Witch is a Word for Target — Catherine F. King

Witches walk among us.

They don’t have green skin. Their broomsticks are only used for sweeping. In fact, they look like ordinary women, right up until they smile at you and utter a hideous spell. Don’t listen too closely! To understand a witch’s words might turn you into a witch, too. And this is what’s important: everyone, everyone, hates a witch.

Witches lay hexes, curses, and jinxes. Witches peddle nothing but superstition and lies. We, however, are a scientific nation. We believe in compassion for all people—but, of course, witches aren’t people! Don’t be silly.

Now…

Detail of Kiki’s Delivery Service cover, art by Yuta Onada.

Witches are a powerful recurring archetype in folklore around the world. In the post-modern landscape of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, writers and singers have reclaimed witches, making them heroic figures: Kiki and her Delivery Service come to mind, courtesy of Eiko Kadano. As opposed to passive archetypes such as the Mad Ophelia and the Maiden in a Tower, a Witch can make her own way. She flies by broomstick and taps into secret wells of knowledge.

But there are some shadows even a witch cannot shake. Particularly in the American imagination, the notion of witchcraft is forever tied with the history of the Salem Witch Trials.

In Salem, between 1692-’93, twenty-five people died. Each one was under suspicion or conviction of witchcraft. What witchcraft would be afoot in a quiet Puritan town? Does it matter? What matters is that neighbor turned on neighbor, master turned on servant—each one pointing the finger at another, desperate not to be accused themselves. The pastors and magistrates would have purity at all costs— and that necessitated a scapegoat. Hence, witches walking in Salem.

See The Witch of Blackbird Pond, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and The Crucible for examples of the legacy that Salem has left on American literature. In the case of The Crucible, Salem’s shame helped Arthur Miller comment on the insanity he saw in his own time.

But of course, this is 2021! America has moved on from the obsessions of those Puritans. Right?

There’s a modern witch I’d like to discuss, whose roots go back a hundred and twenty years. See, in the year 1900, author L. Frank Baum began mapping out a land called Oz. This magical land is divided into four countries, each ruled by a Witch. The Witches of the North and of the South are Good Witches, but the Witches of West and East are very wicked.

In 1939, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adapted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a film, wherein there is one extra-benevolent Good Witch, and one Wicked Witch (her sister is a rather flat part). For a technicolor world, MGM dressed the Witch of the West (played by the kindhearted Margaret Hamilton) in blacks, with bright green skin. She cackles, she menaces, she bullies poor Dorothy on every step of the Yellow Brick Road. When she melts into an ignominious puddle, she seals her reputation as one of the icons of film, the viridian villainess.

In 1995, Gregory Maguire published his take on Oz: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Ten years later, his book was adapted to Broadway by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. I’m going to stick with Wicked: the Musical, because that’s the version that I know best, although I know it’s very different from the original book. But what’s interesting about both is, Maguire, Schwartz, and Holzman bring the Witch closer to her roots than Baum ever dreamed. The Wicked Witch, or Elphaba to her friends, is an activist and idealist waging a campaign against the corrupt Wizard. She’s a victim of Oz’s propaganda machine. She’s a scapegoat.

The musical Wicked, in addition to being an actress’ showcase, a roaring spectacle, and one of my favorite shows ever, is a scathing condemnation of the Bush presidency. And let me tell you, it has lost none of its venom in the age of Trump. Oz seems to be a prosperous nation, with an emerald capital and the bastion of free speech, Shiz University. But under the surface, there are engines turning, putting pressure on talking Animals to shut up and know their place. The only human who seems to care is Elphaba, a pariah herself on account of her green skin and uncanny magic.

Elphaba hopes that the Wizard will fix things, once he just knows of the situation. But it turns out, the Wizard is a normal fella with a flair for showbiz and a taste for power. He blithely tells Elphaba, by way of advice, that “If you want to unite people, give them a good enemy.”

And this is hardly the stuff of fantasy. When Wicked the musical was in previews, George W. Bush had just been elected to a second term of the Presidency. Bush’s whole image was— and is— painted to make him seem harmless, a cowboy dope with an aw-shucks smile. Meanwhile, his administration started dubious wars and pushed an agenda of Islamophobia in order to sell those wars. The right-wing media painted Muslim- and Arab-Americans as terrorists in waiting, just waiting to take advantage of liberal tolerance and weakness. Remember “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”? Remember the discourse about flag pins? Can anyone really be loyal enough to the flag?

In a national state like that, of course it takes a witch to speak the truth and call out the powerful. And many were the artists and activists who did. I know the Bush years were the beginning of my activist education. That’s something to be proud of.

But those witches…

What does this mean for the year 2021? When I look around my social media circles— which, politically, lean to the left, sometimes far to the left— I see a certain worrying strain. I see people who view compromise as an evil in itself. And sure, as the American right wing becomes steadily more unhinged and racist, there are wrong places to compromise. But I mean about cooperation between those far to the left and those closer to the center— and all strata in between. I see people taking a subtle difference of priorities, and blowing it into all-out war. I see the phrase, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” now sunken into the very bedrock of public discourse.

Unfortunately, there’s another line from Wicked that well sums up this current moment: “There are precious few at ease/ With moral ambiguities /so we act as though they don’t exist!”

One of the problems is, it’s becoming easier and easier to discount the humanity of those you disagree with, because after all, they’re just a name and an avatar on a screen. Another problem is that online, people tend to group up with like-minded fellows, and create little echo chambers— rest stops, if you will, along the Information Superhighway. That can be purely done by humans, or algorithms can hustle the process along. Within those echo chambers, the loudest voice tends to dominate, and pretty soon, extremism prevails. Then, nuance becomes too dangerous to entertain. Then, a minor difference of opinion becomes cause for excommunication, and where had been ordinary strangers, there lurk witches on the horizon.

And where there’s a witch, there must be a pyre ready. Citizens must loudly denounce the witch, frequently. You can find whole communities that have never seen so much as a pointy hat in years, all feverishly listing out the harm they would do unto witches if ever they met one. But it’s all just venting, they assure any horrified viewer. ‘Tisn’t serious. Anyway, it’s nothing compared to the harm witches do with their spells. That’s why witches must be destroyed.

This is all a metaphor, I’m sure you’ve gathered. The fact of it is, witches are experiencing a bit of a moment. Books such as The Good Witch’s Guide and Basic Witches present witchcraft with a hipster-friendly vibe. Settle your spell ingredients in a mason jar. Coordinate your pentacles with your outfit. I’m afraid it might be more of a fashion aesthetic than a calling to a nature-based spiritual practice, and speaking truth to power.

But my point remains. The Internet’s culture rewards extremism. Where there’s an in-group with strict rules and regulations, there must be an out-group. There must be someone to be made an example of— to demonstrate to the in-group that no one mourns the wicked.

Everyone hates a witch. All it takes is one voice to call out the sinner, and the entire community will cast the witch out. No second chances. Everyone must plug their ears against the witch’s calumnies.

A witch can be many things. But when some mob urges you to read the word “witch” as “enemy,” without exception and without mercy, I suggest that you be cautious, and not only because the mob that hunts a witch will eagerly seek a new target. There’s an insidious power in determining who can speak, and who must be silenced. Be careful whenever someone urges you to disregard nuance in favor of simplistic, black and white stories. Trust in what you know, but keep your ears open. Don’t be cowed by the threats issued by some twopenny Wizard. And don’t be afraid of the label of “witch.”