous woman
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of jokes about her like
Speaker 1: physical strength, and like, look, you and I we love
Speaker 1: jokes at the expense of like any member of the
Speaker 1: queer community, right, Like it's okay, it's okay, Like we're
Speaker 1: it's okay to make jokes about this. We've seen this
Speaker 1: joke from Billy Eigner before, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: or if not from Billy, Like we've seen this joke.
Speaker 1: Like there was no invention in the jokes that it
Speaker 1: was making about other marginalized people. And I feel like
Speaker 1: when you do that, you're kind of punching down. And
Speaker 1: there's also like there's this other moment that I think
Speaker 1: encapsulates like a lot of the kind of thematic problem
Speaker 1: of the movie and this thing we keep talking about
Speaker 1: about who it's centering the gay man in the story,
Speaker 1: and then who it's trying to to include and there's
Speaker 1: this moment where one of the trans people is like,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to hold space for you, like makes it.
Speaker 1: There's this joke about like holding space that's like kind
Speaker 1: of funny, but ultimately they don't really get where Billy
Speaker 1: is coming from about something. And he says this remark
Speaker 1: coming hot off the disappointment of this kind of mini
Speaker 1: breakup he's going through with his boyfriend. He's saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: so I'm too queer for my boyfriend and I'm not
Speaker 1: queer enough for you, And like that was just so
Speaker 1: like pick to me, Like I feel like it's told
Speaker 1: on Billy in a way that I don't think he intended,
Speaker 1: because it paints a picture of the plights of gay men,
Speaker 1: but then for some reason like puts it in opposition
Speaker 1: to like black trans people or whatever. I was just like, like,
Speaker 1: what are you trying to say, Like the movie is
Speaker 1: about the plights of gay men, Let it just be
Speaker 1: that like when you try and victimize yourself and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this other part of the community doesn't get me or whatever.
Speaker 1: I was just like, no, girl, you're just like privileged
Speaker 1: and you don't have any other trans friends or let's
Speaker 1: me and friends, you know, what I mean, Like that's
Speaker 1: kind of what it was giving at times, and to
Speaker 1: your point, like just wish that it had stayed on
Speaker 1: the lens of gay men, because it was it made
Speaker 1: really great critiques about game male relationships and the toxicity
Speaker 1: that comes with it. Yeah, you know, you and I
Speaker 1: are people who also are storytellers, Like I never tried
Speaker 1: to write something that's going to speak to the entirety
Speaker 1: of the queer experience. I try to, you know, create
Speaker 1: things that are about my experience because that's what I understand. Um,
Speaker 1: And I just think this would have been a much
Speaker 1: more successful movie if Billy wrote just kind of a
Speaker 1: simpler gay rom com. Yeah. I wonder honestly if the
Speaker 1: movie was at one point only about men and at
Speaker 1: some point somebody was like, well, we got to represent
Speaker 1: all these other people, and that's why so much of
Speaker 1: this was like wedged in like the homages of like
Speaker 1: James Baldwin and Marsha P. Johnson or whatever. Like I
Speaker 1: was like, what's going on, Like what don't we want? Well?
Speaker 1: I also wonder if that's like almost a way to
Speaker 1: kind of incentivize you know, queer people to see this film,
Speaker 1: or if it was something that Billy felt he owed
Speaker 1: to queer people too. If he was making this big
Speaker 1: Hollywood movie, he had to you know, torn this in
Speaker 1: in a way that felt very you know, disingenuous and
Speaker 1: just like kind of chick like checking off representation, you know,
Speaker 1: points of rather than telling those stories, because like, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to tell a diversity of queer stories in
Speaker 1: this film, then those people should have written it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not to mention when there was this scene in like
Speaker 1: the background of like one of the Queer History Museum
Speaker 1: exhibits where there's all these like portraits of like queer
Speaker 1: icons or whatever, and then there's a picture of Lori Lightfoot.
Speaker 1: Did you see that picture of It? Was so like
Speaker 1: I felt insane watching it um And I also honestly
Speaker 1: felt crazy because the romantic lead is like so toxic
Speaker 1: and so like emotionally stunted. I was like the whole
Speaker 1: engine of the movie was like lost on me. Like
Speaker 1: I was like, why would you keep pursue? Like what
Speaker 1: are the redeeming qualities of either of these characters? But
Speaker 1: that was the part to me that was the most realistic,
Speaker 1: because it is realistic. Yeah, I mean they're not gonna last, Like,
Speaker 1: let's say that to break up six months after this
Speaker 1: movie ends. Well, we did our duty. We saw bros.
Speaker 1: We talked about it, clocking out, flocking out. Have you
Speaker 1: ever cast a spell? I have, yes, on multiple occasions. Um.
Speaker 1: What kind of spells? Never a love spell, because, as
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the pod before, those are non consensual. Um.
Speaker 1: But I have cast instead? You've cursed people to die? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: spells of vengeance, abundance, fortitude. What about you? I have
Speaker 1: cast many, many spells. Um. Literally, no one who listens
Speaker 1: to this podcast will be a surprised to learn that.
Speaker 1: As an adolescent, I fancied myself a bit of a witch.
Speaker 1: I still consider myself a witch. But when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, this was in the time when WICCA and
Speaker 1: sort of New Age spirituality was having a real moment.
Speaker 1: As you could see in any Borders bookstore if you
Speaker 1: went to the New Age section, there would be books
Speaker 1: like to Write a Silver brun Stick by Silver Raven
Speaker 1: Wolf Um that would describe how you, you know, set
Speaker 1: up an altar and called to the corners and cast
Speaker 1: a circle. And honey, I was doing all of the
Speaker 1: above in my childhood bedroom. I was casting spells. I
Speaker 1: was trying to move things with my mind. I was
Speaker 1: making lotions and potions and hungeans and oils, and you
Speaker 1: in that era of your life really were like a
Speaker 1: trenifestation of the Satanic panic of the late eighties and
Speaker 1: early night and nothing about it was Satanic. It was
Speaker 1: all it was all, it was all Goddess Vibe. I
Speaker 1: was saying to the Goddess Hondy, everything about witchcraft is
Speaker 1: entwined with the devil. But also, satanic panic is more eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is more eighties. But and I'm not that old, okay,
Speaker 1: but we were talking. We're talking about early two thousand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: but I think what I'm trying to say is that, um,
Speaker 1: in the nineties, there's still so much, as you do,
Speaker 1: of satanic panic bleeding into the culture wars that made
Speaker 1: everyone scared of the girl that would check out the
Speaker 1: taro deck at Borders bookstore. I guess. But I feel
Speaker 1: almost like the acceptance of that kind of spirituality that
Speaker 1: happened in the mid to late nineties was making it
Speaker 1: was maybe like making up for it, But no, I
Speaker 1: think it predates J. K. Rolling a little bit, because yeah,
Speaker 1: we had well to get into it. I think the
Speaker 1: Craft dates JK. Rolling for sure. Late nineties, we've like
Speaker 1: we've had, we've had let the Satanic panic behind, and
Speaker 1: now a gentler, more empowered idea of people who flirt
Speaker 1: with the invisible. It now enters pop culture in a
Speaker 1: way where those people are the heroes of the stories
Speaker 1: rather than exactly. And I love that, you know, since
Speaker 1: this moment that we've pointed toward in the kind of
Speaker 1: like nineties, that um, instead of the although they were
Speaker 1: the villains in the Craft except for one of them, sure, sure, sure,
Speaker 1: but I love that. Um. And and that's the same
Speaker 1: case with like hocus focus and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: I love that, Um, the pendulum never swung back right
Speaker 1: like there was. There hasn't been necessarily another like Witchcraft
Speaker 1: panic to the scale of like the Satanic panic, because
Speaker 1: which is in kind of the cultural forces that we're
Speaker 1: talking about today, movies, TV shows, books, whatever, have only
Speaker 1: accrued in like cultural value and like meaning. Like I
Speaker 1: think that which is are as a feminist idea, something
Speaker 1: that is even more popular now than it was in
Speaker 1: the Charm. In the Charm to Harry totally well, Satanic
Speaker 1: panic was very culty and anyone who has watched the
Speaker 1: most recent season of Stranger Things knows that that is
Speaker 1: how it begun in the eighties was people um being
Speaker 1: scared of people who played things like dungeons and dragons
Speaker 1: and thinking that they were satanic cults and killed people,
Speaker 1: which is also a plot line in Riverdale, it must
Speaker 1: be said. But their version of the game is called
Speaker 1: like Gorgon's and Gargoyles or something like that. And so
Speaker 1: then the upswing in which media and culture in the
Speaker 1: nineties I do think was very much about the self.
Speaker 1: It was very internalized, it was very feminist, it was
Speaker 1: and it was also very like tied up in ideas
Speaker 1: of sisterhood with things like charmed on the Craft, practical
Speaker 1: magic um and then skewing over into you know, broader
Speaker 1: fantasy with Harry Potter. Can you like you know Harry
Speaker 1: Potter aside, like, what were the first witchcraft cultural objects
Speaker 1: that you latched onto? Oh? Well, I mean the inciting
Speaker 1: incident is, of course the Wicked Witch of the West
Speaker 1: and the Wizard of Oz. She was the moment, She's
Speaker 1: the blueprint, she's the green print, she's alpha but herself.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I saw which on screen
Speaker 1: and We've talked about Wizard of Oz before and how
Speaker 1: much I loved it. And even though I loved Dorothy
Speaker 1: and wanted to be Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the
Speaker 1: West was the character who I was the most obsessed with,
Speaker 1: and she sparked what has been a lifelong obsession with
Speaker 1: witches for me. She was the first, and then I
Speaker 1: think after that, I just any time there was a
Speaker 1: witch in a movie like Um madmana Mim in The
Speaker 1: Sword in the Stone hocus Pocus, you know, also came
Speaker 1: out in the early to mid nineties, if there was
Speaker 1: a character who was a witch, I was obsessed, even
Speaker 1: when she was the villain. And so then once I
Speaker 1: was old enough to start reading on my own, I
Speaker 1: always gravitated too books with witches, and them are books
Speaker 1: about witches, And as I got older, I was able
Speaker 1: to find more and more of those books where the
Speaker 1: witches were the heroes rather than the villains, or at
Speaker 1: least they were, you know, more more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: While we're in the villain's portion, though, can we like
Speaker 1: have a moment for mad Madam Mim from this from
Speaker 1: The Sword in the Stone, I forgot about her. She
Speaker 1: is iconic and Lady Gaga should play her in the
Speaker 1: live action version that is The Dake. She is grotesque
Speaker 1: and I love that, but she also is sexy because
Speaker 1: she is a shape shifter. Wait oh wait, doesn't she
Speaker 1: become like a sexy crocodile or something. She becomes a
Speaker 1: lot of different things, but she does become like a
Speaker 1: hot version of her similar to Ursula, She's very trans
Speaker 1: Ursula becomes a hot version of herself, Um the Witch,
Speaker 1: and Um snow White in The Seven Dwarves becomes a
Speaker 1: hot version of herself. She is also an iconic witch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Maleficent, honestly, for me was my first I think
Speaker 1: the first witch that I latched onto. I probably saw
Speaker 1: a Wizard of Us before, but I definitely remember seeing
Speaker 1: Maleficent and being like, that is my girl. But Maleficent
Speaker 1: is very much a sorceress, and I think the thing
Speaker 1: that I loved about The Wicked Witch of the West
Speaker 1: is she is the proto typical, which she's got the broomstick,
Speaker 1: the pointy hat, the crystal ball, she's mixing up potions
Speaker 1: and her cauldron. You know, she was a witch, the archetypical.
Speaker 1: That's what I was into, and I love that Since
Speaker 1: that moment, we've had so many different takes and iterations
Speaker 1: on the archetype, not excluding mad Madam mim or the
Speaker 1: other the others that came up in that in that
Speaker 1: Disney era, of which witches, because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of witches and Disney movies, but they're almost always the villain,
Speaker 1: right exactly. It's only now in sort of the post
Speaker 1: metare contextualization of Disney that we now have empowered women
Speaker 1: who are the heroes of their stories, like Frozen, where
Speaker 1: you know, else is not a witch, but she has
Speaker 1: powers and she is you know, complicated, but she's not evil. Right.
Speaker 1: I think the one standout from the witches of your
Speaker 1: maybe that I'm thinking of is Kiki's Delivery Service where
Speaker 1: she's the protagonist and not the villain. But that movie,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's him Zaki, so obviously it's like
Speaker 1: it has way more like depth than like any of
Speaker 1: these like Disney movies or anything like that. Um have
Speaker 1: you have you seen that movie? Ye oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love love love that. Like her magic power is
Speaker 1: a kind of metaphor for um, the muse like and
Speaker 1: for like creativity. Like I think maybe it was an
Speaker 1: interview or something that I watched with Hamiyazaki, but like
Speaker 1: describing how like writer's block and like artists blocks that
Speaker 1: come up are not unlike the way that Kiki all
Speaker 1: of a sudden couldn't access her powers and she didn't
Speaker 1: know why, and she's trying to make sense of it,
Speaker 1: and all she needed was solitude and to do something
Speaker 1: that wasn't magic, to like find her magic again. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think that, like that's like that as a lesson
Speaker 1: has like she was in her folklore era. She she
Speaker 1: was there a folklore era and honestly also not to
Speaker 1: like jump all the way to the end, but like
Speaker 1: um her her Wanda era too, will get there. We'll
Speaker 1: get there, so some other I think really formative, which
Speaker 1: is of my childhood, which is of Eastwick? Yes, have
Speaker 1: you seen I would Love Love Love too? I've seen, Yes,
Speaker 1: And I would love to watch a version of the
Speaker 1: film um without Jack Nicholson because I think I'm disgusting.
Speaker 1: He is disgusting, but it's still he's integral to the story.
Speaker 1: I still could watch it without him, I really could.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't make sense, but I would enjoy it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll try to get you girls only cut Girls, we
Speaker 1: will have at this point, we'll already have talked a
Speaker 1: bit about hocus Pocus during our live watch of the
Speaker 1: of hocus Pocus too upon record, we have not the
Speaker 1: pon record, we have not done it yet. So I
Speaker 1: mean we can say that when hocus Pocus came out,
Speaker 1: that had me in a guerrilla grip, you know, because
Speaker 1: even though they were the villains, I was obsessed with them.
Speaker 1: And I did not see hocus Pocus until my twenties.
Speaker 1: God a friend, Yeah, yeah, and I watched it and
Speaker 1: it was amazing. Like the musical number Sarah Jessica Parker,
Speaker 1: Kathey and Jenie Bette Midler, like the tree out of
Speaker 1: them is omnipotent. It's why I'm nervous. I'm nervous about
Speaker 1: the sequel. Girl. There's no way it can be good.
Speaker 1: There's no way it can be good. But I actually
Speaker 1: don't think it's possible for the three of them to
Speaker 1: have a bad performance. I think the movie can be bad,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that the three of them will
Speaker 1: give us a bad moment. I don't think that a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Here's the thing. Yeah, sure, but Bette
Speaker 1: Midler has never failed us. Kathy and Genie Midler has
Speaker 1: never failed us. Well, Bette Midler did tweet some stupid things,
Speaker 1: but aside from that, right, we were we actually were
Speaker 1: we We never talked about the Bett. Well, she's not
Speaker 1: a turf she tur turf light yeah, diet turf um,
Speaker 1: but she's she thinks j. K. Rowling's okay on the
Speaker 1: performance level, though I don't think that has ever wronged us,
Speaker 1: nor has Kathy and Jimmie. Sarah Jessica Parker maybe has,
Speaker 1: but I don't because sometimes she doesn't know what movie
Speaker 1: she's in, but I think she'll know what I mean.
Speaker 1: This is Oh, she I think is the one who
Speaker 1: will slay the most because Sarah Jessica Parker is amazing
Speaker 1: when it comes to physical slapstick comedy. And even in
Speaker 1: the trailer she was giving that, say that and also
Speaker 1: like she's never credited for that. You know, as the
Speaker 1: nineties progressed and which is started to get sexier, I
Speaker 1: was all about that. Okay, you still have not seen
Speaker 1: the original the Craft. Yeah, but it's sexy. I thought
Speaker 1: it was teen. It is teens, but they're sexy teens
Speaker 1: of course, sexy teens played by full adult, fully thirty
Speaker 1: year old um. It starts for as a bulk who
Speaker 1: it was in Return to Oz, which is also a
Speaker 1: movie about which is and one of my favorite films
Speaker 1: and one of your favorite portrayals of which is as
Speaker 1: one of my favorite Yes. Um. It is about a
Speaker 1: group of girls who are outcasts at school and find
Speaker 1: that they are more powerful together than apart, and but
Speaker 1: once they get power, it corrupts them and they start
Speaker 1: doing some very bad things. The vibes are correct, the
Speaker 1: looks are right, the soundtrack is amazing. It's a great
Speaker 1: little teen horror films and very formative to you, as
Speaker 1: you always say, extremely format. Would you say that it
Speaker 1: is one of the best films ever made? No, I won't.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't know. I thought that would be one of
Speaker 1: the ones. No practical magic, practical now, practical magic. That
Speaker 1: is it is in my top ten films. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: okay it one day. One day, the virgins are going
Speaker 1: to keep tracking your You'll be eating your words, and
Speaker 1: then you're no longer going to be able to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, Please start compiling a list of all
Speaker 1: the films that I say are in my top ten,
Speaker 1: which are pirates of the caribbeansgic return to return to
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rear Rear Windows my
Speaker 1: favorite movie of all time. But Practical Magic. That was
Speaker 1: kind of the first thing that after I had moved
Speaker 1: here that I forced you to watch that you had
Speaker 1: never seen, never seen because it was Halloween. It was
Speaker 1: like peak pandemic, so we can really do anything. We
Speaker 1: did go to Channing's and how the Lovely Little Saw
Speaker 1: and ritual and then we came back to your old
Speaker 1: apartment and who and watched Practical Magic. Was the first time.
Speaker 1: It was the perfect Halloween and you stayed away through
Speaker 1: the whole thing somehow, well, I mean, it's very engaging
Speaker 1: in that that the movie hinges on murdering a man.
Speaker 1: It's also an hour and a half murdering uh. He's
Speaker 1: like murdering a domestic abuser abuser. And then also and
Speaker 1: and it's also about restorative justice outside of the carceral system,
Speaker 1: because the cop comes in to try to catch them
Speaker 1: and then ends the movie with him being like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't really care that you killed him. He got
Speaker 1: what he deserved. It's also about storative justice is really
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, about the death penalty.
Speaker 1: And how we should be doing that instead. It's also
Speaker 1: a story about ancestral shealing, sheiling, ancestral pain shealing, feeling
Speaker 1: like healing but with what with women? She like ancestral shealing.
Speaker 1: It also has an incredible soundtrack that slaps to this day.
Speaker 1: Stevie Nicks does multiple songs covers of old class What
Speaker 1: is the thing? Can you explain to me, like how
Speaker 1: it all started with Stevine Knicks being a witch? Like
Speaker 1: how people just assumed or like made associations with Steven
Speaker 1: Knicks that she was in witchcraft of some kind. I
Speaker 1: think it's just kind of her general vibe. It wasn't
Speaker 1: anything explicit, and I think especially once she started her
Speaker 1: solo career, it just kind of became a thing. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those things I think, Okay, wait, this
Speaker 1: is I'm realizing something right now. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: Stevin Knicks has gone on the record to confirm that
Speaker 1: she is in fact not a witch and that this
Speaker 1: was a rumor that started circulating in her Fleetwood mac
Speaker 1: era of Rhiannon that I think was particularly it's a
Speaker 1: song about a witch. Yeah, yeah, so people started to
Speaker 1: assume that she was a witch, and I'm also just
Speaker 1: realizing upon looking at So when I type this out
Speaker 1: in Google and saw the photo, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: she looks like Olivia Newton John. And now I'm remembering,
Speaker 1: and I've said this on the pod before that my
Speaker 1: mom once told me that Olivia Newton John, alright, he
Speaker 1: was a witch, and had I think my mom Olivia
Speaker 1: and John was Stevie Nicks. Yes, they look kind of
Speaker 1: the same, but Olivia r I p you were not
Speaker 1: a witch. Um. So I was very disappointed because I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with practical magic. My mom took me to
Speaker 1: see the movie and I lost my mind, Like it
Speaker 1: reordered my brain and like changed me on a chemical level,
Speaker 1: because I think up until that point, my idea of
Speaker 1: which is had been the wicked witch of the West.
Speaker 1: And now I saw, wait, you can be young and
Speaker 1: hot and have all that hair and be a witch
Speaker 1: and have sex and have sex and be and blow
Speaker 1: on candles to light them, and your aunt is Stockard Channing.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to dive as deep as I
Speaker 1: could into the practical magic sphere and practical magic. The
Speaker 1: film is based on a book by Alice Hoffman. So
Speaker 1: I remember checking the book out from the library, because
Speaker 1: I used to spend most of my time in the
Speaker 1: library at that point, and the book was not as
Speaker 1: good as the movie. It's the book is much more
Speaker 1: sort of magical realism, and like the magic is very
Speaker 1: just kind of suggested. It's like kind of exists on
Speaker 1: the outside of things. So that was very disappointing. In
Speaker 1: years since, though, Alice Hoffman has written both a prequel
Speaker 1: to Practical Magic and a sequel to it, and then
Speaker 1: a fourth and final book. They're amazing. The prequel, especially,
Speaker 1: which is called The Rules of Magic, is my favorite
Speaker 1: of the four of them. It takes place in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies New York City and it's about the ants from
Speaker 1: the movie and their gay brother growing up as witches.
Speaker 1: And it was in development as a series for HBO
Speaker 1: Max I think by Melissa Rosenberg, who's the screenwriter of
Speaker 1: the Twilight movies. But nothing has really ever happened with that,
Speaker 1: so it would be so good. You should write for that.
Speaker 1: I should write for that. It might be one of
Speaker 1: those things that's kind of stuck in development, but it's
Speaker 1: so good and if you need a spooky Halloween read,
Speaker 1: I really recommend that. I love the Nicole Kidman's iteration
Speaker 1: of the witch archetype, which we discussed in the Nicole
Speaker 1: Kidman episode, is dark, tortured, gorgeous woman. I love that
Speaker 1: she like elevated the which archetype. It's like, actually, which is,
Speaker 1: are not just these like kind of flat villains that
Speaker 1: patently believe that Satan is their master and that they're
Speaker 1: here to terrorize humanity like some which is actually have
Speaker 1: shitty boyfriends, and some witches have beautiful, made well outfit.
Speaker 1: Actually the fit isn't made well. The fit is giving
Speaker 1: free people. You know, what I love is that, you know,
Speaker 1: culture obviously always swings back around. And while we had
Speaker 1: in the you know, early and mid aughts that kind
Speaker 1: of witchcraft in things like practical magic and charmed and stuff,
Speaker 1: now we have gotten to the point where we're now
Speaker 1: swinging back to the pendulum. And I think what exemplifies
Speaker 1: that most of all is the movie The Vich Taylor.
Speaker 1: I was wondering what you were going to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the for anyone who doesn't know, I really feel
Speaker 1: like if you listen to this podcast you can probably
Speaker 1: see the witch um is basically what I love about
Speaker 1: it is it's the idea that what if the thing
Speaker 1: that all of these fucking pilgrims were scared about, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that the thing that the Salem witch Trials
Speaker 1: were predicated on, which is that there was this witch
Speaker 1: who sold her soul to the devil who's going to
Speaker 1: come steal your children and eat them and like curse
Speaker 1: your land blah blah blah. What if that actually happened.
Speaker 1: And the way that the witch was stylized was there
Speaker 1: was the Witch a New England folk tale and so
Speaker 1: it's like this very literal version of that idea, and
Speaker 1: it's really bringing us back to the root of how
Speaker 1: the witch has always been seen in culture. And I
Speaker 1: really liked that. It's like almost the most literal telling
Speaker 1: of which story you know, of these people being plagued
Speaker 1: by a witch who steals their children and curses their crops,
Speaker 1: and then it ends with this young girl signing herself
Speaker 1: over to the devil because she wants to live deliciously
Speaker 1: um and you know, floating up in the air into
Speaker 1: like an ecstatic origy of witches, which is like very
Speaker 1: reminiscent of that famous painting of all the Women floating. Ye,
Speaker 1: it's a it's one of the most beautiful filmic finalees
Speaker 1: and I think is honestly, it shows off what does best.
Speaker 1: It's probably my favorite movie. Um I. Honestly, since now
Speaker 1: that you've mentioned living Deliciously, um I, I think that
Speaker 1: Um the Bitch doesn't have like necessarily a specific take
Speaker 1: right on UM. The Salem Which Trials are the things
Speaker 1: that happened after it, right It's it's a very like folkloric,
Speaker 1: true to the text portrayal of a witch that feels
Speaker 1: like somehow exactly in the period, but also hyper contemporary,
Speaker 1: like she feels real as fuck. Like that is something
Speaker 1: that I love about this movie. But it should be
Speaker 1: said that like the Salem Witch Trials were literally just
Speaker 1: misogyny often like racialize misogyny right with like a Scooby
Speaker 1: Doo mask on it. Like they literally thought that this
Speaker 1: was richcraft and actually they just like hated when I
Speaker 1: know I was. I was also really into the Salem
Speaker 1: Which trials as a concept when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Um I went to Salem once and I did one
Speaker 1: year during October. I was in Salem just like the
Speaker 1: real Houseves of New York. Yes, just like that, just
Speaker 1: like UM and I loved The Crucible. It was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite plays. I loved the film version with
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis and Winona Writer. Yeah, they were really good.
Speaker 1: Winona's incredible in that movie. I would love to see
Speaker 1: a stage a stage production of it. Have you never
Speaker 1: seen one? I think I maybe have, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember if our high school did it or if I
Speaker 1: saw it somewhere. But something that I like about The Crucible,
Speaker 1: and It's like contribution to the discourse, is that cultural
Speaker 1: mania had like fatal consequences, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like zooming out of that. Arthur Miller was trying to
Speaker 1: say something about McCarthy is um. Yes, oh yeah, literally,
Speaker 1: McCarthy is m and like how we as a culture
Speaker 1: to this day still create mania and um dangerous group
Speaker 1: think that has fatal consequences. Yes, well, I do think
Speaker 1: it's important for us to talk about the place of
Speaker 1: the witch in culture, as she or they have existed
Speaker 1: through the entirety of history. You know, the which is
Speaker 1: the other the witch is unbridled powerful femininity that must
Speaker 1: be hung or burned to the state or chained. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the which is our fear of someone who
Speaker 1: society has decided should not have power, having too much
Speaker 1: of it, right, And I think that honestly, I don't
Speaker 1: know where she falls into the chronology of like a
Speaker 1: history of witches, but like I always think of like Lilith, right,
Speaker 1: and like her place in this can in of women
Speaker 1: with mystical powers that were like scorned by society, um
Speaker 1: for the virgins that don't know our friend Channing has
Speaker 1: like given like given me a lot of context and
Speaker 1: like Lilith, and like her place in the Talmud, and
Speaker 1: like in Jewish folklore, and how in some iterations of
Speaker 1: the text she's like the o G Eve of Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve and Adam's first wife. Yes, yeah, yeah, in
Speaker 1: some like people have different like ways of interpreting, like
Speaker 1: where Lilith comes from or whatever, but yeah, if she
Speaker 1: is adams first wife. Adam was basically like, you have
Speaker 1: to lie under me, you have to subject yourself to me,
Speaker 1: and Lilith literally was like no, because wasn't the issue
Speaker 1: that Lilith was created alongside Adam so saw herself as
Speaker 1: his equal, and then once she was cast out of Eden.
Speaker 1: That's why Eve was created from Adam's ribs, so she
Speaker 1: would always be subjugated to him. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: somewhere in the Babylonian Talmud. It's like the rib is
Speaker 1: not present. They are supposed to be eating well. And
Speaker 1: Adam was like, nowhere not equal, and Lilith was like, yes,
Speaker 1: we are. And she refused, basically to participate in this union,
Speaker 1: and she left Eden speaking of living deliciously. She left
Speaker 1: Eden because she knew that pleasure was more powerful than
Speaker 1: perfection and the promise of Eden. Sorry, this is very philosophical,
Speaker 1: but I have like a lot of thoughts on Lilith
Speaker 1: slash slash like have like a little tatoo. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I want like a real that's like so good. I
Speaker 1: want like an actual more explicitly Lilith tattoo like yours
Speaker 1: m Rose has. What is this that the symbols um
Speaker 1: but um. The promise of Eden was perfection right like
Speaker 1: God was like, if you stay here, we all get
Speaker 1: to be perfect forever because there's no sin here. And
Speaker 1: Lilith was like, wait, hold up, sin actually makes life
Speaker 1: imperfect and therefore fun interesting, like compelling, emotional, like leisure, pain, chaos,
Speaker 1: magic are the things that it's not like the taste
Speaker 1: of butter. What's that like to wear a part address
Speaker 1: would like to live deliciously and those are the things
Speaker 1: that make life worth living. And and Lilith is also
Speaker 1: thought of as the mother of demons, that she left
Speaker 1: Eden and became the yes and so and and in
Speaker 1: some tellings the first witch. Yes, she is a Hecata
Speaker 1: like figure that became a culturally demonized, like portrayal of
Speaker 1: like evil women basically because the witch in many different
Speaker 1: cultures and histories like is a figure who's who's kind
Speaker 1: of purpose and allegiances, and like good or evil or
Speaker 1: neutrality is always shifting based on who was telling the
Speaker 1: story and what the agenda is, and and usually if
Speaker 1: that story is being told by a man, because if
Speaker 1: it is being told man or being told by men
Speaker 1: by the patriarchy, then the witch is you know, evil
Speaker 1: and corrupting and an agent of Satan. If it's being
Speaker 1: told by women, you know, there there have been witches
Speaker 1: in many cultures who are the healers and the midwives
Speaker 1: and you know, the soothsayers and the wise women of
Speaker 1: the village. And it's just very you know, interesting, how
Speaker 1: we can all agree that this type of woman, specifically
Speaker 1: um has always existed and there are so many different
Speaker 1: variations like just today and all the different pieces of
Speaker 1: media we're talking about, there's so many different ideas of
Speaker 1: what a witch has been and could be. And that's
Speaker 1: what I think is so fascinating about the idea of
Speaker 1: a witch is that she can be anything because she
Speaker 1: has been everything um and the possibilities are endless. That's
Speaker 1: why I think people return to witches in storytelling over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. Yeah, and I I it's
Speaker 1: also and also because a witch is someone who asserts
Speaker 1: their will upon the world, who looks at the world
Speaker 1: and says, no, this will change. Witchcraft is manifesting. We're
Speaker 1: tran infesting your will upon the world and changing it
Speaker 1: through magic. And I think it's very interesting that like
Speaker 1: right now and maybe for the last like five plus years,
Speaker 1: there has been at least in America, like a a
Speaker 1: greater acceptance or popularity of astrology, mysticism, you know, tera
Speaker 1: things that have been culturally stigmatized in the kind of
Speaker 1: like eighties and nineties that now have pre eminence because
Speaker 1: culturally we are just like moving further and further away
Speaker 1: from Christianity and moving further and further away from organized
Speaker 1: religion as we've like discovered that it is responsible for
Speaker 1: pretty much like all of the oppressive forces on the
Speaker 1: planet since the dawn of time for the most part.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, as like witchcraft, or like mysticism,
Speaker 1: or like whatever our way into the other worldly and
Speaker 1: the occult is. Now that we don't have God, it's
Speaker 1: like we're trying to find other things that to make
Speaker 1: our lives make sense, and that witchcraft is something that
Speaker 1: is inherently empowering and subcultural and therefore has even more
Speaker 1: cultural value now. Yeah, well, I think it's very telling
Speaker 1: that the time in my life that I found myself
Speaker 1: most identifying as a witch, the time in my life
Speaker 1: when I felt the most spiritual and was kind of
Speaker 1: the most able to do kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: like let myself do things like be part of ritual
Speaker 1: and um, you know, have an alter at home, were
Speaker 1: the times of my life when I was most deeply
Speaker 1: invested in community. Um, and you did it before it
Speaker 1: was popular, before it was like popular in the way
Speaker 1: it is now around. Yeah, but I think there is
Speaker 1: something to be said about the times of my life
Speaker 1: when I was deeply invested in queer community and queer
Speaker 1: community spaces and spaces that we're aiming to be sort
Speaker 1: of transcendent and like um, you know, ecstatic and sort
Speaker 1: of the truest sense of the word. Those were the
Speaker 1: places where magic felt kind of possible and also where
Speaker 1: trying to make magic was actually happening. Is because in
Speaker 1: those like liminal spaces, it does feel kind of like
Speaker 1: something that's achievable, Like when you're in a room full
Speaker 1: of queer people in this like sort of sacred space
Speaker 1: that you have created against all odds, it does feel
Speaker 1: like you can maybe achieve something like alchemical or transformative
Speaker 1: or even divine. And you know, nowadays I don't have
Speaker 1: as much time for that, but it is time consuming,
Speaker 1: It is time consuming. But like I have, you know,
Speaker 1: I have been part of large scale rituals, both in
Speaker 1: more like nightlife centric spaces and then also in fairy
Speaker 1: spaces and sort of communal spaces out in nature, and
Speaker 1: there is you know, I do think there's something to
Speaker 1: be said for like mass illusion and mass hysteria, but
Speaker 1: I have I have definitely felt real magic. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have absolutely felt it. But I think that honestly, like
Speaker 1: I wish Channey was here, um, but like I do
Speaker 1: think that our friend, n our friend Channing Nicholas. I
Speaker 1: think that the popularity of like work like hers is
Speaker 1: something that even she would like talk about a nuance,
Speaker 1: like saying that like both can exist, right, Like we
Speaker 1: have these spaces of mysticism that are empowering and important
Speaker 1: for personal growth, or like the actual cultivation of magic.
Speaker 1: And then there's also this like cult thing that's happening that,
Speaker 1: especially in the twenties, is now becoming an erasure honestly
Speaker 1: of like practices that are ancient, indigenous, historically black things
Speaker 1: like that. So like when we have like sage and
Speaker 1: crystals and Breweri, like non Christian iterations of a kind
Speaker 1: of magical belief system. I think even something as common
Speaker 1: as it is now to hear someone say I didn't
Speaker 1: like their energy or or I'm not feeling the vibe
Speaker 1: that has really trapped, that has really worked its way
Speaker 1: into our vernacular way that I don't think it existed before.
Speaker 1: And we we live in a society that I believe
Speaker 1: has accepted the idea that there is some sort of
Speaker 1: metaphysical plane we all exist on. And so when j
Speaker 1: Lo said get the Virgo off of my dance crew,
Speaker 1: I'm not watching. Yeah, she was partaking in the very
Speaker 1: thing you're you're alluding to. She was speaking of dance.
Speaker 1: One film that I wish that you would watch that
Speaker 1: I'm sure you never will is Suspiria. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: watched the first I don't know how long, but I
Speaker 1: watch up until the contortion. Okay, well the movies three
Speaker 1: hours long, Jesus Christ. I So the original Suspiria, which
Speaker 1: is the Dario or Gento film, it's like a very
Speaker 1: fame to ten. It's yes, it is um not the original,
Speaker 1: the new one. The Dario Argendo film is like a
Speaker 1: very psychedelic seventies horror film that is really considered a classic.
Speaker 1: It was remade by Luca guard Nino, who directed Call
Speaker 1: Me by Your Name in starring Tilda Swinton and Dakota
Speaker 1: Johnson and Mia Goth who's having a glow up a
Speaker 1: moment right now. I really prefer the remake to the original.
Speaker 1: And I think the idea of a coven of witches
Speaker 1: using the cover of being a dance company is really
Speaker 1: interesting and it just leads to so many incredible set
Speaker 1: pieces of of movement as magic. And that's something like,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to what I was talking about before,
Speaker 1: like I think some of the times of my life
Speaker 1: when I felt the most like I was part of
Speaker 1: something larger than myself and like felt a tune to
Speaker 1: the people around me and felt something magical was when
Speaker 1: I was dancing. Yeah, And honestly, it reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of what I think most people believed to be
Speaker 1: the best scene in midsom Are when Florence Pugh is
Speaker 1: being like kind of pulled into that clan of women
Speaker 1: and having her kind of grief in her grief state
Speaker 1: is like reckoning with the infidelity that's going on right
Speaker 1: in front of her, and she starts moving and breathing
Speaker 1: in tandem with that crowd of women. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1: Like it reminds me. I think that combined with the rich,
Speaker 1: combined with Um the movie Suspiria all kind of build
Speaker 1: on the communal aspect that you're talking about, how the coven,
Speaker 1: the coven is actually a gorgeous metaphor of sisterhood, and
Speaker 1: how the subjugation and ostrichization of women and fems creates
Speaker 1: a more equitable power that you now have. Sometimes it does,
Speaker 1: unless you are in American horror story um and then
Speaker 1: and then all it does is pit women against each
Speaker 1: other do you like that series, because I feel like
Speaker 1: I haven't. I've only watched that American Horror Story season
Speaker 1: from beginning to end. It's the only one I've completed.
Speaker 1: But people always say it's the best one. It's not
Speaker 1: my favorite one. I see why people think it's the
Speaker 1: best one, because I think it's I think it's the
Speaker 1: most fun and the most campy. Um My faith is
Speaker 1: honestly probably Hotel Gaga or maybe Murder House. I think
Speaker 1: the best season of American Horror Story is Asylum, but
Speaker 1: it's not what I want to rewatch um. Coven is fun,
Speaker 1: It's just a little too silly, and I think, you
Speaker 1: know the problem that every season of American Horror Story
Speaker 1: has is that they start out so strong and then
Speaker 1: halfway through the season is like, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do now? And that's very much what happens with Kevin.
Speaker 1: And the first couple episodes of Coven are so fun. Uh.
Speaker 1: When Covin was airing, I was watching it at live
Speaker 1: viewings in Brooklyn, which were so fun because this was
Speaker 1: like peak and when Ryan had like the most cultural
Speaker 1: power he has. What I don't like about Covin, I
Speaker 1: think is that I mean Unfortunately this is also just
Speaker 1: a Ryan Murphy thing, and that he does this amazing
Speaker 1: thing where he creates roles for the older actresses, but
Speaker 1: often what he's writing in those roles is women who
Speaker 1: are obsessed with youth and regaining youth. And that's what
Speaker 1: I didn't love about Covin was that the whole story
Speaker 1: was about this woman who wants to hang onto youth
Speaker 1: by any means necessary, and that youth equates to power.
Speaker 1: When I think the great thing about which is historically
Speaker 1: is that which is are one of the few, you know,
Speaker 1: archetypes we have in culture of a powerful older woman,
Speaker 1: a powerful woman that has no problem being and also
Speaker 1: which is historically honor all the points of womanhood. Like
Speaker 1: when you talk about Hecate and the Triple Goddess, It's
Speaker 1: Maiden mother Crone. It's recognizing that those three parts of
Speaker 1: a woman's life are all equally important. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: while we love like hot fashion, which is like we
Speaker 1: love our Kieran and Schipkasas and like all that jazz,
Speaker 1: it's like actually like in the mad, mad amm of it,
Speaker 1: all the power of a witch is that she's like,
Speaker 1: I am as ugly as you can imagine and yet
Speaker 1: that that is no detriment to like my power and
Speaker 1: the power that I have over you. Right where in
Speaker 1: like non magical society, the uglier you are, the less
Speaker 1: power you have. But the Witch is like, you can
Speaker 1: do whatever you want to me, like you can't touch me.
Speaker 1: It's not even necessarily even ugliness. It's literally just age,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, right, sure, I was going to say
Speaker 1: on the Coven of it all? So I watched it
Speaker 1: for the first time last year, did you know that? Um,
Speaker 1: it's the only HS that I have finished that I
Speaker 1: did watch a lot of Murder House, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: really shook by how many big swings he took to
Speaker 1: like talk about black culture within like the show, but
Speaker 1: like it was never like built upon or like fleshed out.
Speaker 1: And also like he never had any black writers in
Speaker 1: his room, I don't think, or at least that's what
Speaker 1: I remember looking at when I was like watching it.
Speaker 1: Francis Conroy's character in Coven to me is like Ryan
Speaker 1: Murphietta's best right, A witch who cares, Yes, a witch
Speaker 1: who cares about labels is genius, and it cares about
Speaker 1: labels and is a snob, like is a maybe even
Speaker 1: like a classist. Like I thought that was so interesting
Speaker 1: the things that he was trying to say about like racism,
Speaker 1: and how like Kathy Bates was like this kind of
Speaker 1: belligerently white supremacist person who like learned her lesson by
Speaker 1: way of like Gabby Citabit. I was like, this did
Speaker 1: not age well at all, Like doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: to me. But again, it like came out at the
Speaker 1: exact right time, probably like came out exactly before people
Speaker 1: were fully canceling or like trying to call critique to
Speaker 1: things like this, right, Um, but yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: fact that it is a covenant like to our point,
Speaker 1: like that Coven's have this kind of like cultural meaning
Speaker 1: throughout time makes it one of Ryan Murphy's greatest contributions.
Speaker 1: And in and I you know, I like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: a solitary which story, you know, the Kikys of the world,
Speaker 1: and you know, um, but I think some of my
Speaker 1: favorite which stories are about sisterhood in community. That's why
Speaker 1: I love which is of Eastwick and practical Magic and
Speaker 1: even the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which you know had
Speaker 1: its issues. I was so excited about how it started.
Speaker 1: And I think it has one of the best trailers
Speaker 1: for a TV show ever made. As I think the
Speaker 1: first season, well maybe not the last two episodes, but
Speaker 1: the first season was season is really good. Um, the
Speaker 1: end was not great, but I think that show was
Speaker 1: most effective when it brought the witches together and you
Speaker 1: really felt that sense of like family and sisterhood, and
Speaker 1: that writer's room was also like black and trans right
Speaker 1: and they try to bring voodoo back to indigen eighty
Speaker 1: into blackness, which I thought was cool. Like there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things about the Sabrina franchise that was
Speaker 1: slightly reparative or trying to restore what maybe was erased
Speaker 1: in the the you know, the cannon of witchcraft, and
Speaker 1: you know that's something that if you look at Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: like there was never a moment in Harry Potter, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it was about a war and obviously
Speaker 1: you know, being on different side of the sides of
Speaker 1: the war and like fighting alongside people they're like magic
Speaker 1: system was one in which it was all about individual power.
Speaker 1: Was never a moment where we saw people like doing
Speaker 1: a spell together, And I don't know that's like maybe
Speaker 1: just a weird aside, but I think it's like very
Speaker 1: telling of the person who wrote it. I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, actually, that is kind of interesting. Like the
Speaker 1: only kind of communal, the communal like moments of magic
Speaker 1: in Harry Potter that I can think of are like
Speaker 1: what like when they when they build a fortress around
Speaker 1: But that's the only in the movies. It's not in
Speaker 1: the books. You know, it's not the book. It's not
Speaker 1: in the books, and you know what that scene is,
Speaker 1: so you know, there's no like Harry Potter that's a
Speaker 1: magic system. Where I think magic in Harry Potter is
Speaker 1: so banal and so every day and there's no sense
Speaker 1: of like wonder about it, and there's no real ritual
Speaker 1: around magic. There isn't um and I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of boring. I I prefer, you know, like I loved
Speaker 1: and Charmed when they would cold hands and say a spell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Harry Potter was trying to do a different version of it.
Speaker 1: But I will say, honestly, that scene where they're creating
Speaker 1: the fortress and when mcgonicall like um anthropomorphizes the statues
Speaker 1: makes me cry every time, sobbing and also sobbing, shitting
Speaker 1: throwing up. I was literally and that's not exactly. I
Speaker 1: remember physically crying, and I also think in the books,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's my favorite scene in the entire franchise.
Speaker 1: It's go we you know, have come so far from
Speaker 1: the you know, original iconography of the witch, like even
Speaker 1: from you know, Shakespeare, like oh yeah, the Three Witches,
Speaker 1: double double toil and troubles um, get something, get this
Speaker 1: where it comes and now and now I think we're
Speaker 1: at a point where we're looking back at historical witches
Speaker 1: through a different lens. Like you know, we've talked about
Speaker 1: the Madeline Miller effect on this podcast before. If you
Speaker 1: haven't read the novel Searcy, it's about Searcy, who's a
Speaker 1: demigoddess and you know, sort of the original witch in
Speaker 1: Greek mythology, and it's about her discovering that she is.
Speaker 1: You know, she kind of invents Switchcraft. I would kind
Speaker 1: of love to see that take applied to Like what
Speaker 1: if there was like a Madeline Miller esque Macbeth book
Speaker 1: on the Three Witches. You know, I'll bet you it
Speaker 1: does exist somewhere, but like, honestly, like the witches in Macbeth, honestly,
Speaker 1: like their whole function is like prophecy right, like they're
Speaker 1: the fates of the story, but they don't have any
Speaker 1: sort of like interiority or anything that really would be
Speaker 1: a good Um, we should write that, Orangine. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's been done in some kind of way.
Speaker 1: And now, of my thumbs and of the wicked witches
Speaker 1: in the culture, right now we have the Queen herself,
Speaker 1: Miss Wanda, Yes who this is chaos, This is chaos
Speaker 1: magic Wanda. I do think that Wanda is maybe the
Speaker 1: most culturally relevant which making work right now. She is.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of any others, like Sabrina is
Speaker 1: no longer relevant unfortunately, though I do think that Sabrina
Speaker 1: was what you were saying, that that kind of taking
Speaker 1: the witch narrative and making it something very contemporary. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been a while since we did our Multiverse of
Speaker 1: Madness episode and I have since rewatched it and I
Speaker 1: have kind of like shifted my take, please, which is
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a very good movie, and I
Speaker 1: think it kind of did want to dirty, and I
Speaker 1: think it kind of erodes all the character development that
Speaker 1: happened in one division because because she's so flatly villainous. Yes,
Speaker 1: I agree with that, because she's way more complex in
Speaker 1: the show, and so it is to me really discarding.
Speaker 1: And she's also just not the main character, which is frustrating,
Speaker 1: and it just shows that she didn't learn her lesson,
Speaker 1: because the whole of wand Division is about her realizing
Speaker 1: that she can't use magic to get something she wants
Speaker 1: at other people's expense, and she literally starts over and
Speaker 1: does that again in Doctor Strange. I also thought the
Speaker 1: way she was vanquished was unbelievable, Like she got crushed
Speaker 1: by I was like, I was, obviously she's not that,
Speaker 1: but I think she vanquished herself and disappeared, and I
Speaker 1: hope there's more from her. I hope we get like
Speaker 1: one of Wanda's actual iconic storylines from the comics. I
Speaker 1: think get will probably be a while, just because they
Speaker 1: need to do so much setting up this next the
Speaker 1: next few phases of the m c U for us
Speaker 1: to get to Mutants and like possibly to like House
Speaker 1: of m and is Agatha slated for next year though?
Speaker 1: Next year? Yeah, Agatha, And it has a new name now,
Speaker 1: it's COVID of Chaos. Why so you know this? The
Speaker 1: thing is because witches have always existed in culture, and
Speaker 1: in pop culture they are cyclical, So I think we
Speaker 1: are due for a more kind of full throated, like
Speaker 1: actual resurgence of a lot of different types of witches
Speaker 1: in media at some point. The way that we have
Speaker 1: gotten on and off with vampires, with werewolves, with all
Speaker 1: of the above, and things like true Blood. Um, the
Speaker 1: witches and true Blood kind of suck though, Um God,
Speaker 1: I could talk. I could talk for hours about which
Speaker 1: is I could too, honestly, And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it has to do with the fact that by
Speaker 1: definition they are a part of a subculture and therefore
Speaker 1: inherently like queer slash trans you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: I think that in terms of like what I would
Speaker 1: love to see from future which stories is something of
Speaker 1: what Sabrina was trying to do, which is, show us
Speaker 1: a slate of which or maybe the Charmed reboot, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, show us a slate of which
Speaker 1: is that place witchcraft in queerness, tranceness, ostragization. Well, that
Speaker 1: happened in a book that I talked about on this
Speaker 1: podcast recently, Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson. I
Speaker 1: described it sort of shortly then, but I'll like describe
Speaker 1: it a little bit more at length here. So it's
Speaker 1: a novel about a society in England in which witches
Speaker 1: have always had kind of a secret shadow government inside
Speaker 1: the actual government, and they govern themselves and you know,
Speaker 1: deal with supernatural events and have like liaisons with the
Speaker 1: main government. And a couple of years before the novel
Speaker 1: takes place, there was a magical war, and so the
Speaker 1: main characters are all now coming off a couple of
Speaker 1: years since that war ended. There are a group of
Speaker 1: friends who grew up together very closely. They're all witches,
Speaker 1: and they've now all kind of fallen out of touch.
Speaker 1: And one of the witches has broken off from the
Speaker 1: main coven because it was entirely made up of white witches,
Speaker 1: and she's now formed her own more inclusive coven um
Speaker 1: that's I think called diaspora, which is like a bit
Speaker 1: on the nose. But and then, you know, most interestingly,
Speaker 1: um so in this world, witches are only women, and
Speaker 1: they are significantly more powerful than their male counterparts, warlocks.
Speaker 1: And they find a child who they believed to be
Speaker 1: the anti Christ. He's a boy who has much more
Speaker 1: magical ability than he should have. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: this person is a trans woman and that's why she
Speaker 1: is more powerful, and so it has all of the
Speaker 1: characters kind of question how they feel about that. Several
Speaker 1: of them were like, oh, it makes sense, she's a girl,
Speaker 1: that's why she's more powerful, and there's never really a
Speaker 1: question of like the science or like the magic, just
Speaker 1: like some of them obviously have to work through different
Speaker 1: ways that they feel about it, but they do kind
Speaker 1: of say like, Okay, well, this person is who she is.
Speaker 1: But then one of the women who is the leader
Speaker 1: of the coven is a turf and doesn't want this
Speaker 1: person invading women's spaces. Remember you telling me that it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a really really good book and it does
Speaker 1: all of those things that you were just talking about,
Speaker 1: which is need this movie adaptation, which is placing these
Speaker 1: archetypes and kind of the same stories we tell about,
Speaker 1: which is over and over again in a very contemporary setting,
Speaker 1: and like throwing identity politics at them and seeing how
Speaker 1: they work out. And that's something I'm so interested to
Speaker 1: see what the next evolution of the Witch as a
Speaker 1: cultural figure is and I think we will be the
Speaker 1: ones to do it. Yeah, we will be the ones. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that is down on week one of our special
Speaker 1: Halloween Extravaganza. Next week we'll be back with two new episodes.
Speaker 1: A special episode all about Silence of the Lambs which
Speaker 1: I've never seen, which friend has never seen, and then
Speaker 1: on Thursday and episode all about Tim Burton. So go
Speaker 1: back watch Edward Scissor Hands or Sleepy Hollow or Beetlejuice,
Speaker 1: whatever and um in the meantime finals. On social, you
Speaker 1: can tag our finsta at Like a Virgin, slide into
Speaker 1: our d ms. We want to hear from you. Also,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rating
Speaker 1: on Spotify. It helps us out so much. We cannot
Speaker 1: tell you how much. I'm your co host Rose Damn You,
Speaker 1: and I am fran Dorato. You can find me anywhere
Speaker 1: on Social at Rose Damn You. You can find me
Speaker 1: at Franz Squish co. You can subscribe to Like a
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Speaker 1: an i Heeart radio production. Our producer is phoebe Unter,
Speaker 1: with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane Trich
Speaker 1: and Nikkiatur until next week. Double double toil and trouble
Speaker 1: until next week. Sisters, we've f lie lim My Brande