Abstract
This article explores the changing relationship between the archetype of the witch and the abject through a case study of the films Hocus Pocus (1993) and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022). Drawing on Barbara Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine I argue that in Hocus Pocus the Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject witches via their physical appearance and violent behaviour. However, in Hocus Pocus 2, the Sanderson sisters are transformed from abject monsters into proto-feminists forced to journey into abjection by the society they inhabit. The addition of the sisters’ childhood backstory and new motives for revenge, combined with more positive representations of witches through the introduction of new characters, transform the Sanderson sisters’ relationship with abjection in a positive way. This transformation is indicative of the amelioration of the witch in popular culture which has been facilitated by fourth-wave feminist witchcraft and the reclamation of both the witch and the monstrous-feminine by twenty-first-century feminists.
Keywords: Witch, witchcraft, Salem, abject, abjection, feminism, monstrous-feminine, patriarchy, liberation, empowerment, subjugation, revolt, transformation
Introduction
The horror witch has a legacy of abjection, but in the twenty-first century she has also gained the status of feminist hero. Whilst the feminist witch is far from a twenty-first-century phenomenon – the witch was utilised by first-wave feminists to demonstrate patriarchal oppression, and second-wave feminists reinvented the witch for their own ideological ends – the fourth-wave feminist witch has transcended her abject origins. In this essay I explore the changing relationship between the witch and abjection through a case study of the films Hocus Pocus (1993) and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022). Utilising Barbara Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine I argue that in Hocus Pocus the Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject witches. However, in Hocus Pocus 2, the witches are transformed from abject monsters into feminist heroes forced to journey into abjection by the patriarchal society they inhabit. The positive transformation of the Sanderson sisters is indicative of wider changes in the representation of witches in popular culture.
In The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) Creed argues that female monsters are constructed as abject because of their sexual difference. In Return of the Monstrous-Feminine (2022) Creed expands upon this argument and posits that in Feminist New Wave Cinema, compared to twentieth-century horror cinema, women’s bodies are not constructed as abject simply because of their reproductive functions, but rather women in horror become abject when they revolt against violent patriarchal social structures and that it is this feminist revolt that takes them on a journey into ‘the dark night of abjection’ (2022: 2). The abject, as defined by Julia Kristeva in Powers of Horror (1982), is the transgressive other that ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (1982: 4) and therefore must be radically excluded to protect normative social structures. Or, as Creed states, ‘the abject is that which must be expelled or excluded in the construction of the self. In order to enter the symbolic order, the subject must reject or repress all forms of behaviour, speech and modes of being regarded as unacceptable’ (1993: 37). Erin Harrington expands on Kristeva’s theory stating that ‘the abject(ed), jettisoned, excluded thing then becomes a lightning rod for anxiety – a scapegoat into which trauma is displaced’ (2018: 224). This essay explores the witch as a vessel for changing cultural anxieties about female power and the abjectification of women.
In Feminist Afterlives of the Witch (2023) Brydie Kosmina argues that ‘the witch is (and has been for a long time) a particularly useful identity for feminists and people concerned with gender liberation’ (2023: vii). The witch’s conception as monstrous is therefore indicative of gendered power structures. The fact that, according to Creed, ‘the monstrous-feminine is a creation of patriarchal ideology designed to render women impotent in a male world’ (2023: xv) highlights female monstrosity as a misogynistic device that reproduces discourses about the dangers of female power and sexuality. The monstrous witch therefore embodies both a threat to patriarchal social order and the potential for feminist liberation. According to Creed the witch ‘is a familiar female monster; she is invariably represented as an old, ugly crone who is capable of monstrous acts. During the European witch trials of recent history she was accused of the most hideous crimes: cannibalism, murder, castration of male victims, and the advent of natural disasters such as storms, fires and the plague’ (1993: 2). The witch as monstrous-feminine is frequently depicted as a transgressive woman who possesses magical powers and lives independently. She is dangerous as a potential threat to patriarchal ideology through her ability to exist outside of patriarchal social order; sometimes the witch’s social exclusion is voluntary and sometimes it is forced upon her. In the case of the Sanderson sisters, their ostracisation is at first a way that they are abjectified by their community, and later a choice they make to protect themselves.
Hocus Pocus
Catherine Lester, in her analysis of children’s horror, states that for child protagonists ‘horrific encounters always occur via their need to defeat or overcome the source of antagonism, which most often takes the form of a humanoid adult monster’ (2022:19). This sentiment is most definitely true in Hocus Pocus which opens with a flashback to 1693 Salem where the Sanderson sisters are hanged for the abduction and murder of Emily Binx and suspected witchcraft. As they are executed, Winifred Sanderson invokes a curse that allows the sisters to be bought back from the dead if a virgin lights the black flame candle on Halloween. Interestingly, due to the status of Hocus Pocus as a children’s film, in some countries this scene was cut entirely as it was deemed too frightening for children (IMDb, n.d.). On Halloween night 300 years later a teenage boy accidently, but predictably, lights the candle and brings the sisters back from the dead. Upon their resurrection Winnie, Mary, and Sarah Sanderson embark on a mission to kill the children of Salem, which will grant them both beauty and immortality. The sister witches are eventually defeated by three local children and their supernatural friends who save the children of Salem from the same fate as Emily Binx.
The Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject in several ways in Hocus Pocus. Firstly, they are witches, and not only witches but old, ugly crones who fly on broomsticks, do their evil bidding under the moonlight, and conjure with a bubbling cauldron. ‘Historically and mythologically, the witch has inspired both awe and dread’ (Creed 1993: 74), and as figures of both intrigue and danger, the witch is shrouded in a mythology which Hocus Pocus draws on to present caricatures of witches so exaggerated they blend horror and comedy. The film itself blends genres and sits somewhere in between horror, comedy, and children’s film. Its PG rating limits any explicit horror the witches may invoke, and the comedic elements serve to highlight the garish monstrosity of the Sanderson sisters and the frivolity of their goals. Comedy, alongside mediating the horror elements, helps to make the film appropriate for children. Schematically, the comedic elements of Hocus Pocus may also seek to satirise the patriarchal mythology of the witch as a powerful woman who must be mastered or eliminated, though ultimately, patriarchal ideology is reinforced. The fact that Disney chooses to depict stereotypical evil witches ultimately problematises feminist readings of the film. Kosmina theorises ‘the witch as a pure monster… is a reliable money-earner and will continue to haunt popular culture for as long as it is profitable for her to do so’ (2023: 107), which may explain Disney’s employment of the monstrous witch as their villain.
This article explores the changing relationship between the archetype of the witch and the abject through a case study of the films Hocus Pocus (1993) and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022). Drawing on Barbara Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine I argue that in Hocus Pocus the Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject witches via their physical appearance and violent behaviour. However, in Hocus Pocus 2, the Sanderson sisters are transformed from abject monsters into proto-feminists forced to journey into abjection by the society they inhabit. The addition of the sisters’ childhood backstory and new motives for revenge, combined with more positive representations of witches through the introduction of new characters, transform the Sanderson sisters’ relationship with abjection in a positive way. This transformation is indicative of the amelioration of the witch in popular culture which has been facilitated by fourth-wave feminist witchcraft and the reclamation of both the witch and the monstrous-feminine by twenty-first-century feminists.
Keywords: Witch, witchcraft, Salem, abject, abjection, feminism, monstrous-feminine, patriarchy, liberation, empowerment, subjugation, revolt, transformation
Introduction
The horror witch has a legacy of abjection, but in the twenty-first century she has also gained the status of feminist hero. Whilst the feminist witch is far from a twenty-first-century phenomenon – the witch was utilised by first-wave feminists to demonstrate patriarchal oppression, and second-wave feminists reinvented the witch for their own ideological ends – the fourth-wave feminist witch has transcended her abject origins. In this essay I explore the changing relationship between the witch and abjection through a case study of the films Hocus Pocus (1993) and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022). Utilising Barbara Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine I argue that in Hocus Pocus the Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject witches. However, in Hocus Pocus 2, the witches are transformed from abject monsters into feminist heroes forced to journey into abjection by the patriarchal society they inhabit. The positive transformation of the Sanderson sisters is indicative of wider changes in the representation of witches in popular culture.
In The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) Creed argues that female monsters are constructed as abject because of their sexual difference. In Return of the Monstrous-Feminine (2022) Creed expands upon this argument and posits that in Feminist New Wave Cinema, compared to twentieth-century horror cinema, women’s bodies are not constructed as abject simply because of their reproductive functions, but rather women in horror become abject when they revolt against violent patriarchal social structures and that it is this feminist revolt that takes them on a journey into ‘the dark night of abjection’ (2022: 2). The abject, as defined by Julia Kristeva in Powers of Horror (1982), is the transgressive other that ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (1982: 4) and therefore must be radically excluded to protect normative social structures. Or, as Creed states, ‘the abject is that which must be expelled or excluded in the construction of the self. In order to enter the symbolic order, the subject must reject or repress all forms of behaviour, speech and modes of being regarded as unacceptable’ (1993: 37). Erin Harrington expands on Kristeva’s theory stating that ‘the abject(ed), jettisoned, excluded thing then becomes a lightning rod for anxiety – a scapegoat into which trauma is displaced’ (2018: 224). This essay explores the witch as a vessel for changing cultural anxieties about female power and the abjectification of women.
In Feminist Afterlives of the Witch (2023) Brydie Kosmina argues that ‘the witch is (and has been for a long time) a particularly useful identity for feminists and people concerned with gender liberation’ (2023: vii). The witch’s conception as monstrous is therefore indicative of gendered power structures. The fact that, according to Creed, ‘the monstrous-feminine is a creation of patriarchal ideology designed to render women impotent in a male world’ (2023: xv) highlights female monstrosity as a misogynistic device that reproduces discourses about the dangers of female power and sexuality. The monstrous witch therefore embodies both a threat to patriarchal social order and the potential for feminist liberation. According to Creed the witch ‘is a familiar female monster; she is invariably represented as an old, ugly crone who is capable of monstrous acts. During the European witch trials of recent history she was accused of the most hideous crimes: cannibalism, murder, castration of male victims, and the advent of natural disasters such as storms, fires and the plague’ (1993: 2). The witch as monstrous-feminine is frequently depicted as a transgressive woman who possesses magical powers and lives independently. She is dangerous as a potential threat to patriarchal ideology through her ability to exist outside of patriarchal social order; sometimes the witch’s social exclusion is voluntary and sometimes it is forced upon her. In the case of the Sanderson sisters, their ostracisation is at first a way that they are abjectified by their community, and later a choice they make to protect themselves.
Hocus Pocus
Catherine Lester, in her analysis of children’s horror, states that for child protagonists ‘horrific encounters always occur via their need to defeat or overcome the source of antagonism, which most often takes the form of a humanoid adult monster’ (2022:19). This sentiment is most definitely true in Hocus Pocus which opens with a flashback to 1693 Salem where the Sanderson sisters are hanged for the abduction and murder of Emily Binx and suspected witchcraft. As they are executed, Winifred Sanderson invokes a curse that allows the sisters to be bought back from the dead if a virgin lights the black flame candle on Halloween. Interestingly, due to the status of Hocus Pocus as a children’s film, in some countries this scene was cut entirely as it was deemed too frightening for children (IMDb, n.d.). On Halloween night 300 years later a teenage boy accidently, but predictably, lights the candle and brings the sisters back from the dead. Upon their resurrection Winnie, Mary, and Sarah Sanderson embark on a mission to kill the children of Salem, which will grant them both beauty and immortality. The sister witches are eventually defeated by three local children and their supernatural friends who save the children of Salem from the same fate as Emily Binx.
The Sanderson sisters are constructed as abject in several ways in Hocus Pocus. Firstly, they are witches, and not only witches but old, ugly crones who fly on broomsticks, do their evil bidding under the moonlight, and conjure with a bubbling cauldron. ‘Historically and mythologically, the witch has inspired both awe and dread’ (Creed 1993: 74), and as figures of both intrigue and danger, the witch is shrouded in a mythology which Hocus Pocus draws on to present caricatures of witches so exaggerated they blend horror and comedy. The film itself blends genres and sits somewhere in between horror, comedy, and children’s film. Its PG rating limits any explicit horror the witches may invoke, and the comedic elements serve to highlight the garish monstrosity of the Sanderson sisters and the frivolity of their goals. Comedy, alongside mediating the horror elements, helps to make the film appropriate for children. Schematically, the comedic elements of Hocus Pocus may also seek to satirise the patriarchal mythology of the witch as a powerful woman who must be mastered or eliminated, though ultimately, patriarchal ideology is reinforced. The fact that Disney chooses to depict stereotypical evil witches ultimately problematises feminist readings of the film. Kosmina theorises ‘the witch as a pure monster… is a reliable money-earner and will continue to haunt popular culture for as long as it is profitable for her to do so’ (2023: 107), which may explain Disney’s employment of the monstrous witch as their villain.
Secondly, the Sanderson sisters are physically abject. In the opening scene of the film, they appear as aged and grotesque with rotting teeth, dirty fingernails, wiry grey hair, and wizened skin. The sisters are older women with moles, hooked noses, buck teeth, and harsh make up who do not adhere to traditional beauty standards making them abject in the eyes of patriarchal ideology. When they are bought back from the dead in 1993 their bodies gain a new abject aspect as they blur the boundaries between life and death. The witches’ ability to transcend these borders expose the fragility of social order as they breech the margins of life itself. The Sanderson sisters’ proximity to the abject is continuously emphasised throughout the film. Creed poses that ‘the witch is also associated with a range of abject things: filth, decay, spiders, bats, cobwebs, brews, potions and even cannibalism’ (1993: 76). This is literalised in Hocus Pocus via the decrepit, cobwebbed witches’ cottage, Sarah Sanderson’s taste for spiders, and the evil potion the sisters brew to consume children’s souls and kill them.
This is perhaps the most abject facet of the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus. This aspect of their abject behaviour poses a threat to the community as they plot to murder Salem’s children. Their murderous behaviour towards children relates to historical fears about witches sacrificing unbaptised babies in ritualistic frolics with the devil, committing infanticide (Karlsen 1998), and engaging in ‘“anti-maternal” behaviours such as eating babies and procuring abortions’ (Kosmina 2023: 188). The audience witnesses the witches killing Emily Binx by inhaling her soul in the opening scenes of the film and they attempt the same crime again in 1993 with Dani and then Max Dennison. Part of the transgressiveness of the witches’ violence towards children is that it violates traditional heteronormative gender roles, which assert that women are natural caregivers whose role it is to love and protect children. Therefore, the sisters’ violence towards children is a breach of those traditional gender roles and threatens social order and heteronormative institutions such as marriage and the patriarchal family unit.
The Sanderson sisters also reflect Harrington’s ideas on abject barren bodies (2018) whereby the infertile cisgender female body becomes abject because it ‘both excludes itself from the dominant social order and is excluded because of its failure to comply to a reproductive imperative that positions self-sacrificing motherhood as the ideal form of ideologically complicit female subjectivity’ (2018: 225). Pam Grossman adds to this discourse that ‘the aging body is a site of terror – and the no-longer-fertile female body most of all… Time and again, the old female physique is either cast aside or held up as a thing of evil’ (2019: 124).
In 1693 Salem the sisters represent a microcosm of matriarchy within a patriarchal whole intolerant to female independence and collaboration. The sisters’ aversion to motherhood and children makes them abject in the eyes of patriarchal social order. Grossman continues, ‘women who don’t have children are treated as worrisome… At best, a woman of childbearing age or older who doesn’t have kids sparks curiosity. At worst, she’s seen as a violation of the natural order’ (2019: 109). The Sanderson sisters’ lack of maternal instincts render them abject and, in 1693 Salem, extremely suspicious. When the Puritan villagers search for the missing Emily Binx the Sanderson sisters are the primary suspects. As three older, unmarried, childless women who live together in the woods on the margins of the community, the sisters are undesirable outsiders who evoke suspicion and fear in their community. Winifred’s claim that they are ‘just three kindly old spinster ladies’ does not make them any more tolerable in a society with rigid heteronormative gender roles. Obviously, the audience knows that the sisters are guilty of the crime of which they are accused, but for the villagers their discomfort with the Sandersons’ nonconformity is reason alone to accuse them of witchcraft.
The witches also transgress their assigned gender roles through their desire for power. The witches refuse to bend to subjugation or submit to patriarchal ideals, which becomes even more prevalent in the sequel, and aspire to become all powerful. They seek to achieve this by committing a mass child sacrifice, an action which threatens to destroy social order on Halloween 1993. The fact that they use their magical powers and their ability to brew potions and cast spells for evil purposes makes their powers abject because they are vengeful, violent, and motivated by greed and vanity. Kristeva argues that abject crimes include ‘premediated crime, cunning murder, hypocritical revenge’ (1982: 4), all of which the Sanderson sisters could be accused of. The witches’ depiction as evil reflects ‘both the implicit reproduction of hegemonic narratives and ideologies, and the explicit repurposing and rewriting of these historical narratives for specific political purposes’ (Kosmina 2023: 82). Whilst stereotypical evil witches can serve to reproduce misogynistic rhetoric about the dangers of powerful women, as with the diabolical witches in Hocus Pocus, the witch can also rewrite historical narratives, as in Hocus Pocus 2, problematising clear cut notions of the empowered witch.
Unsurprisingly, the witches’ power in Hocus Pocus is sourced from a man, Satan. During the early modern period it was commonly believed that ‘created intellectually, morally, and physically weaker than men… [women] more readily turned to Satan to fulfil their needs and to provide them with the power to avenge themselves on those in more fortunate positions’ (Karlsen 1998: 155). The sisters reference their service to their ‘master’ when they see a man in a devil Halloween costume and mistake him for Satan himself. They fall to their knees for this costumed stranger complicating the idea that they are independently powerful women. Even if the witches exist outside of patriarchal social order, they are still subordinate to a masculine authority figure. Furthermore, the sentient magic book which Winifred uses to cast spells – which are key to her power – was apparently ‘a gift from the devil himself’ which further demonstrates that their power is not as inherently feminine as it originally appears. In In Defence of Witches Mona Chollet writes that ‘the Renaissance demonologists couldn’t even imagine women’s absolute autonomy; for them, the freedom of those accused of witchcraft had to be understood as part of a further subordination: they were necessarily under the Devil’s sway and therefore still subject to a masculine authority’ (2022: 69). This historical ideology is propagated in Hocus Pocus where the sisters’ transgressive power still has a masculine source, and so even if they do not submit themselves to normative patriarchal ideals, they do submit themselves to the patriarch Satan, undermining their appearance as independent women and empowered witches. This, however, may be a product of the comedic function of the film designed to mock the patriarchal narrative of the witch, which could not bear to grant women individual power.
Ultimately, the Sanderson sisters must be cast out of both 1693 and 1993 Salem to protect social order. As the sisters’ quest for immortality descends into a vengeful rampage directed at an eight-year-old girl who insulted Winnie, their abjection grows. The sisters’ destructive power and violence cannot be tolerated as they threaten to breach social order and expose its fragility by highlighting how easily heteronormative patriarchal social order might be dismantled. Eventually, the witches are defeated and notably their demise comes at the hands of the zombie Billy, cursed Puritan villager Thackery (who the witches transformed into an immortal black cat), and Max, which means that it is men who come to the rescue and save the town from the witches. The film ends with the normative nuclear family, Max and Dani Dennison, defeating the non-normative matriarchal family, Winnie, Mary and Sarah Sanderson, just as they did in 1693. If Creed is correct and ‘woman’s abjectification is crucial to the functioning of the patriarchal order’ (1993: 166), then we can view the Sanderson sister’s abjectification in Hocus Pocus as demonstrative of the dangers of female power; their service to Satan as proof that women cannot be individually empowered without the influence of a male authority figure; and their treatment as a mode of protection against patriarchal disempowerment.
Hocus Pocus 2
Hocus Pocus 2 was released 29 years after the original film. Whilst still being a children’s film designed to appeal to a new generation of child viewers, Hocus Pocus 2 also revels in nostalgia and acknowledges its now adult viewership who have returned to the franchise for the sequel. Hocus Pocus 2, like the original film, opens with a flashback to the sisters’ past before moving to modern day Salem where the sisters are once more resurrected on Halloween night. Re-returned from the dead, they resume their mission for revenge, but this time their targets are the descendants of the Reverend who first accused them of witchcraft in 1600s Salem. Their adversaries in 2022 are three teenage girls who form a new coven and use their own witchcraft to defeat the Sanderson sisters. The Sanderson sisters’ relationship with abjection changes significantly in the sequel through the introduction of a sympathetic backstory, the quest for ancestral revenge, and more positive representations of witches.
Contextualising the witches’ relationship with abjection in line with Creed’s Return of the Monstrous-Feminine, I argue that we can view the Sanderson sisters not only as abject monsters, but as women forced to endure abjection. Creed writes that:
Feminist New Wave films… tell stories about women who are in revolt against male violence and corrosive patriarchal values… The female protagonists challenge patriarchal definitions of what constitutes the proper feminine role designed to keep women impotent and marginalised. Determined to discover their own identity and desires, the female characters embark on a journey into the dark night of abjection, where they engage with the underlying horrors of the patriarchal order. (2022: 2)
Hocus Pocus 2 cannot be categorised as a Feminist New Wave film because it does not fulfil Creed’s criteria of having a feminist director – director Anne Fletcher has espoused postfeminist ideology in interviews (SheKnows, 2015) – nor, if we read its protagonists as the teenage girls, does Hocus Pocus 2 challenge notions of ‘proper’ femininity or seek to undermine patriarchy. However, we can still use Creed’s ideas on feminist revolt and radical abjection – that is, the form of abjection that leads to revolt (Creed 2023) – to explore the Sanderson sisters’ changing relationship with abjection and to argue that via the sequel the Sanderson sisters are transformed from abject beings into women who are forced to endure abjection and who are in revolt against patriarchal oppression. Creed believes that this revolt occurs when ‘woman realizes that her so-called abjection, which patriarchal ideology attaches to her feminine, sexual and reproductive roles, is a myth, and turns these roles around in an act of defiance and revolt’ (2023: 189). The Sanderson sisters’ revolt is inspired by their abjectification, which I will explore further below.
The reframing of the Sanderson sisters and abjection is introduced in the first scene of the film through a flashback to the sisters’ childhood in puritanical 1653 Salem. Historian Owen Davies writes that since the seventeenth-century witch trials ‘Salem served as a metaphor for bigotry, intolerance, religious fanaticism, persecution, popular credulity, personal ambition, and the dangers of mob rule’ (2016: 2). Fletcher undoubtedly draws on these ideas and presents 1600s Salem exactly as Davies describes: a site of intolerance, persecution, and mob rule. The sympathetic backstory of the Sanderson sisters begins with young, orphaned Winifred refusing an arranged marriage by Reverend Traske. It is here that the Sanderson sisters begin to transform into feminist symbols of the ‘patriarchal persecution of women who fought the misogyny that dominated every aspect of their daily life and were punished for it’ (Kosmina 2023: 61). Winnie is already unpopular in Salem because of her abrasive personality and disregard for social decorum, but on her 16th birthday she confides in her sisters that she has been told she ‘Must marry’ because she is getting old. The villagers descend on the Sanderson home to demand the arranged marriage go ahead and to remove younger siblings, Mary and Sarah, from their family home and put them in the custody of another family. Winnie outright refuses the marriage to John Pritchett and is banished from Salem by the Reverend, all three sisters fleeing to the forbidden woods amid hysteria and accusations of witchcraft. Feminist activist and scholar Silvia Federici writes that ‘those who prosecuted [witches] charged them with being quarrelsome, with having an evil tongue, with stirring up trouble among their neighbours’ but goes on to ask whether it’s possible to read accused witches’ abrasive behaviour as ‘a resentment born of anger at the injustice suffered and a rejection of marginalisation’ (2018: 19). Federici’s theory seems especially relevant to Winnie, who is already surrounded by murmurings of witchcraft due to her temperament which appears to be a product of anger at her marginalisation and protectiveness over her nontraditional family unit. Furthermore, historian Carol F. Karlsen posits that:
The social process that transformed women into witches in New England required the convergence of belief on the part of both the townspeople and the religious and secular authorities that these women posed serious threats to society. For most people the threat lay in the subversion of the sexual order, but the clergy articulated the threat of witchcraft as the subversion of the order of Creation… They were two types of dangerous trespass: challenges to the supremacy of God and challenges to the prescribed gender arrangements. (1998: 119)
Both the community and religious leaders come together to condemn Winifred Sanderson, who represents both a threat to the supremacy of God as she blasphemes and confronts the Reverend, and a threat to prescribed gender arrangements as she denigrates marriage and the patriarchal family unit. The villagers’ desire to bring the young, orphaned sisters under control indicates fears about unmastered women who have the potential to disrupt social order. Kristeva claims that through patriarchal ideology women have become ‘synonymous with a radical evil that is to be suppressed’ (1982: 70) and Winnie’s refusal to submit, marry, and be separated from her sisters represents a defiance of the church which causes the sisters to be cast out of the community as figures of abjection. Creed suggests that ‘an ordinary woman can be seen to become monstrous when she behaves in what is seen to be an unnatural manner by abandoning her proper feminine role and “violating gender norms.” She may reject the institutions of family and normal society, thereby exposing the frailty of the patriarchal symbolic order and its borders’ (2022: 68). Winnie’s rejection of the arranged marriage violates her gender role as she refuses to comply with expected puritanical and patriarchal ideals and, by Creed’s argument, this action sets her on her journey towards monstrosity.
Kosmina corroborates this notion and invokes the abject, stating that ‘the witch becomes the monstrous other in an incredibly strict binary gender model that must exist in patriarchal, colonial systems: what is not this must be that, and that must be destroyed’ (2023: 106). Winnie and her sisters abandon the institutions of the patriarchal family and normative society by leaving to live together in the forbidden woods where they begin to practice witchcraft. The sisters embrace their prescribed monstrosity and live contentedly in the woods until the village once more disrupts their matriarchal family unit when they murder Emily Binx. Karlsen notes that ‘for Puritans, hierarchy and order were the most cherished values. People who did not accept their place in the social order were the very embodiments of evil’ (1998: 181). This offers an insight into the mindset of the 1653 Salem villagers in Hocus Pocus 2. If, to the villagers, the Sanderson sisters represent the embodiment of evil, then this justifies the sisters’ expulsion from society as a means of protecting the community. However, to the modern audience, the villagers’ actions only serve to cast them as mockable villains. At least some of the blame for the Sanderson sisters’ monstrous trajectory from innocent children who turn to witchcraft for survival after their expulsion, lies at the feet of the villagers and specifically Reverend Traske who set their journey into the dark night of abjection in motion. This new backstory transforms the sisters from abject child-eating crones into proto-feminists fighting back against patriarchal puritanical forces in 1600s Salem.
The Sanderson sisters’ banishment initiates their journey into abjection where they live in violation of social order, use witchcraft for survival, and exist outside of patriarchal control. Creed describes this journey as ‘woman’s confrontation with the masculine and the feminine practices (as distinct from patriarchal rituals) she adopts to protect herself’ (1993: 12). This accurately reflects Winnie’s confrontation with Reverend Traske and the sisters’ adoption of witchcraft as a means of survival and empowerment. However, even if the witches’ revolt is inherently feminist it seems a stretch to classify Hocus Pocus 2 as a feminist film. The film undoubtedly engages with feminist discourses and presents a more feminist depiction of witches than Hocus Pocus, but the overall narrative goals of the film don’t prioritise female empowerment or liberation and, although it does offer feminist witch heroes, in the end the patriarchal status quo is maintained.
The source of the sisters’ power is also transformed in the sequel as the Mother Witch is introduced. Unlike in Hocus Pocus where we are led to believe that the sisters’ power is gleaned through a pact with the devil, in Hocus Pocus 2 the source of power is female. The sisters meet the Mother Witch in the forbidden woods shortly after their banishment. Initially the Mother Witch sees the sisters as potential prey, but she quickly recognises that the sisters are different to the other villagers. Deciding against cannibalising the children, the Mother Witch gifts Winnie the magic book which provides their introduction to witchcraft. The sisters’ pact with a man, Satan, is transformed into kinship with a woman, the Mother Witch. Unlike their relationship with Satan in the original film, which is presented as one of servitude, the Mother Witch appears to be benevolent towards the girls and asks for nothing in return for her gift, which guides the children towards their power. Through changes to the locus of power, witchcraft in Hocus Pocus 2 appears to be a vehicle for sisterhood, female collaboration, and the breaking of restrictive gender roles. However, the transfer of power from Satan to the Mother Witch also potentially indicates a gender essentialist version of female power whereby female power is gleaned through motherhood. I concur with Kosmina’s idea that feminist discourse sometimes problematically ‘privileges the witch mother with all the virtues and powers of the mother goddess archetype, but in doing so confines witchcraft to the enactment of (remarkably patriarchal view of) maternity’ (2023: 193). The necessity of a mother figure in Hocus Pocus 2 feels like an intervention by Disney seeking to introduce a traditional familial, albeit female-centric, dynamic to the sisters’ power.
Furthermore, the sisters’ desire for revenge also changes targets between the films. As opposed to seeking revenge against a child who insulted Winifred, as they do in Hocus Pocus, in Hocus Pocus 2 the witches seek a more noble, ancestral revenge against the descendants of Reverend Traske. Vengeance against Traske is justified and logical for the Sanderson sisters as he was the figurehead who ostracised and therefore abjected the sisters as innocent, albeit unruly, children in 1653. The Reverend is the villain in Hocus Pocus 2, even if his descendants are not; the comically good-natured Mayor Traske and his daughter Cassie become the convenient targets of the sisters’ vengeance in 2022. The witches’ new motives signify a feminist revolt against misogynistic witch-hunting practices and, like the new backstory, construct the witches as more sympathetic characters. Creed writes that ‘many films also draw on the monstrous-feminine and her ancient association with powerful female figures, such as the female warrior, as a way of transforming the personal journey of the female protagonist into a wider battle between the forces of feminist thought and patriarchal ideology’ (1993: 5). This seems pertinent to Hocus Pocus 2 as the mission for ancestral revenge transcends the literal persecution of the Mayor by the Sanderson sisters and becomes a narrative of feminist revolt, or radical abjection, against misogynistic witch-hunting practices and corrosive patriarchal values. Creed notes that this kind of revolt ‘is brought about through an encounter with male violence and its dark underside – abjection’ (2022:54). Given the sisters’ childhood experiences, it is not difficult to view their behaviour as a retaliation to the abjection they endured as children and, in turn, a monstrous-feminine revolt.
The sisters’ desire to complete the Power Spell in Hocus Pocus 2 can also be read as their way of seeking protection from future abjection because if the sisters become all powerful, it will not be possible for them to be subjugated again. Having been abjectified as children for their nonconformity, hanged as witches as adults, and destroyed by children when their curse was first invoked, it is understandable that the witches would seek to protect themselves from further violence. At the end of the film the sisters’ motives also become more positive. In Hocus Pocus the sisters are explicitly seeking power, beauty, youth, and immortality. However, in Hocus Pocus 2, when Winnie finally succeeds in completing the Power Spell, both of her sisters are destroyed and, distraught with grief over the unforeseen consequences of her actions, she willingly gives up not only her power but her life to be reunited with her sisters. This scene reveals that the sisters’ motivations may have been rooted in their desire to be together as sisters forever, as opposed to simply being powerful and living forever.
Additionally, the Sanderson sisters themselves have undergone a positive transformation in public imagination in Hocus Pocus 2. In 1993 the sisters were folkloric figures in a local scary story; however, in 2022 they have become pop culture icons in Salem. The town actively celebrates them in their annual Halloween festivities with a costume contest, and the sisters wander the town being complimented on their ‘costumes’ and taking selfies with self-professed fans. This is mirrored by the popularity of actual Hocus Pocus-related tourism in Salem which experienced a boom in 2022 with the release of the sequel. Unprecedented numbers of tourists visited Salem in 2022 (Boston.com 2022) despite the fact that, unlike Hocus Pocus, none of Hocus Pocus 2 was actually filmed there. Most significantly the Sanderson sisters are resurrected purposefully this time when the magic store owner Gilbert tricks protagonist Becca into lighting the black flame candle on her 16th birthday. Gilbert views the sisters as misunderstood heroes who were wrongfully persecuted in their own time. The sisters’ transformation from villains to anti-heroes indicates their move away from monstrous abjection and towards an abject feminist revolt against patriarchal order. Gilbert’s interpretation of the witches’ history mirrors modern ideas about historical witch hunting whereby people are now more sympathetic towards those accused of witchcraft – who were predominantly women – and believe them to be marginalised, innocent people punished for minor social transgressions. In Woman, Church and State (1893) Matilda Joslyn Gage, an American suffragist and activist, put forward the idea that witch hunting was a church- and state-sanctioned persecution of women and inspired the twentieth-century re-examination of the witch. ‘Gage was one of the first witchcraft scholars to see the hunts as an attack on women’ (Kosmina 2023: 58) and, along with Margaret Murray, her scholarship casts an immense shadow over feminist witch scholarship. Kosmina contends that ‘perhaps more so than any other witchcraft scholar, Murray’s pseudo-history has become dominant in popular culture and cultural memories of the witch trials’ (2023: 60). The archetype of the witch may have been first associated with feminism during the first-wave feminist movement, but second-wave feminism did more than rewrite the witch’s history and adopted her as a symbol of independence, liberation, and freedom from patriarchy. ‘Feminist revisions of the witch trials and the witch in manifestos and activist movements in the 1970s particularly represent deliberate interventions in cultural memories of the trials’ (Kosmina 2023: 24). Whilst second-wave feminists ‘intervened’, as Kosmina puts it, into cultural memories of the witch trials to serve their own political ends, namely, to reinterpret the witch as a figure of liberation, it is important to note the movement’s limitations. Second-wave feminist invocations of the witch often neglected the perspectives of people of colour and ‘excluded transgender, gender-diverse, and non-binary people from its emancipatory rhetoric’ (Kosmina 2023: 21) with figures such as Mary Daly explicitly espousing offensive gender essentialism. Nevertheless, this transformation of the witch in cultural consciousness went on to facilitate the birth of Wicca and the rise of feminist covens. Margot Adler’s landmark sociological study Drawing Down the Moon (1979) defined Wicca as return to an ancient nature religion – though it was actually an invention of the 1950s – that equally worshipped both a god and a goddess. Adler posed that countercultural movements in the mid-twentieth century depicted the witch ‘as martyr; she is persecuted by the ignorant; she is the woman who lives outside society and outside society’s definition of woman’ (2006: 185). In the twenty-first century the witch has increasingly been viewed as a feminist hero by fourth-wave feminists and, as I have argued thus far, changed her alignment with abjection. Fourth-wave feminism originated in the 2010s and gained visibility with the #MeToo movement and accessibility of online communities. Whilst it seeks to promote intersectionality and address some of the internal discrimination of previous feminist movements, the fourth wave can still be criticised for promoting neoliberal values such as individualism and capitalist consumption. Feminist scholar Nicola Rivers writes that ‘these ideals are present even in feminist activism that seemingly undermines or challenges the idea of women—or perhaps more accurately some women—as able to make their own choices outside the constraints of an overtly patriarchal society’ (2017: 24). Over the course of history, the witch has undergone several transformations: from villain, to victim, to feminist hero which, along with the potential capitalist commodification of the witch, is reflected in the Hocus Pocus film franchise.
Interestingly, the Sanderson sisters are not the only witches in Hocus Pocus 2. Unlike the first film, where witchcraft is the sole domain of the sisters and they must be defeated through trickery and self-sacrifice, Becca is a natural born witch in the sequel. Becca and her friends Izzy and Cassie form their own coven and use their own innate magical powers to defeat the Sanderson sisters on Halloween night 2022. This twenty-first-century coven is portrayed far more positively than the Sanderson sisters; they are young, conventionally attractive, and racially diverse. They are also overt feminists who care about social justice and want to protect their town instead of destroying it. As this new, more benevolent coven steps forward the locus of power changes; the Sanderson sisters are diminished, and the new coven become the guardians of Salem. During the film’s climax even the magic book changes allegiances and chooses to align itself with the younger coven over Winnie. However, these new feminist witches are far less radical than their forebearers; they aren’t popular in school, but neither are they transgressive outsiders. They declare themselves feminists who seek social justice, but their destruction of the Sanderson sisters indicates that they do not seek social change and their actions only serve to maintain social order. Rivers poses that ‘the renewed popularity of feminism(s) has both influenced and been influenced by the commercialization of the movement’ (2017: 57), which is reflected in the young coven’s brand of feminism that promotes ‘the neoliberal principles of agency, choice, and empowerment’ (2017: 75). Essentially, Hocus Pocus 2 uses Kosmina’s ideas of ‘cool feminism’ to ‘imbue the witch with cultural prestige, cachet, and importantly, power: witchcraft (and consequently feminism) signifies as “coolness” in these texts’ (2023: 228). The film borrows contemporary feminism’s perceived coolness in its portrayal of the teenage witches; depicting them as intelligent, independent, and empowered ‘but without specific direction towards what liberation actually looks like’ (Kosmina 2023: 228). Whilst this may seem an inherently pessimistic reading of fourth-wave feminism in Hocus Pocus 2, it is heartening that feminism is mentioned positively within the text; ‘that girl witches are specifically calling themselves feminists indicates something different to earlier postfeminist girl power politics where “feminism” is only spoken in disgust’ (Kosmina 2023: 232). Unsurprisingly, given the conception of the teenage witches, the twenty-first-century coven are not aligned with abjection at all compared to the Sanderson sisters. In 2022 Salem witchcraft is simply no longer taboo. The magic store, formerly the witches’ cottage (which is an example of commodification itself), appears to be a staple of the community and Becca and Izzy dabble with magic without fear of being banished to the woods; in fact they choose the woods as the setting for their spells. They openly combine feminism and witchcraft in a way that reflects fourth-wave feminist witchcraft, which is widely seen as socially acceptable in Western culture and is a prominent trend on social media. Fourth-wave feminist witchcraft, just like Becca’s coven, is divorced from abjection in line with Creed’s ideas, whereby abjection is turned upon violent patriarchal social structures as opposed to being embodied by the witches themselves. The move away from abjection is simultaneously positive, for it does not reduce the witch to her body, and negative, as it assimilates her into mainstream culture where she has been preyed upon by neoliberal capitalism.
So, if first-wave feminism politicised historical witch-hunting, second-wave feminists politicised the witch herself as an agent of revolution. The radical second-wave feminist witch challenged normative social structures, threatened to overthrow patriarchy, abandon traditional gender roles, and collapse social order, which is the mythology that Hocus Pocus draws on in the original construction of the Sanderson sisters. Since the 1960s the witch’s overt links to feminism have only become more pronounced. However, the twenty-first-century feminist witch has also become more socially acceptable, more benevolent, and individually empowered. As a society, it appears that we have become more willing to view the witch as a feminist hero and incidentally make the witch less radical. She has breached the borders from radical to mainstream feminism and this attitude is reflected in the changes in representations of witches in popular culture such as the positive transformation of the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus to Hocus Pocus 2.
Conclusion
The witch’s relationship with abjection has changed in line with Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine where we can increasingly view female monsters, such as witches, as figures forced to endure abjection as opposed to being abject. Creed herself writes that:
The Monstrous-Feminine… discussed [the female protagonist] as abject in relation to her sexual and reproductive functions, a misogynistic fantasy, which I argued was a construct of patriarchal ideology… She was portrayed in the films I discussed as terrifying yet subversive – feminist viewers often found her empowering but since then her oppositional stance as represented by feminist directors has transformed into one of revolt… Her monstrousness is a force for change. (2022: 4)
By acknowledging the potential for empowerment in the trope of the monstrous-feminine Creed articulates the changing attitude towards women in horror whereby they cease to be only victims or monsters and become symbols of liberation and agents of change. The amelioration of the witch and the monstrous-feminine mirror one another as they both ascend as symbols of empowerment, liberation, and feminist revolt in cultural imagination. This is exemplified by Creed writing that ‘the term “monstrous-feminine” is today a powerful and empowering concept. From the perspective of the patriarchal symbolic order, she is an abject, monstrous outsider but from the perspective of the feminist viewer she is a defiant and powerful figure of change’ (2022: 70).
The realignment of the witch and abjection, combined with more positive representations of witches, reflects the fact that the witch has become a mainstream feminist icon in the twenty-first century. The amelioration of the witch seems to have been in part facilitated by an amelioration of feminism itself whereby feminist identity is viewed more positively in the (recent) twenty-first century than previously. Rivers sees the increased engagement with, and visibility of, fourth-wave feminism as a cause for ‘cautious celebration’ but reminds us that ‘the arrival of the fourth wave is… intrinsically linked to the surge of misogyny and its attempts to disrupt or disturb this’ (2017: 134). The more mainstream acceptance of the witch, particularly the feminist witch, serves to normalise – and potentially assimilate – this previously radical figure. Kosmina adds to this discussion that:
[In] recent depictions of girl witches… feminism matters a great deal in these texts, arguably more so than in any era since the 1970s… However, the visibility of the girl witch’s feminist politics often becomes the only goal: being a feminist is about being seen as a feminist, and not about the ongoing and persistent acts of labour that activism requires. Nevertheless, there is still something politically generative in these cool feminist texts: the mediation of feminist memories offers an activist potential, if not an actuality. (2023: 228)
This certainly reflects the feminism depicted in Hocus Pocus 2 which leaves much to be desired between its declaration of feminism and its (lack of) depiction of feminist activism. However, Kosmina argues that these depictions are nevertheless imbued with feminist potential and can be generative for audiences. Justyna Sempruch also explores the witch as a tool in feminist identity stating that:
As a radical feminist identity, the ‘witch’ strategically represents both the historical abject figure subjected to torture and death, and a radical fantasy of renewal in the form of a female figure who desires (and articulates) a cultural transformation ‘that has not happened yet’ and also the one who already marks that transformation. Thus, the feminist witch succeeds in subverting her own (abject) identity by converting it into a political fantasy. (2004: 115)
By representing both historical female suffering as a result of patriarchal abjection and a fantasy of cultural transformation, the witch is able to invoke feminist outrage and desire in a way that facilitates political allegory. Sempruch views the feminist witch as a fantasy of feminist ideology who weaponises her abjection as a tool for political change. Kosmina views the feminist witch as a hauntological figure who, even when coopted by neoliberalism, contains echoes of feminist activism and ideology. Creed views the witch as a misogynistic male fantasy about the dangers of female power and, later, as a feminist fantasy about monstrosity harnessed for positive social change. The reframing of the witch and abjection both facilitates her entry into mainstream culture as a positive symbol and potentially undermines her capacity for radical transgression. The Hocus Pocus films demonstrate the amelioration of the witch in popular culture whereby the witch has become both an agent of feminist revolt – a symbol of resistance to and liberation from patriarchy – as embodied by the Sanderson sisters, and a figure co-opted by neoliberal capitalism to invoke feminism for social prestige, as depicted within the teenage coven.
References
Adler, M. (2006) Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and other Pagans in America. 4th ed. New York: Penguin Books.
Aitken, M. (2022) This past Saturday, Salem was full by 11 a.m. Here’s what it’s like to live there in October. Available at: https://www.boston.com/news/travel/2022/10/19/heres-what-its-like-to-live-in-salem-in-october/#:~:text=A%20surprise%2C%20for%20both%20residents%20and%20visitors&text=1%20and%2015%2C%20466%2C000%20people,well%20over%20a%20week%20away (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Chollet, M. (2022) In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still on Trial. Translated by Sophie R. Lewis. London: Pan Macmillan.
Creed, B. (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2022) Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2023) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2023) ‘Radical Abjection, Transformation and the Monstrous-Feminine’. Cine-Excess 2023 - Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject, October 2023, online.
Davies, O. (2016) America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Federici, S. (2018) Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women. New York: PM Press.
Gage, M. J. (2020) Woman, Church and State. s.l. s.n.
Grossman: (2019) Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Harrington, E. (2018) Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film. Oxford: Routledge.
Hocus Pocus 2. (2022) Directed by Anne Fletcher. Available at: Disney+ (11 February 2024).
Hocus Pocus. (1993) Directed by Kenny Ortenga. Available at: Disney+ (11 February 2024).
IMDb. (no date) Hocus Pocus Alternate Versions. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107120/alternateversions/ (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Karlsen, C. F. (1998) The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Kosmina, B. (2023) Feminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lester, C. (2022) Horror Films for Children. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Long, S. (2015) Hot Pursuit director: Don’t play the victim when it comes to sexism. Available at: https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/videos/1083318/hot-pursuit-director-anne-fletcher-interview-video/ (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Rivers, N. (2017) Postfeminism(s) and the Arrival of the Fourth Wave. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sempruch, J. (2004) ‘Feminist Constructions of the “Witch” as a Fantasmatic Other’, Body & Society, 10 (4), 113-133.
Adler, M. (2006) Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and other Pagans in America. 4th ed. New York: Penguin Books.
Aitken, M. (2022) This past Saturday, Salem was full by 11 a.m. Here’s what it’s like to live there in October. Available at: https://www.boston.com/news/travel/2022/10/19/heres-what-its-like-to-live-in-salem-in-october/#:~:text=A%20surprise%2C%20for%20both%20residents%20and%20visitors&text=1%20and%2015%2C%20466%2C000%20people,well%20over%20a%20week%20away (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Chollet, M. (2022) In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still on Trial. Translated by Sophie R. Lewis. London: Pan Macmillan.
Creed, B. (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2022) Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2023) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Creed, B. (2023) ‘Radical Abjection, Transformation and the Monstrous-Feminine’. Cine-Excess 2023 - Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject, October 2023, online.
Davies, O. (2016) America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Federici, S. (2018) Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women. New York: PM Press.
Gage, M. J. (2020) Woman, Church and State. s.l. s.n.
Grossman: (2019) Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Harrington, E. (2018) Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film. Oxford: Routledge.
Hocus Pocus 2. (2022) Directed by Anne Fletcher. Available at: Disney+ (11 February 2024).
Hocus Pocus. (1993) Directed by Kenny Ortenga. Available at: Disney+ (11 February 2024).
IMDb. (no date) Hocus Pocus Alternate Versions. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107120/alternateversions/ (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Karlsen, C. F. (1998) The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Kosmina, B. (2023) Feminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lester, C. (2022) Horror Films for Children. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Long, S. (2015) Hot Pursuit director: Don’t play the victim when it comes to sexism. Available at: https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/videos/1083318/hot-pursuit-director-anne-fletcher-interview-video/ (Accessed 28 May 2024).
Rivers, N. (2017) Postfeminism(s) and the Arrival of the Fourth Wave. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sempruch, J. (2004) ‘Feminist Constructions of the “Witch” as a Fantasmatic Other’, Body & Society, 10 (4), 113-133.