Hansel and Gretel: Witch-Hunters

I’m sorry, but the concept of this cracks me up: Hansel and Gretel (you all know Hansel and Gretel), after their traumatic encounter with a Wicked Witch in a Gingerbread House, form an deep and enduring hatred for Wicked Witches and embark upon a career as Hansel and Gretel: Witch-Hunters (as in this movie, slated for release in March). The premise strikes me as off-the-wall, and kooky, and potentially humorous- like a Saturday Night Live sketch, or an off-shoot of that Bugs Bunny cartoon where he meets Witch Hazel, plus Hansel (HAHHNsel?), and Gretel (Ya! Ya!): Trouble with Witches? Call Witch-Hunters-at-Large Hansel and Gretel. “Hansel, it’s time to go Hunt us some Witches.” “Lock and Load, Gretel.” [click.click]

It also fits into the strange category observed last year with Red Riding Hood and Scott’s Jugglinks concerning the “deluge” of Snow White-driven flicks (including this summer’s Snow White and the Huntsman, with Kristen Stewart), demonstrating a very modern fascination with updated Faerie-Tales.

The potential problem is, as you may guess from the movie’s title, that it involves the idea that Witches deserve Hunting (the Evil Witch in particular question leads a “coven” of Evil Witches, and they all intend to sacrifice “many children” at the Witches’ Gathering held to celebrate the upcoming Blood Moon; it’s interesting that the movie has latched onto the idea of a coven of Witches meeting in a gathering to commemorate a Moon-Phase). Hunting Witches, of course, is not an idle subject in my book, nor do I find it potentially funny in the context, say, of The Crucible. It’s frustrating (of course) for modern Wiccans and Witches to protest that Witches are Good and Ethical, and Witchcraft useful and worthwhile, when we have movies full of child-endangering Witches being justly Hunted by valiant Witch-Hunters Hansel and Gretel running in the background.

The thing, though, is: it’s a fantasy, and a Faerie-Story, and as such, dwells among the Archetypal Part of the Human Consciousness (and Unconsciousness), where Witches often represent the most destructive and Wicked of instincts. This may be a primal memory of a superstitious time when Witches were feared greatly for their powers; it may demonstrate that Witches serve as Archetypes for the addressing of anxiety- anxiety over the fate of children; fear of individuals who misuse their power; alarm over the helplessness that one can feel sometimes at the mercy of fate. It is a staple of drama that one must have Bad Guys to counter the Good (otherwise the struggle of the Good over the Bad has no meaning, carrying no weight). The Wizard of Oz would not work without a Wicked Witch, just as Star Wars depends upon both Jedi Knights and Dark Lords of the Sith to get its point over; Harry Potter without the Evil Wizard Voldemort is a bunch of English kids studying Magick at Wizarding School.

We are at an interesting Crossroads in the Zeitgeist, where Faerie-Tale Mythology is coming into vogue; I am afraid that this will mean Wicked Witches- as Witches who are Wicked are a more appropriate repository into which to project our fears and alarm over threat (Faerie-Tales, in a lot of ways, instructing us how to handle threat and alarm), rather than the reassuring presence of the Good Witch or the Faerey-Godmother. In Faerey-Story, one must have both the Good and the Evil for the Magick of the Story to hold. As Joseph Campbell says (commenting upon the Brothers Grimm and their Faerie-Tales, quoted in The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work, Phil Cousineau, ed., New World Library, 2003, p. 61): “The ‘monstrous, irrational, and unnatural’ motifs in folktale and myth are derived from the reservoirs of dream and vision…They are thus phrases from an image-language, expressive of a metaphysical, psychological, and sociological truth.”