The Greenprint

so that's not gonna work. No. Dogs are a lot of work. Dogs are a lot of work. I think, um, a wild animal who was kind of independent and just was like there when they needed them, So like a wolf who did did he did my bidding? But also, I mean a bird is nice because they can sort of like carry messages for you. They can, but maybe a snake. Wolves are really good as defenders, though I like not like a wolf. Also because of the sort of vampiric implications, you know, like Dracula can turn into

a world. I would pick a big cat. I would do like a bobcat, a jaguar, a wildcat of some kind. I'm going to have a wolf who can turn into a dog when I need them to, like when we go to Arawan, becomes a dog and they're like a service dog. That's an anxiety dog. An anxiety dog. Okay, so we have our familiars. Today we are talking about witchcraft.

We're talking about witchcraft, witches, um, the occult covens, magic um, mysticism, mysticism, hocus poky, spookies, something like it this way, colm uh, and we're going to dive deep into our own experience as witches. The formative media about witches that have made us the witches we are today, and um prevalence of witch culture. What does it mean in Yeah, so hop on your roomstick, because this is like a virgin the show we give yesterday's pop culture, today's takes armors. Damn you.

I'm Fran Toronto. So that's really that's too good. That was just a normal laugh. That was actually fully my normal law Rose. The visions need to know that when you and I go to an anci theater, especially you know if it's at like a mall like the Grove or like a MC CityWalk or whatever, the price of dressing cool is that teens feel comfortable walking up to us and asking us if we'll be in there TikTok's. Yeah,

it finally has happened. Um, we have we have been stopped by those people who make TikTok's where they have a microphone and ask people questions. We were stopped and in Unison, this little girlie said, Hi, can we ask you a question for a TikTok? We just in Unison went no and kept and kept it push it. Oh. We didn't even stop, like we were just like no, no no, no, no, no, no no. We had our Saphora bags and we were

up up in a way and uh. We have to say, we had a handful of things to talk about this week, but I think that just for today we're maybe only going to talk about one movie we saw this weekend. Yes, because as queer podcasters, it is our sacred duty, yeah, to have an official take on Bros. Starring Billy Eichner, which is kind of if you've heard of it. We're being jokey because it actually might not have heard of

it because a lot of people haven't seen it. Someone two people texting me this weekend and they were like, what is this Bros. Controversy. Um so, if you're not aware, Billy Eichner's first mainstream rom com starring a gay man who felches or whatever the funk it is, came out

this weekend. It's about a queer podcaster, triggering. It's about a gay podcaster who is also a history buff and is on the board of directors for New York City's first l g B, t Q plus museum, who meets a man who is very much the type of gay that he really has no time for, which is like Chelsea Hell's kitchen, Jim bro And yet somehow they managed to fall in love. Yes, Yes, And that really is kind of the whole movie, Like it's that simple. It's

a rom com. You and I had similar takes about the movie, but a different overall experience, like when you walked out, Like, how did you feel about it? Yeah? I mean I just care about it less than I think you do. Um okay, And interesting framing of that. Well, No, I I guess it's it's more that I would agree with that I'm able to just kind of simplify the way that I feel about it, which is I think it's very flawed in terms of um, the way it's

trying to overrepresent queer people as a community. That being said, I do think it's a pretty good romantic comedy and I enjoyed watching it. And if I was, you know, at my mom's house in Florida and it came on a HBO, I would totally watch it again, which I'm not gonna lie. I'm shook by, but I completely respect. And I walked out of it feeling like I didn't really like it that much. I didn't hate hate it by any means. You were you were fired up. On the ride home. I was okay, okay, I'll be real.

I was mad, you were mad. I was mad. We were driving on and you were angry, but I thought we were going to hit someone. But I'm taking accountability for the fact that I'm not angry about what the movie offers. The movie is a perfectly fine movie that belongs in an echelon of bro comedies like forty year Old Version and Knocked Up or whatever these other movies. And I think I want to clarify, I think we

talked about this a little bit this weekend. When you say bro comedy, like we're talking about this, Judd Apatow asked mainstream comedy from the male perspective, Anchorman, super Bad,

like Step Brothers. We have had some of these types of films from the perspective of women and so, and that's why I'm trying to like tone back my anger, because my angers around like the sentiments surrounding the film, how the film has been presented to us from a press perspective, but like just on the film level in and of itself, like the movie's fine and and I flaud but fine, and like I'm just not the target demographic for a bro comedy. Like all of those movies

I listed are like my least favorite movies ever. And I'm just I'm not. I'm not They're not for me, and that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist. You know, Um, I do think you would like Knocked Up. I Knocked Up is fun. Yeah, Okay, I've never seen it. I've never seen it. I don't know. I should also say, like, I love Billy's comedic stylings. The jokes in this movie are really really good. Not all,

but a lot of them are really good jokes. No, there's um, I'm still giggling about one that references the Greatest Showman and if you know, you know, Yeah, I loved Billy Eichner's Difficult People. I want it back. I felt like it was great, which is shocking to me because a lot of these jokes are like quintessential Billy in the Bros. Movie. Um, but I don't like that show. I don't like the woman who plays his friend. I

find her unwatchable. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. And even though I love Difficult People, the things that make it difficult to watch is that these characters are really really miserable. And I felt that way kind of watching Bros. As well, Like, it was hard for me to really appreciate sometimes the movie as a whole, because every single character is so miserable and like really like hates other members of the community and hates everyone around them. And I was like

looking for reprieve from that. And there was a lot of salient critique about like gay men in general, Like this movie talks a lot and says a lot of very accurate things about what it means to not be able to communicate your emotions properly to a partner. How hook up culture or polyamory really convolutes um romantic relationships

and comes out of that really good humor. And it also exploits how even though you know, polyamory or open relationships or hook up culture or whatever are things that are liberatory and freeing and define us as queer people, they also complicate our relationships when we don't have the fluency to navigate them, which most men don't do not you know what I mean. But like, part of the reason this movie doesn't hit as hard is because it's coming out like five to ten years too late, you

know what I mean. I'm sure that a movie like this takes so much longer to make than any other movie because it's a gay movie. Like, I get that, and that's not the movie's fault, but it would have been a lot easier to watch ten years ago. I

would have a lot less to say about it. Yeah, but I think ten years ago they wouldn't even have attempted to try to make it about queerness outside of the gay mail experience, which maybe would have been ultimately better, because I think a lot of what this movie gets wrong is in trying to make it a statement about queer community and queer history and A big plot line in this film is that Billy is a director of this lgbt Q plus history museum that opens and we're

told again and again how historic and important it is, and it's that's clearly coded also his language about the movie we're watching, which in no way is historic, Like I think it's I think it's a good movie, but I don't think it's historic or groundbreaking or anything. And I think if they had just focused on the parts of it that worked, which we're you know, being a rom com, that would have been so much better than trying to shoe horn in all of this stuff about

representation and community and queer history. And I mean, ultimately, I think it would have just been better if Billy's character had been a dentist. Yeah yeah, I mean like a firefighter or like I have like an Etsy store or something. No fire fighter at theaster would have been great.

I would have bought that. That's that is actually such a good point, Like this character is kind of like an Eric Servinis, kind of like passionate, right, like loves like the legacy of like queer history and thinks it's so important. Like I didn't buy that from Billy at all.

Because of the way the character acted for the rest of the movie when he wasn't a gay podcaster, And I was like, it's just it just was disingenuous and to your point, like the moments where the movie tries to make jokes or make the movie about because it does about queer and trans people at writ large, like the LGBTQ community writ large, are the least successful parts of the movie. Like I mean, just to like exemple fight, like this movie talks about Marsha P. Johnson throwing the

fucking first brick at stone Wall like at least three times. Seriously, it was just it was very like, um, I know that the people that go and see this movie, they might not have the queer one oh one on the history. So I would have forgiven it if it didn't come back so many times, and also if it just did income fromability. It's just like I didn't feel like the movie was at any point really trying to represent anything other than gay men. And I would have very much

so appreciated a movie that was just about gay men. Sure. I would have also, especially in terms of how it was marketed and how people are talking about it, because what I really don't appreciate is this conversation that's that's happening not just through Billy and the press tour of this movie, but even people that I see on TikTok saying it's our responsibility as queer people to go see this film so that it sends a message to Hollywood that they should make more gay movies and that if

this film flops, that's it. That's it for queer media. There's never gonna be another queer film made again. And I just don't buy into that argument. I think, like, make a better movie. Yeah, And as as like that sentiment is, I understand reparative to like years and years of the ways gay keepers like repress the movement of

like queer stories, but like it's an asinine take. Like if you think that we are all contractually obligated to consume all of like the gay culture that exists out there, it's like you have like a lot of Adam Lambert like albums to listen to, you know what I mean?

Like you like all y'all like are trying to pretend like you have this like broad fluency and have seen everything gay that has ever come out, Like I sincerely doubt that Billy Eichner has seen I don't know, the handmade in or like other amazing like queer and trans films that looks like such a random like kind of romance that I'm thinking of like a guest maybe more of an erotic thriller. I doubt he's even seen Portrait

of a Lady on Fire. But anyways, my point really is that, like it is a really righteous and unhelpful thing to do to say that if you don't see this movie, your homophoone. Righteousness is really the right word for it, because that is you know, his he needs to just get off Twitter because his thread the other day about how this movie flopped because straight people didn't show up for it and because people are homophobic, which like, of course that's true, but he needs to step away.

I know he's trying to sell this movie. But what has served Billy so well in his career, which is that he'll say anything to anyone, is really not working right now. No, it's not. And like, okay, I actually do think straight people should see this movie, Like I agree with that. Um, it's just yeah, to your point, like this whole like the movie failed because of X, Y and Z it's like, just take accountability for your movie, man. And it's not like there's not a market for gay

love stories for straight people. Like a lot of six hetero women consume content about gay men, like I read fan fiction. I know they do. Um, there's a reason why fucking Red, White and Royal Blue it's as popular as it is, or the Song of Achilles or whatever. Like people are consuming gay love stories. They're just like not really consuming this one. And I I really I feel the pain of like what it means to make

anything for a queer audience. Right to like to sign up and say I'm going to make something for historically marginalized audience is setting yourself up, in part for failure, because you're going to make a lot of people mad, because the people that see themselves represented are going to feel that you're not doing it accurately, and the people that don't see themselves represented are going to feel erased.

And that is the paradox of representation and why it will always fail and why we just need to as a whole get away from representational thinking rit large, because that is why the movie didn't succeed. And like we're trying to like you, you and I like really try to like separate this movie from its press rollout, right, but like it actually could not be separated because Billy and the team were so insistent they didn't want us to separate. And every part of this rollout and the

film itself is in conversation with each other. And I think it should be able to stand on its own and and for me, like that's the thing is Ultimately for me, I did still enjoy it. I can, I can be critical of it and think all these things, and I still think it's like a pretty good movie. I still enjoyed it exactly the same way. I can say that like they were hysterical jokes and that a

lot of the casting was amazing. Guy Brandam phenomenal. I also think, like outside of the movie, Guy Brandam is like a perfect and incisive voice around like representation and all these different things. Bowen was so good and it was some of the best parts of the movie. Debra Messing, Oh my god, amazing Christian Chaw the lolliest cameo is

so funny. Um. But to like get back to the movie, there are several scenes in like boardrooms where this the board of lg bd Q museum is like present, right, and of course it's like a lesbian, a white trans girl, a black trans girl, a non binary person, and like a gay man. It's like this perfect panel of like

you know, LGBTQ board members or whatever. And the lesbian in these scenes is just like this loud, cantankerous woman and there are a lot of jokes about her like physical strength, and like, look, you and I we love jokes at the expense of like any member of the queer community, right, Like it's okay, it's okay, Like we're it's okay to make jokes about this. We've seen this joke from Billy Eigner before, you know what I mean, or if not from Billy, Like we've seen this joke.

Like there was no invention in the jokes that it was making about other marginalized people. And I feel like

when you do that, you're kind of punching down. And there's also like there's this other moment that I think encapsulates like a lot of the kind of thematic problem of the movie and this thing we keep talking about about who it's centering the gay man in the story, and then who it's trying to to include and there's this moment where one of the trans people is like, I'm trying to hold space for you, like makes it.

There's this joke about like holding space that's like kind of funny, but ultimately they don't really get where Billy is coming from about something. And he says this remark coming hot off the disappointment of this kind of mini

breakup he's going through with his boyfriend. He's saying, Oh, so I'm too queer for my boyfriend and I'm not queer enough for you, And like that was just so like pick to me, Like I feel like it's told on Billy in a way that I don't think he intended, because it paints a picture of the plights of gay men, but then for some reason like puts it in opposition

to like black trans people or whatever. I was just like, like, what are you trying to say, Like the movie is about the plights of gay men, Let it just be that like when you try and victimize yourself and say, oh, this other part of the community doesn't get me or whatever.

I was just like, no, girl, you're just like privileged and you don't have any other trans friends or let's me and friends, you know, what I mean, Like that's kind of what it was giving at times, and to your point, like just wish that it had stayed on the lens of gay men, because it was it made really great critiques about game male relationships and the toxicity

that comes with it. Yeah, you know, you and I are people who also are storytellers, Like I never tried to write something that's going to speak to the entirety of the queer experience. I try to, you know, create things that are about my experience because that's what I understand. Um, And I just think this would have been a much more successful movie if Billy wrote just kind of a

simpler gay rom com. Yeah. I wonder honestly if the movie was at one point only about men and at some point somebody was like, well, we got to represent all these other people, and that's why so much of this was like wedged in like the homages of like James Baldwin and Marsha P. Johnson or whatever. Like I was like, what's going on, Like what don't we want? Well?

I also wonder if that's like almost a way to kind of incentivize you know, queer people to see this film, or if it was something that Billy felt he owed to queer people too. If he was making this big Hollywood movie, he had to you know, torn this in in a way that felt very you know, disingenuous and just like kind of chick like checking off representation, you know, points of rather than telling those stories, because like, if you wanted to tell a diversity of queer stories in

this film, then those people should have written it. Yeah, not to mention when there was this scene in like the background of like one of the Queer History Museum exhibits where there's all these like portraits of like queer icons or whatever, and then there's a picture of Lori Lightfoot. Did you see that picture of It? Was so like I felt insane watching it um And I also honestly felt crazy because the romantic lead is like so toxic and so like emotionally stunted. I was like the whole

engine of the movie was like lost on me. Like I was like, why would you keep pursue? Like what are the redeeming qualities of either of these characters? But that was the part to me that was the most realistic, because it is realistic. Yeah, I mean they're not gonna last, Like, let's say that to break up six months after this movie ends. Well, we did our duty. We saw bros. We talked about it, clocking out, flocking out. Have you ever cast a spell? I have, yes, on multiple occasions. Um.

What kind of spells? Never a love spell, because, as we've talked about on the pod before, those are non consensual. Um. But I have cast instead? You've cursed people to die? Yes, yes, spells of vengeance, abundance, fortitude. What about you? I have cast many, many spells. Um. Literally, no one who listens to this podcast will be a surprised to learn that. As an adolescent, I fancied myself a bit of a witch.

I still consider myself a witch. But when I was a teenager, this was in the time when WICCA and sort of New Age spirituality was having a real moment. As you could see in any Borders bookstore if you went to the New Age section, there would be books like to Write a Silver brun Stick by Silver Raven Wolf Um that would describe how you, you know, set up an altar and called to the corners and cast a circle. And honey, I was doing all of the above in my childhood bedroom. I was casting spells. I

was trying to move things with my mind. I was making lotions and potions and hungeans and oils, and you in that era of your life really were like a trenifestation of the Satanic panic of the late eighties and early night and nothing about it was Satanic. It was all it was all, it was all Goddess Vibe. I was saying to the Goddess Hondy, everything about witchcraft is entwined with the devil. But also, satanic panic is more eighties. Yeah, it is more eighties. But and I'm not that old, okay,

but we were talking. We're talking about early two thousand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, but I think what I'm trying to say is that, um, in the nineties, there's still so much, as you do, of satanic panic bleeding into the culture wars that made everyone scared of the girl that would check out the

taro deck at Borders bookstore. I guess. But I feel almost like the acceptance of that kind of spirituality that happened in the mid to late nineties was making it was maybe like making up for it, But no, I think it predates J. K. Rolling a little bit, because yeah, we had well to get into it. I think the Craft dates JK. Rolling for sure. Late nineties, we've like we've had, we've had let the Satanic panic behind, and now a gentler, more empowered idea of people who flirt

with the invisible. It now enters pop culture in a way where those people are the heroes of the stories rather than exactly. And I love that, you know, since this moment that we've pointed toward in the kind of like nineties, that um, instead of the although they were the villains in the Craft except for one of them, sure, sure, sure, but I love that. Um. And and that's the same case with like hocus focus and stuff like that. But I love that, Um, the pendulum never swung back right

like there was. There hasn't been necessarily another like Witchcraft panic to the scale of like the Satanic panic, because which is in kind of the cultural forces that we're talking about today, movies, TV shows, books, whatever, have only accrued in like cultural value and like meaning. Like I think that which is are as a feminist idea, something that is even more popular now than it was in

the Charm. In the Charm to Harry totally well, Satanic panic was very culty and anyone who has watched the most recent season of Stranger Things knows that that is how it begun in the eighties was people um being scared of people who played things like dungeons and dragons and thinking that they were satanic cults and killed people, which is also a plot line in Riverdale, it must be said. But their version of the game is called

like Gorgon's and Gargoyles or something like that. And so then the upswing in which media and culture in the nineties I do think was very much about the self. It was very internalized, it was very feminist, it was and it was also very like tied up in ideas of sisterhood with things like charmed on the Craft, practical magic um and then skewing over into you know, broader fantasy with Harry Potter. Can you like you know Harry Potter aside, like, what were the first witchcraft cultural objects

that you latched onto? Oh? Well, I mean the inciting incident is, of course the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard of Oz. She was the moment, She's the blueprint, she's the green print, she's alpha but herself. That was the first time I saw which on screen and We've talked about Wizard of Oz before and how

much I loved it. And even though I loved Dorothy and wanted to be Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West was the character who I was the most obsessed with, and she sparked what has been a lifelong obsession with witches for me. She was the first, and then I think after that, I just any time there was a witch in a movie like Um madmana Mim in The Sword in the Stone hocus Pocus, you know, also came out in the early to mid nineties, if there was a character who was a witch, I was obsessed, even

when she was the villain. And so then once I was old enough to start reading on my own, I always gravitated too books with witches, and them are books about witches, And as I got older, I was able to find more and more of those books where the witches were the heroes rather than the villains, or at least they were, you know, more more complicated than that. While we're in the villain's portion, though, can we like have a moment for mad Madam Mim from this from

The Sword in the Stone, I forgot about her. She is iconic and Lady Gaga should play her in the live action version that is The Dake. She is grotesque and I love that, but she also is sexy because she is a shape shifter. Wait oh wait, doesn't she

become like a sexy crocodile or something. She becomes a lot of different things, but she does become like a hot version of her similar to Ursula, She's very trans Ursula becomes a hot version of herself, Um the Witch, and Um snow White in The Seven Dwarves becomes a hot version of herself. She is also an iconic witch. Yeah. The Maleficent, honestly, for me was my first I think the first witch that I latched onto. I probably saw a Wizard of Us before, but I definitely remember seeing

Maleficent and being like, that is my girl. But Maleficent is very much a sorceress, and I think the thing that I loved about The Wicked Witch of the West is she is the proto typical, which she's got the broomstick, the pointy hat, the crystal ball, she's mixing up potions and her cauldron. You know, she was a witch, the archetypical.

That's what I was into, and I love that Since that moment, we've had so many different takes and iterations on the archetype, not excluding mad Madam mim or the other the others that came up in that in that Disney era, of which witches, because there are a lot of witches and Disney movies, but they're almost always the villain,

right exactly. It's only now in sort of the post metare contextualization of Disney that we now have empowered women who are the heroes of their stories, like Frozen, where you know, else is not a witch, but she has powers and she is you know, complicated, but she's not evil. Right. I think the one standout from the witches of your maybe that I'm thinking of is Kiki's Delivery Service where

she's the protagonist and not the villain. But that movie, I mean, it's it's him Zaki, so obviously it's like it has way more like depth than like any of these like Disney movies or anything like that. Um have you have you seen that movie? Ye oh my god, I love love love that. Like her magic power is a kind of metaphor for um, the muse like and

for like creativity. Like I think maybe it was an interview or something that I watched with Hamiyazaki, but like describing how like writer's block and like artists blocks that come up are not unlike the way that Kiki all of a sudden couldn't access her powers and she didn't know why, and she's trying to make sense of it, and all she needed was solitude and to do something that wasn't magic, to like find her magic again. I'm like, I think that, like that's like that as a lesson

has like she was in her folklore era. She she was there a folklore era and honestly also not to like jump all the way to the end, but like um her her Wanda era too, will get there. We'll get there, so some other I think really formative, which is of my childhood, which is of Eastwick? Yes, have you seen I would Love Love Love too? I've seen, Yes, And I would love to watch a version of the film um without Jack Nicholson because I think I'm disgusting.

He is disgusting, but it's still he's integral to the story. I still could watch it without him, I really could. It wouldn't make sense, but I would enjoy it. Okay, we'll try to get you girls only cut Girls, we will have at this point, we'll already have talked a bit about hocus Pocus during our live watch of the of hocus Pocus too upon record, we have not the

pon record, we have not done it yet. So I mean we can say that when hocus Pocus came out, that had me in a guerrilla grip, you know, because even though they were the villains, I was obsessed with them. And I did not see hocus Pocus until my twenties. God a friend, Yeah, yeah, and I watched it and it was amazing. Like the musical number Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathey and Jenie Bette Midler, like the tree out of them is omnipotent. It's why I'm nervous. I'm nervous about

the sequel. Girl. There's no way it can be good. There's no way it can be good. But I actually don't think it's possible for the three of them to have a bad performance. I think the movie can be bad, but I don't think that the three of them will give us a bad moment. I don't think that a lot of money. Here's the thing. Yeah, sure, but Bette Midler has never failed us. Kathy and Genie Midler has

never failed us. Well, Bette Midler did tweet some stupid things, but aside from that, right, we were we actually were we We never talked about the Bett. Well, she's not a turf she tur turf light yeah, diet turf um, but she's she thinks j. K. Rowling's okay on the performance level, though I don't think that has ever wronged us, nor has Kathy and Jimmie. Sarah Jessica Parker maybe has, but I don't because sometimes she doesn't know what movie she's in, but I think she'll know what I mean.

This is Oh, she I think is the one who will slay the most because Sarah Jessica Parker is amazing when it comes to physical slapstick comedy. And even in the trailer she was giving that, say that and also like she's never credited for that. You know, as the nineties progressed and which is started to get sexier, I was all about that. Okay, you still have not seen the original the Craft. Yeah, but it's sexy. I thought

it was teen. It is teens, but they're sexy teens of course, sexy teens played by full adult, fully thirty year old um. It starts for as a bulk who it was in Return to Oz, which is also a movie about which is and one of my favorite films and one of your favorite portrayals of which is as one of my favorite Yes. Um. It is about a group of girls who are outcasts at school and find that they are more powerful together than apart, and but once they get power, it corrupts them and they start

doing some very bad things. The vibes are correct, the looks are right, the soundtrack is amazing. It's a great little teen horror films and very formative to you, as you always say, extremely format. Would you say that it is one of the best films ever made? No, I won't. You wouldn't know. I thought that would be one of the ones. No practical magic, practical now, practical magic. That is it is in my top ten films. Yeah, okay,

okay it one day. One day, the virgins are going to keep tracking your You'll be eating your words, and then you're no longer going to be able to say, you know what, Please start compiling a list of all the films that I say are in my top ten, which are pirates of the caribbeansgic return to return to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rear Rear Windows my

favorite movie of all time. But Practical Magic. That was kind of the first thing that after I had moved here that I forced you to watch that you had never seen, never seen because it was Halloween. It was like peak pandemic, so we can really do anything. We did go to Channing's and how the Lovely Little Saw and ritual and then we came back to your old apartment and who and watched Practical Magic. Was the first time.

It was the perfect Halloween and you stayed away through the whole thing somehow, well, I mean, it's very engaging in that that the movie hinges on murdering a man. It's also an hour and a half murdering uh. He's like murdering a domestic abuser abuser. And then also and and it's also about restorative justice outside of the carceral system, because the cop comes in to try to catch them and then ends the movie with him being like, Oh, I don't really care that you killed him. He got

what he deserved. It's also about storative justice is really at the end of the day, about the death penalty. And how we should be doing that instead. It's also a story about ancestral shealing, sheiling, ancestral pain shealing, feeling like healing but with what with women? She like ancestral shealing. It also has an incredible soundtrack that slaps to this day. Stevie Nicks does multiple songs covers of old class What is the thing? Can you explain to me, like how

it all started with Stevine Knicks being a witch? Like how people just assumed or like made associations with Steven Knicks that she was in witchcraft of some kind. I think it's just kind of her general vibe. It wasn't anything explicit, and I think especially once she started her solo career, it just kind of became a thing. It's just one of those things I think, Okay, wait, this

is I'm realizing something right now. So, first of all, Stevin Knicks has gone on the record to confirm that she is in fact not a witch and that this was a rumor that started circulating in her Fleetwood mac era of Rhiannon that I think was particularly it's a song about a witch. Yeah, yeah, so people started to assume that she was a witch, and I'm also just realizing upon looking at So when I type this out in Google and saw the photo, I was like, oh,

she looks like Olivia Newton John. And now I'm remembering, and I've said this on the pod before that my mom once told me that Olivia Newton John, alright, he was a witch, and had I think my mom Olivia and John was Stevie Nicks. Yes, they look kind of the same, but Olivia r I p you were not a witch. Um. So I was very disappointed because I

was obsessed with practical magic. My mom took me to see the movie and I lost my mind, Like it reordered my brain and like changed me on a chemical level, because I think up until that point, my idea of which is had been the wicked witch of the West. And now I saw, wait, you can be young and hot and have all that hair and be a witch and have sex and have sex and be and blow on candles to light them, and your aunt is Stockard Channing. And so I wanted to dive as deep as I

could into the practical magic sphere and practical magic. The film is based on a book by Alice Hoffman. So I remember checking the book out from the library, because I used to spend most of my time in the library at that point, and the book was not as good as the movie. It's the book is much more sort of magical realism, and like the magic is very just kind of suggested. It's like kind of exists on

the outside of things. So that was very disappointing. In years since, though, Alice Hoffman has written both a prequel to Practical Magic and a sequel to it, and then a fourth and final book. They're amazing. The prequel, especially, which is called The Rules of Magic, is my favorite of the four of them. It takes place in nineteen seventies New York City and it's about the ants from the movie and their gay brother growing up as witches.

And it was in development as a series for HBO Max I think by Melissa Rosenberg, who's the screenwriter of the Twilight movies. But nothing has really ever happened with that, so it would be so good. You should write for that. I should write for that. It might be one of those things that's kind of stuck in development, but it's so good and if you need a spooky Halloween read, I really recommend that. I love the Nicole Kidman's iteration of the witch archetype, which we discussed in the Nicole

Kidman episode, is dark, tortured, gorgeous woman. I love that she like elevated the which archetype. It's like, actually, which is, are not just these like kind of flat villains that patently believe that Satan is their master and that they're here to terrorize humanity like some which is actually have shitty boyfriends, and some witches have beautiful, made well outfit. Actually the fit isn't made well. The fit is giving free people. You know, what I love is that, you know,

culture obviously always swings back around. And while we had in the you know, early and mid aughts that kind of witchcraft in things like practical magic and charmed and stuff, now we have gotten to the point where we're now swinging back to the pendulum. And I think what exemplifies that most of all is the movie The Vich Taylor.

I was wondering what you were going to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the for anyone who doesn't know, I really feel like if you listen to this podcast you can probably see the witch um is basically what I love about it is it's the idea that what if the thing that all of these fucking pilgrims were scared about, you know, the thing that the thing that the Salem witch Trials were predicated on, which is that there was this witch who sold her soul to the devil who's going to

come steal your children and eat them and like curse your land blah blah blah. What if that actually happened. And the way that the witch was stylized was there was the Witch a New England folk tale and so it's like this very literal version of that idea, and it's really bringing us back to the root of how the witch has always been seen in culture. And I

really liked that. It's like almost the most literal telling of which story you know, of these people being plagued by a witch who steals their children and curses their crops, and then it ends with this young girl signing herself over to the devil because she wants to live deliciously um and you know, floating up in the air into like an ecstatic origy of witches, which is like very

reminiscent of that famous painting of all the Women floating. Ye, it's a it's one of the most beautiful filmic finalees and I think is honestly, it shows off what does best. It's probably my favorite movie. Um I. Honestly, since now that you've mentioned living Deliciously, um I, I think that Um the Bitch doesn't have like necessarily a specific take

right on UM. The Salem Which Trials are the things that happened after it, right It's it's a very like folkloric, true to the text portrayal of a witch that feels like somehow exactly in the period, but also hyper contemporary, like she feels real as fuck. Like that is something that I love about this movie. But it should be said that like the Salem Witch Trials were literally just misogyny often like racialize misogyny right with like a Scooby

Doo mask on it. Like they literally thought that this was richcraft and actually they just like hated when I know I was. I was also really into the Salem Which trials as a concept when I was a kid. Um I went to Salem once and I did one year during October. I was in Salem just like the real Houseves of New York. Yes, just like that, just like UM and I loved The Crucible. It was one of my favorite plays. I loved the film version with Daniel day Lewis and Winona Writer. Yeah, they were really good.

Winona's incredible in that movie. I would love to see a stage a stage production of it. Have you never seen one? I think I maybe have, but I don't remember if our high school did it or if I saw it somewhere. But something that I like about The Crucible, and It's like contribution to the discourse, is that cultural mania had like fatal consequences, you know what I mean, like zooming out of that. Arthur Miller was trying to

say something about McCarthy is um. Yes, oh yeah, literally, McCarthy is m and like how we as a culture to this day still create mania and um dangerous group think that has fatal consequences. Yes, well, I do think it's important for us to talk about the place of the witch in culture, as she or they have existed through the entirety of history. You know, the which is the other the witch is unbridled powerful femininity that must

be hung or burned to the state or chained. Um. You know, the which is our fear of someone who society has decided should not have power, having too much of it, right, And I think that honestly, I don't know where she falls into the chronology of like a history of witches, but like I always think of like Lilith, right, and like her place in this can in of women with mystical powers that were like scorned by society, um for the virgins that don't know our friend Channing has

like given like given me a lot of context and like Lilith, and like her place in the Talmud, and like in Jewish folklore, and how in some iterations of the text she's like the o G Eve of Adam and Eve and Adam's first wife. Yes, yeah, yeah, in some like people have different like ways of interpreting, like where Lilith comes from or whatever, but yeah, if she

is adams first wife. Adam was basically like, you have to lie under me, you have to subject yourself to me, and Lilith literally was like no, because wasn't the issue that Lilith was created alongside Adam so saw herself as his equal, and then once she was cast out of Eden. That's why Eve was created from Adam's ribs, so she would always be subjugated to him. Well, I think it's somewhere in the Babylonian Talmud. It's like the rib is

not present. They are supposed to be eating well. And Adam was like, nowhere not equal, and Lilith was like, yes, we are. And she refused, basically to participate in this union, and she left Eden speaking of living deliciously. She left Eden because she knew that pleasure was more powerful than perfection and the promise of Eden. Sorry, this is very philosophical, but I have like a lot of thoughts on Lilith slash slash like have like a little tatoo. Oh my god,

I want like a real that's like so good. I want like an actual more explicitly Lilith tattoo like yours m Rose has. What is this that the symbols um but um. The promise of Eden was perfection right like God was like, if you stay here, we all get

to be perfect forever because there's no sin here. And Lilith was like, wait, hold up, sin actually makes life imperfect and therefore fun interesting, like compelling, emotional, like leisure, pain, chaos, magic are the things that it's not like the taste of butter. What's that like to wear a part address would like to live deliciously and those are the things

that make life worth living. And and Lilith is also thought of as the mother of demons, that she left Eden and became the yes and so and and in

some tellings the first witch. Yes, she is a Hecata like figure that became a culturally demonized, like portrayal of like evil women basically because the witch in many different cultures and histories like is a figure who's who's kind of purpose and allegiances, and like good or evil or neutrality is always shifting based on who was telling the story and what the agenda is, and and usually if that story is being told by a man, because if it is being told man or being told by men

by the patriarchy, then the witch is you know, evil and corrupting and an agent of Satan. If it's being told by women, you know, there there have been witches in many cultures who are the healers and the midwives and you know, the soothsayers and the wise women of

the village. And it's just very you know, interesting, how we can all agree that this type of woman, specifically um has always existed and there are so many different variations like just today and all the different pieces of media we're talking about, there's so many different ideas of what a witch has been and could be. And that's what I think is so fascinating about the idea of a witch is that she can be anything because she

has been everything um and the possibilities are endless. That's why I think people return to witches in storytelling over and over and over again. Yeah, and I I it's also and also because a witch is someone who asserts their will upon the world, who looks at the world and says, no, this will change. Witchcraft is manifesting. We're tran infesting your will upon the world and changing it

through magic. And I think it's very interesting that like right now and maybe for the last like five plus years, there has been at least in America, like a a greater acceptance or popularity of astrology, mysticism, you know, tera things that have been culturally stigmatized in the kind of like eighties and nineties that now have pre eminence because culturally we are just like moving further and further away from Christianity and moving further and further away from organized

religion as we've like discovered that it is responsible for pretty much like all of the oppressive forces on the planet since the dawn of time for the most part. And I feel like, as like witchcraft, or like mysticism, or like whatever our way into the other worldly and the occult is. Now that we don't have God, it's like we're trying to find other things that to make our lives make sense, and that witchcraft is something that is inherently empowering and subcultural and therefore has even more

cultural value now. Yeah, well, I think it's very telling that the time in my life that I found myself most identifying as a witch, the time in my life when I felt the most spiritual and was kind of the most able to do kind of a you know, like let myself do things like be part of ritual and um, you know, have an alter at home, were the times of my life when I was most deeply invested in community. Um, and you did it before it was popular, before it was like popular in the way

it is now around. Yeah, but I think there is something to be said about the times of my life when I was deeply invested in queer community and queer community spaces and spaces that we're aiming to be sort of transcendent and like um, you know, ecstatic and sort of the truest sense of the word. Those were the places where magic felt kind of possible and also where

trying to make magic was actually happening. Is because in those like liminal spaces, it does feel kind of like something that's achievable, Like when you're in a room full of queer people in this like sort of sacred space that you have created against all odds, it does feel like you can maybe achieve something like alchemical or transformative or even divine. And you know, nowadays I don't have as much time for that, but it is time consuming,

It is time consuming. But like I have, you know, I have been part of large scale rituals, both in more like nightlife centric spaces and then also in fairy spaces and sort of communal spaces out in nature, and there is you know, I do think there's something to be said for like mass illusion and mass hysteria, but I have I have definitely felt real magic. Yeah, I have absolutely felt it. But I think that honestly, like I wish Channey was here, um, but like I do

think that our friend, n our friend Channing Nicholas. I think that the popularity of like work like hers is something that even she would like talk about a nuance, like saying that like both can exist, right, Like we have these spaces of mysticism that are empowering and important for personal growth, or like the actual cultivation of magic.

And then there's also this like cult thing that's happening that, especially in the twenties, is now becoming an erasure honestly of like practices that are ancient, indigenous, historically black things like that. So like when we have like sage and crystals and Breweri, like non Christian iterations of a kind

of magical belief system. I think even something as common as it is now to hear someone say I didn't like their energy or or I'm not feeling the vibe that has really trapped, that has really worked its way into our vernacular way that I don't think it existed before. And we we live in a society that I believe has accepted the idea that there is some sort of metaphysical plane we all exist on. And so when j Lo said get the Virgo off of my dance crew,

I'm not watching. Yeah, she was partaking in the very thing you're you're alluding to. She was speaking of dance. One film that I wish that you would watch that I'm sure you never will is Suspiria. Oh yeah, I watched the first I don't know how long, but I watch up until the contortion. Okay, well the movies three hours long, Jesus Christ. I So the original Suspiria, which is the Dario or Gento film, it's like a very fame to ten. It's yes, it is um not the original,

the new one. The Dario Argendo film is like a very psychedelic seventies horror film that is really considered a classic. It was remade by Luca guard Nino, who directed Call Me by Your Name in starring Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson and Mia Goth who's having a glow up a moment right now. I really prefer the remake to the original. And I think the idea of a coven of witches using the cover of being a dance company is really interesting and it just leads to so many incredible set

pieces of of movement as magic. And that's something like, you know, going back to what I was talking about before, like I think some of the times of my life when I felt the most like I was part of something larger than myself and like felt a tune to the people around me and felt something magical was when

I was dancing. Yeah, And honestly, it reminds me a lot of what I think most people believed to be the best scene in midsom Are when Florence Pugh is being like kind of pulled into that clan of women and having her kind of grief in her grief state is like reckoning with the infidelity that's going on right in front of her, and she starts moving and breathing in tandem with that crowd of women. Do you remember that?

Like it reminds me. I think that combined with the rich, combined with Um the movie Suspiria all kind of build on the communal aspect that you're talking about, how the coven, the coven is actually a gorgeous metaphor of sisterhood, and how the subjugation and ostrichization of women and fems creates

a more equitable power that you now have. Sometimes it does, unless you are in American horror story um and then and then all it does is pit women against each other do you like that series, because I feel like I haven't. I've only watched that American Horror Story season from beginning to end. It's the only one I've completed. But people always say it's the best one. It's not my favorite one. I see why people think it's the best one, because I think it's I think it's the

most fun and the most campy. Um My faith is honestly probably Hotel Gaga or maybe Murder House. I think the best season of American Horror Story is Asylum, but it's not what I want to rewatch um. Coven is fun, It's just a little too silly, and I think, you know the problem that every season of American Horror Story has is that they start out so strong and then halfway through the season is like, what are we gonna do now? And that's very much what happens with Kevin.

And the first couple episodes of Coven are so fun. Uh. When Covin was airing, I was watching it at live viewings in Brooklyn, which were so fun because this was like peak and when Ryan had like the most cultural power he has. What I don't like about Covin, I think is that I mean Unfortunately this is also just a Ryan Murphy thing, and that he does this amazing thing where he creates roles for the older actresses, but often what he's writing in those roles is women who

are obsessed with youth and regaining youth. And that's what I didn't love about Covin was that the whole story was about this woman who wants to hang onto youth by any means necessary, and that youth equates to power. When I think the great thing about which is historically is that which is are one of the few, you know, archetypes we have in culture of a powerful older woman, a powerful woman that has no problem being and also

which is historically honor all the points of womanhood. Like when you talk about Hecate and the Triple Goddess, It's Maiden mother Crone. It's recognizing that those three parts of

a woman's life are all equally important. Yeah, And like while we love like hot fashion, which is like we love our Kieran and Schipkasas and like all that jazz, it's like actually like in the mad, mad amm of it, all the power of a witch is that she's like, I am as ugly as you can imagine and yet that that is no detriment to like my power and the power that I have over you. Right where in like non magical society, the uglier you are, the less

power you have. But the Witch is like, you can do whatever you want to me, like you can't touch me. It's not even necessarily even ugliness. It's literally just age, you know, yes, right, sure, I was going to say on the Coven of it all? So I watched it

for the first time last year, did you know that? Um, it's the only HS that I have finished that I did watch a lot of Murder House, and um, I'm really shook by how many big swings he took to like talk about black culture within like the show, but like it was never like built upon or like fleshed out. And also like he never had any black writers in his room, I don't think, or at least that's what I remember looking at when I was like watching it.

Francis Conroy's character in Coven to me is like Ryan Murphietta's best right, A witch who cares, Yes, a witch who cares about labels is genius, and it cares about labels and is a snob, like is a maybe even like a classist. Like I thought that was so interesting the things that he was trying to say about like racism, and how like Kathy Bates was like this kind of belligerently white supremacist person who like learned her lesson by

way of like Gabby Citabit. I was like, this did not age well at all, Like doesn't make any sense to me. But again, it like came out at the exact right time, probably like came out exactly before people were fully canceling or like trying to call critique to things like this, right, Um, but yeah, I think the fact that it is a covenant like to our point, like that Coven's have this kind of like cultural meaning throughout time makes it one of Ryan Murphy's greatest contributions.

And in and I you know, I like, um, you know, a solitary which story, you know, the Kikys of the world, and you know, um, but I think some of my favorite which stories are about sisterhood in community. That's why I love which is of Eastwick and practical Magic and even the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which you know had its issues. I was so excited about how it started. And I think it has one of the best trailers

for a TV show ever made. As I think the first season, well maybe not the last two episodes, but the first season was season is really good. Um, the end was not great, but I think that show was most effective when it brought the witches together and you really felt that sense of like family and sisterhood, and that writer's room was also like black and trans right and they try to bring voodoo back to indigen eighty

into blackness, which I thought was cool. Like there are a lot of things about the Sabrina franchise that was slightly reparative or trying to restore what maybe was erased in the the you know, the cannon of witchcraft, and you know that's something that if you look at Harry Potter, like there was never a moment in Harry Potter, despite the fact that it was about a war and obviously you know, being on different side of the sides of the war and like fighting alongside people they're like magic

system was one in which it was all about individual power. Was never a moment where we saw people like doing a spell together, And I don't know that's like maybe just a weird aside, but I think it's like very telling of the person who wrote it. I was just gonna say, actually, that is kind of interesting. Like the only kind of communal, the communal like moments of magic in Harry Potter that I can think of are like what like when they when they build a fortress around

But that's the only in the movies. It's not in the books. You know, it's not the book. It's not in the books, and you know what that scene is, so you know, there's no like Harry Potter that's a magic system. Where I think magic in Harry Potter is so banal and so every day and there's no sense of like wonder about it, and there's no real ritual around magic. There isn't um and I think that's kind of boring. I I prefer, you know, like I loved

and Charmed when they would cold hands and say a spell. Yeah, Harry Potter was trying to do a different version of it. But I will say, honestly, that scene where they're creating the fortress and when mcgonicall like um anthropomorphizes the statues makes me cry every time, sobbing and also sobbing, shitting throwing up. I was literally and that's not exactly. I remember physically crying, and I also think in the books, I'm pretty sure it's my favorite scene in the entire franchise.

It's go we you know, have come so far from the you know, original iconography of the witch, like even from you know, Shakespeare, like oh yeah, the Three Witches, double double toil and troubles um, get something, get this where it comes and now and now I think we're at a point where we're looking back at historical witches through a different lens. Like you know, we've talked about

the Madeline Miller effect on this podcast before. If you haven't read the novel Searcy, it's about Searcy, who's a demigoddess and you know, sort of the original witch in Greek mythology, and it's about her discovering that she is. You know, she kind of invents Switchcraft. I would kind of love to see that take applied to Like what if there was like a Madeline Miller esque Macbeth book

on the Three Witches. You know, I'll bet you it does exist somewhere, but like, honestly, like the witches in Macbeth, honestly, like their whole function is like prophecy right, like they're the fates of the story, but they don't have any sort of like interiority or anything that really would be a good Um, we should write that, Orangine. I'm sure. I'm sure it's been done in some kind of way.

And now, of my thumbs and of the wicked witches in the culture, right now we have the Queen herself, Miss Wanda, Yes who this is chaos, This is chaos magic Wanda. I do think that Wanda is maybe the most culturally relevant which making work right now. She is. I'm trying to think of any others, like Sabrina is no longer relevant unfortunately, though I do think that Sabrina was what you were saying, that that kind of taking

the witch narrative and making it something very contemporary. I mean, it's been a while since we did our Multiverse of Madness episode and I have since rewatched it and I have kind of like shifted my take, please, which is I don't think it's a very good movie, and I think it kind of did want to dirty, and I think it kind of erodes all the character development that

happened in one division because because she's so flatly villainous. Yes, I agree with that, because she's way more complex in the show, and so it is to me really discarding. And she's also just not the main character, which is frustrating, and it just shows that she didn't learn her lesson, because the whole of wand Division is about her realizing that she can't use magic to get something she wants at other people's expense, and she literally starts over and

does that again in Doctor Strange. I also thought the way she was vanquished was unbelievable, Like she got crushed by I was like, I was, obviously she's not that, but I think she vanquished herself and disappeared, and I hope there's more from her. I hope we get like

one of Wanda's actual iconic storylines from the comics. I think get will probably be a while, just because they need to do so much setting up this next the next few phases of the m c U for us to get to Mutants and like possibly to like House of m and is Agatha slated for next year though? Next year? Yeah, Agatha, And it has a new name now,

it's COVID of Chaos. Why so you know this? The thing is because witches have always existed in culture, and in pop culture they are cyclical, So I think we are due for a more kind of full throated, like actual resurgence of a lot of different types of witches in media at some point. The way that we have gotten on and off with vampires, with werewolves, with all of the above, and things like true Blood. Um, the witches and true Blood kind of suck though, Um God,

I could talk. I could talk for hours about which is I could too, honestly, And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that by definition they are a part of a subculture and therefore inherently like queer slash trans you know what I mean. Like, I think that in terms of like what I would love to see from future which stories is something of what Sabrina was trying to do, which is, show us a slate of which or maybe the Charmed reboot, you know what I mean, show us a slate of which

is that place witchcraft in queerness, tranceness, ostragization. Well, that happened in a book that I talked about on this podcast recently, Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson. I described it sort of shortly then, but I'll like describe

it a little bit more at length here. So it's a novel about a society in England in which witches have always had kind of a secret shadow government inside the actual government, and they govern themselves and you know, deal with supernatural events and have like liaisons with the main government. And a couple of years before the novel takes place, there was a magical war, and so the main characters are all now coming off a couple of years since that war ended. There are a group of

friends who grew up together very closely. They're all witches, and they've now all kind of fallen out of touch. And one of the witches has broken off from the main coven because it was entirely made up of white witches, and she's now formed her own more inclusive coven um that's I think called diaspora, which is like a bit

on the nose. But and then, you know, most interestingly, um so in this world, witches are only women, and they are significantly more powerful than their male counterparts, warlocks. And they find a child who they believed to be the anti Christ. He's a boy who has much more magical ability than he should have. And as it turns out, this person is a trans woman and that's why she is more powerful, and so it has all of the

characters kind of question how they feel about that. Several of them were like, oh, it makes sense, she's a girl, that's why she's more powerful, and there's never really a question of like the science or like the magic, just like some of them obviously have to work through different ways that they feel about it, but they do kind of say like, Okay, well, this person is who she is. But then one of the women who is the leader of the coven is a turf and doesn't want this

person invading women's spaces. Remember you telling me that it's it's it's a really really good book and it does all of those things that you were just talking about, which is need this movie adaptation, which is placing these archetypes and kind of the same stories we tell about, which is over and over again in a very contemporary setting, and like throwing identity politics at them and seeing how

they work out. And that's something I'm so interested to see what the next evolution of the Witch as a cultural figure is and I think we will be the ones to do it. Yeah, we will be the ones. Okay, So that is down on week one of our special Halloween Extravaganza. Next week we'll be back with two new episodes. A special episode all about Silence of the Lambs which I've never seen, which friend has never seen, and then

on Thursday and episode all about Tim Burton. So go back watch Edward Scissor Hands or Sleepy Hollow or Beetlejuice, whatever and um in the meantime finals. On social, you can tag our finsta at Like a Virgin, slide into our d ms. We want to hear from you. Also, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rating on Spotify. It helps us out so much. We cannot tell you how much. I'm your co host Rose Damn You, and I am fran Dorato. You can find me anywhere

on Social at Rose Damn You. You can find me at Franz Squish co. You can subscribe to Like a Virgin anywhere you listen to podcasts. Like a Virgin is an i Heeart radio production. Our producer is phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane Trich and Nikkiatur until next week. Double double toil and trouble until next week. Sisters, we've f lie lim My Brande