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American Horror Story: Hotel


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Yeah, the baby thing still bothers the hell out of me.

 

Coven was silly and stupid but on the whole a bit of entertaining fluff, so I watched the whole thing with no ill will.

 

Dex should be proud of me for not freaking out about the misportrayal of witches and voodoo :p

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Total deja vu here. We have had this conversation before.

 

Okay. Vampires as bloodsuckers basically aren't real. They're essentially a metaphor for rape/disease/what have you.

 

Witches are real. Okay, so they're probably not levitating, or Avada Kedavra-ing your sorry dead ass, but it's a real religion.

 

Ever heard a fundamentalist Christian talk about Jesus Christ Superstar? That's about how witches feel about bad portrayals of their religion.

 

Except witches have historically been hunted down and killed for their beliefs, and that lingers in our society. Remember the blue moon about a year ago? There was a killing on the night of the blue moon in Florida. The police chief initially publicly declared that it was clearly a ritualized murder by a coven of witches, due to it's timing. It wasn't. At all. Mind you, this was just last year. Not in colonial Salem.

 

This is the shit witches live with. Media portrayals of witches as evil characters has a very real impact on real people's lives because it shapes public perceptions.

 

I didn't mind Coven. The characters were all complex and human enough that while the things they were doing were despicable at times, it wasn't because they were witches, it was because they were flawed humans.

 

I will be stringently boycotting The Witch. Nothing good will come from that movie, at least based on the previews.

 

Regarding the use of magic in pop culture... my grandma ran in the Catholic clergy circles in the 70's... I've never fully understood why, since she's an agnostic of Jewish descent, but she had a lot of priest and nun friends. She saw The Exorcist with a group of priests, who wanted to see the movie because they had all learned the Rites of Exorcism, and wanted to see if they got it right in the movie (apparently they did).

 

Witches are the same way. Awesome, powerful magic is cool because that would be SWEET AS fuck if you could actually do it. Magic being 100% curses and zombification is bullshit. You'll pretty much never see real magic on screen because it's not flashy enough. But if you get it so wrong, we will mock you (like when Cordelia asked Marie Laveau when the next full moon was and I was like WITCH PLEASE).

 

So, anyway, tl;dr - fair, truthful representation is important. Fair but fantastical representation is fun. Just don't demonize anyone.

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I totally get what you're saying.

 

For me it's just two totally different things. You have real witches ... then you have magical entities depicted in Entertainment who go by the same name and that's where the resemblance ends. Might as well call them Gundars for all the connection they have to real witches. I love Gundar stories. Gundar are awesome in fiction. Fictional magic is awesome. I think any healthy sane people in the world see it the same way. They're not watching a movie or show about witches and thinking about the real witch who lives down the street. And the people who do harass real witches were going to find a reason to harass somebody no matter what.

 

I think the solution here is just start using a different name. There has to be some mythological equivalent that isn't being practiced by real people today. I mean human form fairies could stand in. There's no witch story in the past 30 years that couldn't have just been a human form fairy

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I disagree that reasonable people wouldn't believe fantasy. It sounds logical on the surface, but when your pastor is telling you that witches are worshipping Satan (yes, that happens), and your law enforcement is telling you that witches are murdering people in your community (yes, that happens, too), and then you see evil witches in a movie without a counterpoint... it just solidifies the stereotype.

 

The problem with just renaming magical characters as something other than witches is that positive representation is helpful. Willow on Buffy brought a lot of people into Wicca. Some were annoying teenage dabblers, and some are now respected members of the community. But she was portrayed as a positive ally character, and people responded well to that. Same with Harry Potter.

 

Fair representation is all I'm saying. Don't be lazy and use a witch as your one-note antag. If you must use a witch as an antag, do it in a way that won't slander a whole religion and lifestyle.

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My best friend self-identifies as witch and is pretty legit. She's got the library and lifestyle and even her job are all centered around it. She actually has a bigger disdain for "white witches" and/or "pagans" that are usually middle aged women who like oils and tarot cards.

 

I'm not saying my friend is evil, far from it-- but she loves traditional horror movies witches-- especially ones from the 70s. She likes to own it. Little kids see her in the grocery store and call her a witch. The parents are scandalized and apologetic, and my friend usually says "kids are super intuative."

 

I'm sure you guys have seen her on my FB

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Well, yeah, I mean I assumed everyone knew that this is all my own take on things. The majority of the witches I know basically agree with me, but that's a handful of people. I can't claim to speak for everyone any more than anyone else can.

 

My side hustle is witchcraft-based (tarot card reader for hire), and a lot of my opinion about this is formed by the people I meet while reading. I seem to attract the first timers. I have some people who desperately want to try a reading, but they are honestly shaking when they sit down at my booth. I mean, I'm an extremely friendly person, and these people are SCARED of me just because they've been told people like me are scary.

 

It would make my life easier if people could see some nuance when it comes to witchcraft.

 

Also, I'm sure your friend hates me on general principle for my card reading and homebrew Florida water, but oh well.

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Hahaha-- no, no-- she hates everybody. She's one of those people that loves to be angry. My aunt is actually doing the exact same stuff as you. There's this lady here on my block that parks a remodeled gypsy bus in front of our farmer's market and cleans up every weekend charging the hipster girls and Hollywood Hills trophy wives $50 a read.

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