Witchcraft And Gender The Depiction Of Women And Witches In Contemporary American Movies

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 2,3, Technical University of Braunschweig (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: What makes a woman a witch? What kinds of stereotypes do witches in movies share with women? What is the source of these stereotypes? How are good and bad witches portrayed in movies and how is “white” magic depicted? In order to investigate these questions, I am going to conduct an analysis of the witches' depiction in three different, contemporary movies. My hypothesis is that despite multiple attempts to reform the movie character of the witch, for example via the introduction of “white magic” or good-hearted witches who support the protagonists, their depiction still consists of mainly negative, female stereotypes, so that an unchanged negative representation of the female gender can be observed in the movies I am going to analyse. This paper is structured as follows. First, I am going to start with a historical contextualization of the topic. In order to investigate the origin of the idea of “witchcraft” there will be an analysis of the historical events that led to its creation. Hereby, I will investigate the sources of the stereotypical “witch”. Therefore, I will provide an overview of the persecution of a “heretical” movement, which correlates with the later witch-hunts. Then, I will investigate the mental frame that led to the witch persecutions and the influence of the Catholic Church on the common sense in order to understand the development of this phenomena. After that, I will have a closer look on the characteristics of “witches” as women in order to clarify the stereotypes concering gender. Furthermore, I will introduce and discuss specific aspects of film theory, which are essential for the following analysis of the movies. Subsequently, based on the film theoretical aspects, I am going to analyse the depiction of witches in the movies “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”, “The Last Witch Hunter”, and “The Witch”. Finally, I will finish this paper by concluding the overall outcome and by answering the research questions and the question whether my hypothesis was confirmed, based on my findings.

"Women, the body and primitive accumulation"--Cover.

Follow the Witch Through Decades of American Entertainment Deviant mistress of the dark arts. Goddess worshipper dancing in the moonlight. Crystal-wielding bookworm with a black hat and broom. We recognize the witch because no industry has been quite so influential in shaping our vision of her as Hollywood. This comprehensive book delves into the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television. From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these movies and TV shows helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly affected how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society. Greene presents more than two hundred examples spanning silent reels to present-day blockbusters. As you travel through each decade, you'll discover compelling insights into the intersection of entertainment, critical theory, gender studies, and spirituality.

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times). In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. #1 New York Times Bestseller -- named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

Mona Chollet's In Defense of Witches is a “brilliant, well-documented” celebration (Le Monde) by an acclaimed French feminist of the witch as a symbol of female rebellion and independence in the face of misogyny and persecution. Centuries after the infamous witch hunts that swept through Europe and America, witches continue to hold a unique fascination for many: as fairy tale villains, practitioners of pagan religion, as well as feminist icons. Witches are both the ultimate victim and the stubborn, elusive rebel. But who were the women who were accused and often killed for witchcraft? What types of women have centuries of terror censored, eliminated, and repressed? Celebrated feminist writer Mona Chollet explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and persecuted: the independent woman, since widows and celibates were particularly targeted; the childless woman, since the time of the hunts marked the end of tolerance for those who claimed to control their fertility; and the elderly woman, who has always been an object of at best, pity, and at worst, horror. Examining modern society, Chollet concludes that these women continue to be harrassed and oppressed. Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct descendants to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions. With fiery prose and arguments that range from the scholarly to the cultural, In Defense of Witches seeks to unite the mythic image of the witch with modern women who live their lives on their own terms.

Pre-University Paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,0, Fachoberschule und Berufsoberschule Schwandorf, language: English, abstract: The original reason for choosing this topic in particular was in fact, the main idea of the American Dream, the movie primarily deals with. So, once more I was able to get in touch with the deep routed imagination and values which basically make up American society. One year ago, when I finished the Foreign Language School in Regensburg, I was really fascinated by having heard so much about, for example, lifestyle, religion and above all cultural details on the second largest continent of the world. Sometimes people think, living that unlimited American way of life would be the satisfaction of being on earth. At first glance, it might look like this, but it is not always true, especially if you have the chance to delve deeper inside and then you realize the United States of America is not just 50 sparkling stars on our planet, but the country is also a place where you have to fight for your life, for justice and acknowledgement. Before I start describing Forrest Gump and the way he sees everyone all around him, I have to say that I tried to highlight this work with a short interview with the actor Tom Hanks. Unfortunately, I noticed writing a letter to him which he would have had to answer, would have been too uncertain and furthermore it most probably would have taken too much time. Nevertheless, I did my very best to create a short interesting, expressive dissertation.

Tells the fascinating stories of the myriad women who shaped the early modern North American world from the colonial era through the first years of the Republic Women in Early America, edited by Thomas A. Foster, goes beyond the familiar stories of Pocahontas or Abigail Adams, recovering the lives and experiences of lesser-known women—both ordinary and elite, enslaved and free, Indigenous and immigrant—who lived and worked in not only British mainland America, but also New Spain, New France, New Netherlands, and the West Indies. In these essays we learn about the conditions that women faced during the Salem witchcraft panic and the Spanish Inquisition in New Mexico; as indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland; caught up between warring British and Native Americans; as traders in New Netherlands and Detroit; as slave owners in Jamaica; as Loyalist women during the American Revolution; enslaved in the President’s house; and as students and educators inspired by the air of equality in the young nation. Foster showcases the latest research of junior and senior historians, drawing from recent scholarship informed by women’s and gender history—feminist theory, gender theory, new cultural history, social history, and literary criticism. Collectively, these essays address the need for scholarship on women’s lives and experiences. Women in Early America heeds the call of feminist scholars to not merely reproduce male-centered narratives, “add women, and stir,” but to rethink master narratives themselves so that we may better understand how women and men created and developed our historical past.

After Charmed ended in 2006, witches were relegated to sidekicks of televisual vampires or children's programs. But during the mid-2010s they began to resurface as leading characters in shows like the immensely popular The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the Charmed reboot, Salem, American Horror Story: Coven, and the British program, A Discovery of Witches. No longer sweet, feminine, domestic, and white, these witches are powerful, diverse, and transgressive, representing an intersectional third-wave feminist vision of the witch. Featuring original essays from noted scholars, this is the first critical collection to examine witches on television from the late 2010s. Situated in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, essays examine the reemergence and shifting identities of TV witches through the perspectives of intersectional gender studies, hauntology, politics, morality, monstrosity, violence, queerness, disabilities, rape, ecofeminism, linguistics, family, and digital humanities.