Perhaps we should call today’s prime-time television “the witching hours.”
Perhaps you haven’t seen the witches. Perhaps your television diet consists (like mine does) of old Dick Van Dyke Show reruns and Downton Abbey on Blu Ray. But they are everywhere, it would seem, brewing potions on broadcast television, cackling on cable.
Yes, witches are having a moment on television—so much so that some have taken to calling the 2013-14 television season the season of the witch.
In just the shows that Plugged In has reviewed this season, we’ve seen them in Fox’s Sleepy Hollow (populated by a coven of “good” witches), CW’s The Originals (where witches battle werewolves), NBC’s Grimm (in the guise of fearsome Hexenbiests) and HBO’s True Blood (because really, why not?). The entire season of FX’s freakshow American Horror Story is predicated on a group of witches (the season is appropriately titled “Coven”). Lifetime’s airing a show called Witches of East End that we’ve not reviewed yet. And we’re not even counting the more Disney-fied witches of Once Upon a Time and its spinoff, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It’s enough to make some want to put away the Cheetos as a television snack and rip open a bag of newt eyes.
Oh, and CBS is plotting to reboot the old WB series Charmed. Good thing witches have brooms, because it seems they’re sweeping up.
Writes Megan Basham of World magazine:
Given the rising demand for occult-themed shows, it’s hard to blame CBS—the home of hits like NCIS, Person of Interest, and Bluebloods—if they’re suddenly scrambling to find their own entry into the field. It may reveal nothing more about the Tiffany network than a desire to compete. The question is, what does it reveal about American TV viewers?
It’s a good question: What does it say about them? About us?
First, I think we should say that watching The Originals does not necessarily make one join a coven. Problematic as this trend may be, I do not believe that the television industry has any stronger ties with Wicca than it does with Christianity. I don’t want to turn this column into a—well, witch hunt.
But there are, obviously, some interesting things brewing.
One, some of these stories may use witches as metaphors for power or empowerment. These shows, remember, are often written by people who don’t know or care about a biblical understanding of witchcraft. When they see a witch, some don’t see a follower of Satan or someone engaging in activities forbidden by the Bible. They see a social or political rebel, often repressed but always ready to stick it to The Man. Sometimes these stories can take on a sheen of female empowerment. At other times, these shows might speak to a more adolescent desire to push back against the status quo. They can be a reflection of our very uncertain times, when so much seems out of control: Through these magic-wielding characters, viewers can vicariously take control, using the only forces seemingly capable of taming the chaos all around them.
Sometimes, all of these themes can swirl together. American Horror Story, with its bevy of female teenage witches, may be such a tale—a purposefully gratuitous metaphor of girls grappling with the inherent mystery of womanhood while trying to rein in the strange and dangerous forces both inside and outside them. Or, perhaps, it’s really just an excuse to talk about sex, incest, bestiality and have Kathy Bates slather blood on her face. With American Horror Story, it’s hard to tell.
But the big thing at play, I think, is a hunger for the transcendent—in itself a great and unavoidable inclination in all of us, but turned in a darker direction.
Everyone, I believe, has been created with a desire to know God. He created us, and we long to see and understand (as much as we’re capable of) our Creator. This desire to somehow bridge the gulf between us and God is built, I think, into our very DNA. We are all seekers. We cannot be anything but. And many of us (most of you reading, most likely) have touched the transcendent as God intended for us to do: Through His Son, Jesus.
But we live in a pluralistic society. Christianity, in some circles, has been discredited and cast aside—dropped because of its supposed sins or simply because it’s perceived as irrelevant.
And yet, that desire to know God is still there. Most understand deep in their soul that there’s something other—holy and incredible—out there. So how do people reach for God if they don’t believe there’s a Christian God to reach?
One avenue that people try to touch the supernatural is through witchcraft—be it real or the superficial pap we see on television. Whether its small-screen manifestation is laughable (see Sleepy Hollow) or horrifically salacious (American Horror Story) or something else, the magic we see hints, through its lies, at a greater truth: There’s something more than us out there. The material world is not all there is. We are creatures of clay and spirit. And these stories, as twisted as they can be, at least acknowledge the spirit.
But alas, the lies we’re given almost completely bury that truth, making supernatural television perhaps the most dispiriting genre on television.
A small percentage of viewers may feel that there is truth in those lies. Most probably don’t believe that the magic they see on TV could possibly be real … but they might tinker around and explore a bit, and wind up walking down some very dark paths.
Others will never look beyond the lies. Part of their brains will revel in this magical schlock while another will dismiss it entirely. Because this manifestation of the supernatural is fiction, it must all be fiction. And that path is, of course, no more hopeful than the first.
Yes, there are a lot of witches on television. But these shows are far from magical.
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