The October 30 issue of Entertainment Weekly has a article on 
pages 12 and 13 about the emergence of Wicca in movies, TV shows,
and the lives of celebrities.  "Madonna is about five minutes away
from discovering it," says one Wiccan.  The article includes 
evaluations of a movie and two TV shows by Wiccans, who seem to like
"Sabrina the Teenage Witch" best because it avoids "baneful magic."
The creator and producer of "Sabrina," however, claims that the show
is simple entertainment which will "never ever touch genuine 
witchcraft."  Interesting article.

How do the Wiccans here feel about all the spotlights turning in
their direction?

110 responses total.

I've been ignoring it since I lost interest in Samantha Stevens.

<giggle> yeah.
I don't get much contact with "popular media", mostly by choice and somewhat
by lack of time.  The network-TV Oddessy wasn't bad, really.  BBC's RobinHood
was pretty pagan in its way.  Mostly, I think we'll have "arrived", not just
when we're a niche market (see above...), but when there are characters in
sitcoms who are the best friend- who happens to be Wiccan, or the sexy lawyer-
who happens to be wiccan, etc.; boring, mainstream, barely a character detail.
The bad, tacky versions are somewhere between laughable and a hassle as we
attempt to debunk them.  I prefer the egregiously nonsensical, utterly
hollywood ("Witches", "HocusPocus") to the almost-believable ("The Craft"),
since some folks really do believe what they see. <sigh>

Madonna is a long way off from Wicca; that's pure arrogance on the quoted
person's part; she's kneedeep in Eastern mysticism and shows no sign of
dislodging.

As for Sabrina, eh. It's a cute sitcom. It appears to be the same plot over
and over: Sabrina misbehaves; the Council threatens to take her magic away;
she learns her Sugar-Coated Morality Lesson; dancing, songs, and smiles. It
is *not* about Wicca, nor is "Charmed" (the new WB drama about a trio of
sisters with paranormal "witch" powers)... it's Hollywood zap crap again, just
like Bewitched.

I'd love it if the Hollywood spotlight were turned seriously on Wiccans. It
isn't.

        To be fair, it's not turned seriously on any other religion, either.
Treatment of Christian legends is somewhat more accurate (if only because
Hollyweird has more accurate knowledge thereof) but equally theatrical and
modified-for-dramatic-purposes.

        It'd really be refreshing to see a character on a serious drama
"come out" as Pagan, and have a subplot dealing with their trials and
tribulations "coming out".  But that would require independent thought.

True. One of the major evening dramas (LA Law, I beleive) had a Christian
character... she was non-proselytizing, but freely discussed her view of the
universe, including her Christianity, when people asked. Other characters
would occasionally come to her and say, "I'm feeling *whatever*... how do you
deal with that," and she would give a straightforward answer abouther own
experience.

The critics condemned the character for open proselytizing and trying to
convert the audience. Myself, I thought that the character was one of the most
positive portrayals I'd even seen in my life of an openly spiritual person,
and applauded the show and the network for including the character.

It's been said before...if they did a movie that portrayed true
Wiccans, it would be kind of "boring".  Hollywood and audiences
*like* seeing people casting spells and flying through the air.  The
binding spell in _The Craft_ didn't bother me as much as when they
were hovering near the ceiling.  ;-)  I loved the bookstore owner,
though.  She had some good points about not learning everything from
books and that true magick comes from within, blah blah blah. 

I like fun TV shows and movies about witches (as Kami mentioned,
"Hocus Pocus") because that's just it...they're *fun*.  I see those
as being more about Halloween witches than Witches/Wicca.  

I don't think any religion is ever completely accurately portrayed
according to its "followers", so the wannabes will always exist.  I
still see movies set in the 1980's where they're having a Catholic
mass in the old Latin.  That stopped with Vatican II in the sixties.
But, it's *romantic*, and it draws some people to the Catholic
church.  I digress...

Those interested in a movie featuring a realistic Wiccan, check out:

        http://www.drawingdownthemoon.com/

(The movie is still looking for a distributor after more than
two years - I guess nobody is interested after all!  >8(

#6> there have been accurate portrayals of christianity and, moreso, Judaism.
I think the number of accurate portrayals of Judaism are due to the higher
emphasis on the arts and maintaining artistic heritage, the conception that
there are a small number of Jewish "cultures" (three, according to Jenna),
and the substantial financial base in Hollywood for Jewish talent (Steven
Speilberg, Woody Allen, and Mel Brooks, to name three directors).

(This isn't a complaint, btw, lest the JADL come after me... I know that a
lot of anti-Semites sit around complaining that Hollywood, particularly
comedy, is controlled by Jews. It *is* true that Jews control a substantial
part of the entertainment industry, and I think it's wonderful that Judaism,
as a culture, values the arts and has an outlet for that expression.)

More than 3 Brighn; in addition to Orthodox, Conservative and Reform
congregations, there are Reconstructionists- they are sort of neo-mystical,
and Chasidic-extremely orthodox mystical.

Actually, Jenna's breakdown was geographic, not theological (Middle Eastern,
Eastern European, and um.... I forget her "third"). Her basis was that the
cultural similarities between an Orthodox and a Conservative Jew from the same
basic region was higher than the cultural similarities between an Orthodox
Jew from Israel and an Orthodox Jew from Russia. From what experience I have,
I'm inclined to agree with her viewpoint. *shrug*

Theologically, there are at least five... the four you listed, and the secular
Jews. Maybe the fact that Jenna is a secular Jew reflects why she doesn't put
much emphasis on theological differences. =}

Does anybody see the Detroit News? I won't buy it, but we've had some
discussion of an article, based on interviews with Kami, Ivory Cat, and me
that may or may not have been unfair to Ivory, who was ready to sue them for
misstatements. Oakland Press also printed an interview with Ivory, together
with her picture, which seems to have been much better for her. Big problem
with this sort of thing is their need for titillating their readers. 

        It's the good old majority-minorities problem.  You get representation
only if you're in a large enough majority;  Judaism and Islam are very popular
religions in America, although not a majority, so they have some accurate
media representation.  Christianity isn't a minority, so it doesn't have to
have representation - perhaps some obscure sects might - and Paganism isn't
a large enough minority.

Re #3: Sabrina has always been a televisionization of Sabrina the 
Teenage Witch from Archie Comics.  I've always been more want to wonder 
where the rest of the Archies characters (even just as a cameo) are in 
that series than any relation to Wicca.

Don't laugh too hard, but it's probably because the folks who make
the TV show only have the rights to use Sabrina, not Archie or
Jughead or Veronica or any of the others.  The same reason you
don't see Spiderman and the X-Men in the same cartoon show -
the shows are made by different companies, even though both are
based on the Marvel comics universe.  (DC comic book characters
don't have that problem, since DC is owned by the Time-Warner-Turner
conglomerate, which makes all of the shows and holds all of the
rights to the characters.)

Not to continue drifting, but I do believe that I have seen spidey on at least
one X-Men episode.  Now, as to seeing the Silver Surfer on either might aslo
be a problem since that's Haim Saban (eeew.  I hat to say it, but he and
whomever he worked with did a really good job with this, unlike his earlier
shows which I think every one of is crap.) domain.

set drift = off.

I've never seen an accurate portrayal of Muslims.
I still contend that the accurate portrayal of Jews is not because of their
being a large enough minority, but because they're the ones making the movies.

Has anyone seen the movie Practical Magic?  I haven't seen it yet, but I want
to.  From what I can tell it is a semi-acurate potrayal along with the needed
Hollywood crap thrown in, but as I say I haven't seen it so I'm not positive
as to it's protrayal.

As for Sabrina I'm with gypsi (hope i didn't spell the login wrong) I think
it is cute and entertaining and that is the point of the show.  The show isn't
about Wicca or really even witches it's about growing up and being a teenager,
same as the ill fated 80's show Out of This World, that revolved around a
teenage  girl who's father was an alien.... 

As for the WB show I've only watched it once and wasn't thrilled with it. 
Not from a Wiccan view but from the perspective of someone who has some idea
about writing (although I can't spell) There were so many plot loopholes int
he show I saw that I found myself calling the writer many choice words....

Ok I think I'm done rambling..

Brighn, judging from the movies they make, many or most Jewish
filmmakers are consumed with self-hatred.  Some of the caricatures
of Jews I've seen are so grotesque they offend *me*, and I'm not
even Jewish.  Look, for example, at the Jewish couple portrayed
by Elliott Gould and Lainie Kazan in The Big Hit.  Gene Siskel spoke
at a local meeting of Jews recently and made the same point.  These
portrayals aren't even a little bit accurate.

Woody Allen and Mel Brooks do a good deal of wallowing, too, for that matter,
particularly the former.

But I don't think it's fair to say that negative portrayal of Jewish
stereotypes, when presented in a general context of Jewish life, necessarily
reflect self-hatred.

In Deconstructing Harry, for instance, there are some *obscene* depictions
of Jews. But in the context -- a secular Jew's perspective on how his more
religious brother-in-law behaves -- I don't think it's necessarily inaccurate
so much as it's magnified. There's a difference.

Many of the more obscene depictions are in the context of adults remembering
their childhood, and frankly, most of us exaggerate our negative memories and
downplay our positive ones. If I were to write depictions of my childhood as
the son of a minister (and I have, but not in detail), I would fill it with
old ladies with too much perfume, busybodies who make three-bean salad and
fight over who's brining the carrot-jello to the potluck.

An item in the paper a couple of days ago suggested a strong Muslim resonse
to their depiction in a recent movie. Certainly Blacks and Native Americans
have been badly treated. For that matter, one comic strip regularly depicts
an elderly man as stupid and ridiculous, but it hasn't produced much of a
response, except in those of us who hate to see ourselves satirized. But it's
hard to send out a message "Be thoughtful of other people's feelings, deal
kindly with those who might be distressed by your so-called humor." That would
kill off nine-tenths of the humor industry at one blow. Same goes for silly
depictions of us witches. If somebody wants to laugh at us, I just say,
quietly, "That's all you know." And then go howl at the moon.

The current Utne Reader has an article about the controversy which
supposedly is raging about the origins of Wicca.  The conclusion
seems to be that it is a 20th century invention with few or no
ancient roots and no continuity or direct link to whatever it is
actual witches used to do.  I've known for a long time that there
were "old believers" who do claim such continuity and who aren't
especially impressed with Wiccans and their book-learning.  The
article quotes a well-known Wiccan as saying that none of this
really matters or is relevant to the power and truth of Wicca.
What impressed me most about this article was the assertion that
Wicca is one of the fastest-growing religions with hundreds of
thousands of practitioners, and that it won't be long before it
enters the mainstream.  Part of me feels a twinge of regret at
this possibility, but for the most part I think it's a good thing.

The reason they can't find any historical references from "back in
the day" is because the Catholics who stormed into Ireland,
Scotland, etc destroyed all of the materials, books, and other means
of learning or practicing Wicca.  Thank you, St. Patrick.  =}  I
swear I'm the only Irish person who *doesn't* celebrate that day... 
<g>

Thanks, md.  I think I'll go look for that issue of Utne at Shaman Drum. (how
appropriate...<g>)
Gypsi, I'm sorry, but that article is accurate.  *Wicca*, as such, can be
traced back directly to--Gerald Gardner.  Period.  His claims of being
initiated into "the Oldforest Coven" grow flimsier the more information we
get.  On the other hand, folks who study such things find more and more
indication that the time he spent in Malaysia (?) had a very great influence
on his work.  Certainly, the surviving folk customs of Northern Europe are
a strong thread in what came to be Wicca, and can still be drawn upon for
inspiration.  That, in its way, is our "direct link", along with a sincere
reverence for world mythology as a kind of truth about how to be in
relationship with the gods.
Now, as to the "Catholics" "storming" into Ireland, etc.--there weren't any
Catholics at that time.  The Christians showed up, told stories, built
churches, taught, healed, preached, occasionally pulled a dirty trick like
St. P. being the first to light the fire upon the hilltop at Beltaine, thus
"claiming" the land for his god.  They also listened to stories and wrote them
down (The Colloquy of Old Men being an example of a story of sharing stories).
Some were undoubtedly lost, changed or "whitewashed" in the process, but more
were preserved.  The *vikings*- who were essentially testosterone laden/hunger
or greed driven young men, not a fair representative of the Norse people,
burned churches Groves and villages, distroying many records in the process.
To the best of our knowledge, while the assertion that the Celtic
people/Druids never wrote down anything of importance has been discredited
by finding Roman-era spell tablets, they *were* mostly an oral culture.  The
Christians were a "people of the book".  Put it together.
No great villain her, sorry.

Okay...then I get to blame all of my history teachers now.  =)
<shrug>

        Gardner also had some strong influences from Crowley, who initiated
him into the Golden Dawn for a fee (though there's little validity to
Crowley's own initiation).  Wicca itself is roughly a century old.

        Most neopagan beliefs suffer from a lack of written materials,
particularly the Norse tradition, in which the two Eddas are practically the
only surviving reliable source, and Snorri (can't recall his last name)'s
Christian prejudices permeate it.

I would take umbrage with Kami's viewpoint, too, actually. 
Implying that the vikings, not the christians (who were predominantly Roman
at the time), were responsible for destroying Irish Celticism is, in my mind,
similar to, oh, I don't know, implying the Jews, not the pagans (who were
predominantly Roman at the time), were responsible for killing Jesus.

It's especially annoying that she paints a picture of Christians and Druids
holding hands in loving peace, until them nasty ol' vikings came along and
killed the wonderment, and then says "There are no villains here." It sure
SOUNDS like there are some villains in her view.

As to the non-existence of Catholics, that's wrong, too. The Roman Catholic
Church officially came into being when Constantine declared Christianity to
be the official religion of the Roman Empire in 312. Patrick, generally
considered the major force in Christianizing Ireland, was born around 390.
(Sources: NY Public Library Desk Reference; Webster's Family Encyclopedia.)

the generally accepted view of what happened in Ireland, relevant to pagans:
The Roman Empire (pagan) was welcomed, primarily because of the protection
it offered from various barbarian groups, including the Picts to the north.
When the Roman Empire withdrew its forces from the UK during a general
collapse of the Empire, the Irish Celts called on Germanic mercenaries for
protection, being poorly versed themselves in water-based warfare (having
grown accustomed to Roman protection). The Germanic peoples, as opportunistic
as most groups of that time period, took the opportunity to take over England,
but were less interested in Ireland. (Irish Celts up there should just say
"Celts".) Place nanes in England indicate the problem with Kami's claim that
the vikings who invaded have little to do with the Germanic peoples... England
itself is Angle-land, while Essex, Wessex, and Sussex were areas of Saxon
domination (Angle is also visible in East Anglia, while other place names bear
the names of other Germanic tribes). For that matter, *English* is a Germanic
language, brought with the barbarians during their conquests. This isn't bunch
of testerone-drunk teens joyriding in daddy's ship, this is afull-scale,
organized, and opportunistic sack of England and parts of Scotland and
Ireland. they were, however, satisfied with England, and left Ireland mostly
to the former inhabitants. The Christian church came and made no effort to
conceal that their goal, like the Anglo-Saxon's goal, was to overtake the
religions. While they may have recorded some of the local folklore, for the
most part, they hardly viewed it as viable or appropriate as a religion; it
was anything from quaint folklore to toxic devil-worshipping. It is true that,
for the most part, the Christians couldn't be help responsible for destroying
the written texts (held responsible that is), since there weren't any; but
blaming the destruction of Irish Paganism on joyriding vikings is reckless,
too.

When one culture conquers another, one of two things happen with the conquered
religion's religious beliefs: It is syncretized, or it is demonized. Some of
each of these happened each time the UK was conquered by a new group
(including, for that matter, the Celts, who weren't aboriginal, either...
depending on the source, either the Picts were the aboriginal group, or they
were an offshoot of the Celts and some other group -- the ones who built
Stonehenge -- predated everyone. It's possible that the people who built
Stonehenge were gone by the time the Celts showed up, but that's dubious for
a reason that will be apparent in a moment.)

When a religion is syncretized, three things can happen: the old Gods are
demoted to demi-god status (and come to be called "fairies" or some such; both
Celtic and Germanic religions are full of fairy stories) -- indeed, the
existence of a robust fairy pantheon, as opposed to an odd assortment of
ghosts and spirits, can often imply the existence of an earlier, conquered
religion; the old Gods take their place among the new ones -- this is only
possible when the conquering religion is poly- or pantheistic (Loki, for
instance, is generally considered to be such a God, since his behavior, his
universality, and his name don't follow standard Germanic patterns); the old
Gods are mapped onto the new ones, in some sort of one-to-one correspondence
-- this is case with the African slave-originating religions, such as voudon
and Santeria.

When a religion is demonized, either it is stamped out entirely, or the main
Gods are incorporated into the new pantheon as demons. This is why the devil,
particularly the Old Testament (Judaic) version, has so many names. Pan has
been both syncretized (into Puck/Robin goodfellow, who is a phooka fairy) and
demonized (like Pan, the Christian devil has horns and goat legs).

These are the standard things that happen, they're perfectly normal, and
that's why it's so hard to determine what the "true" beliefs of a given people
at a given time were, unless they wrote something down themselves. Even then,
it's difficult to filter out what's considered fantasy by the people
themselves (imagine an anthopologist of 3054 finding a David Eddings book and
concluding it's a religious text, and, further, what percentage of Christians
today believe in transubstantiation -- or even know the WORD -- despite the
fact that it's still part of Catholic belief, officially).

Further, it's likely that your history books are incorrect on some points.
It's definite that Kami is incorrect on some points. It's assured that I'm
incorrect on some point. don't throw out your history books because Kami
presents a view of Christians and PAgans sitting around the campfire singing
"Kum by Ya."

Well I knew they had never done that...it's just that everyone seems
to have a different idea of what happened.  

Now I'm *really* confused.  =)  I think my initial problem was that
I forgot we were discussing *Wicca*'s origins and not the
Celtic/Druid origin of religion.

Hm. I wonder why there would be so many different accounts and viewpoints.
It's not like we're taking 600-1000 years of history and protohistory
involving about a dozen significant cultural groups, and hundreds of notable
people (most of which are lost to history), and attempting to summarize it
in a few paragraphs. Nope, no idea why there would be dissension. =}

(Protohistory: A period in which the information about the culture under
question is gathered from contemporary sources outside of that culture,
because the culture under question is either illiterate, or doesn't use
literacy to record historical events.)

Wicca originated in the 20th Century. Kami already said that. =}

When we held our first Wiccan rituals in Ann Arbor, in 1948, we had no
knowledge of Gardner & Friends in England at that time. I relied on records
from the witch trials, attempting to pick bits and pieces of truth out of the
garbage that the witches were forced to "confess" to. A friend, Clayton Bredt,
who was into Medieval stuff, located Rabelais' Abbe de Theleme, a fictional
co-ed monastery, where the single rule was "Do as thou wilst." (I've forgotten
the Old French version of this.) I suspect most witches of this era were doing
pretty much the same thing. Leland's Aradia, from 1889, was also a source of
information, although there have been serious criticisms of his informer, who
may have been faking what she knew. Of course Crowley picked up a good deal
of what he knew from the Golden Dawn, which he joined in 1898 or so. And there
were certainly going covens in England before witchcraft was decriminalized
there in 1951. Those incredibly courageous people that used ritual to prevent
a German invasion were probably typical of witches of that period. In this
country, the feminist influence has been prominent. One of the most
influential has been Z Budapest, who grew up in Hungary with a strong
attachment to an old family tradition here. These old family traditions have
been around for a long time. I studied for three years with a high priestess
who could trace her family lineage back 300 years. The piont in all this is
to say that Gardner, for all his importance in tying together a variety of
strands -- including old family traditions that were just beginning to
reappear after the centuries of persecution -- did not suddenly invent Wicca
out of his own imagination in the 1940s.

He didn't invent Wicca out of his own imagination. Of course not.
Religions that are so invented (and there are some) tend to lack depth,
sincerity, focus, and the like.

But Wicca as most people know it today has been filtered through Gardner, and
the evidence is paltry that it predated him much beyond a generation or two.
Most of your own support doesn't date back beyond the late eighteenth century,
with the exception to a famtrad (which I don't take much stock in
personally... Valerie could famtrad back four generations, at least, if she
wanted to) and the Inquisition. At any rate, it would be nearly impossible
to argue that anything in Wicca predates Christianity, except perhaps the
dual-dualism of the four elements, which is either Platonic, Native American,
or merely a cultural universal.

Why is lineage so important, anyway? Why do neopagans in general feel the need
to demonstrate that what they practice in their ritual spaces is the same
thing that the witches in Salem were hung for practicing?

Truth is, more likely than not, the witches in Salem were hung for
sociopolotical reasons that had nothing to do with their religion, because
they were good little Puritans (the only non-Christian involved being the
black slave, who was probaably Voudon). And most of the people killed in the
Inquisition were killed for similar reasons, having little to do with
attempting to practice an organized system of religious belief other than
Christianity or Judaism. If anything, the witchcraft that they engaged in was
holistic and philosophical, not religious at all. (That's not to say that
*none* of the victims of the Inquisition were practicing pagan *religions*,
but rather that the overwhelming brunt of evidence suggests that most of them
were political victims or practicing non-Christian *philosophies and
medicine*.)

One of the contestants on Win Ben Stein's Money recently
was a wiccan.  Ben and Jimmy kept making wisecracks 
about how she was casting evil spells on Ben and the other
contestants.

        Good thing she didn't counter with Jewish jokes against Ben.

As a matter of fact, the two first-round winners, including
the wiccan, both had Jewish names, so Jimmy Kimmel
naturally had to make jokes about them and Ben.  Nothing
is sacred on that show.

Never seen it.  Explain, please?

Win Ben Stein's Money is a quiz show on Comedy Central.
It's on every night at 7:30 and repeated at 11:30.  

Ben Stein is the fellow who played the very boring HS teacher 
in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  He also used to be a speech-writer 
for Richard Nixon and still has Republican Party connections.
His "persona" is this rather stuffy, snide, know-it-all who puts
up $5,000 of his own money every night and battles it out
with the "common contestants."  At the end of the show, 
after a process of elimination, the remaining contestant and 
Ben enter separate isolation booths and have to answer 10 
questions.  Ben's isolation booth is luxurious -- easy chair, 
Van Gogh on the wall, etc. -- and the contestant's booth 
looks like a decrepit prison cell.  

The moderator of the show is Jimmy Kimmel, who is one of
the nastiest wits on TV.  In addition to reciting the rules, the
categories and the questions, Kimmel spends each show 
insulting the contestants (and Ben).  Each contestant gives
an "interesting fact" about him or herself and Jimmy (and 
Ben) run with it.  For example, one contestant announced
that she was a psychic healer, to which Jimmy responded,
"Oh, so you're a swindler."  

The game categories consist of silly and sometimes
obscene puns.  If one of the contestants, as sometimes
happens, accidentally answers a question with a question
("Who is George W. Bush?"), in confusion with Jeopardy,
Ben puts a big dunce hat on his or her head for the remainder
of the show.  It is one of the most popular basic cable shows.

Wow! The American sense of humour sinks to a new low.  Well, at least no one
gets slimed with green paint or made to eat anything disgusting.  I hate to
admit it, but with obscene puns, I might enjoy it, too. <sigh>

Not sure I'd have the guts to admit to being a "psychic healer" in such a
forum.  Brave, or glutton for punishment, one wonders...

Actually, MD sells the program short in his description. For one thing, Jimmy
Kimme is a far cry from Rodney Dangerfield or Don Rickles; for that matter,
he's not even as snide as David Spade or Howard Stern. For another, the
gimmick of having the host (Ben Stein) become one of the contestants
reinforces that the jabs are light-hearted. 

Other cultural references Kami's not likely to get: Ben Stein had a cameo in
"Dave" as one of Frank Langella's supporters, and played a teacher on The
Wonder Years.

As to American comedy sinking to a new law, that's Jimmy Kimmel's other show,
"The Man Show", cohosted with Adam Corolla, who (interestingly enough) came
to fame by sidekicking with cable TV's other conservative in hiding, Dr Drew
of MTV's Loveline.\

Agreed.  I bet you'd love Win Ben Stein's Money, kami.

I'm a devoted viewer of WBSM, and a little surprised at how
people seem to be reacting to it.  Jimmy's barbs are hardly
the nastiest on television, heck, I've done worse thatn his.
(And he is a fellow Scorpio, for those who hadn't guessed!)
And the quality of the questions is the best I've seen on
any TV show this side of the $64,000 Question, putting Jeopardy!
to shame.  Remember, this show won three Emmys for game shows
this year.

I did tape the episode with the Wiccan contestant, as well at
the "Vs." episode pitting Witches vs. Santas, so we might
be able to organize a viewing party at some point.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss