Good Witch Series: Samantha

As an antidote to the numerous malignant Witches roaming the corridors of Pop-Culture, I am running the Good Witch Series, intended to highlight American pop-cultural Witches of the highest Virtue and Goodness: A recurrent theme in Folk-Story is that of an Otherworld woman- a Faerey-woman, a Silkie, sometimes a Mermaid- falling in love with a Mortal man, so that she marries him and lives as his Mortal wife. Such is the premise for Bewitched, an ABC sit-com that ran from 1964-1972, and which featured one of the most beloved of Good Witches in American television-culture: the suburban Mom-Witch, Samantha Stephens. In the brilliantly concise manner of a well-crafted sit-com, the show’s cartoon opening (arguably the most famous piece of Witchcraft-animation) perfectly encapsulates the set-up: we first see Samantha as a Witch, flying in gleeful independence over the cartoon towers of her urban environment- before she alights to earth, to assume domestic housekeeping for Darrin. The trickster element of Witchcraft is apparent, as she briefly puzzles him by vanishing, to leap into his arms as a black cat. Then transformed again into a beautiful blonde Witch, she is now held in his arms, reaffirming the erotic nature of their commitment to each other (for a 60s sit-com, the sexual aspects of Samantha and Darrin’s relationship were fairly frank: the pilot-episode opens on their honeymoon night; they share a single bed in their bedroom; and begin to produce little Mortal-Witch kids pretty quickly).

The show’s creator Sol Saks said that he was inspired by the idea of a Witch who falls in love with a Mortal in I Married a Witch, and Bell, Book, and Candle’s idea of a Witch (in love with a Mortal), who has a wider Witch-Network (an underground Witch-community, actually), comprised of eccentric relatives and peculiar friends-of-the-Witch-family. Placing Bewitched in the context of American TV-Culture of the 1960s: the show is just coming off the very conservative, conformity-conscious era of the Eisenhower-era ’50s, with its celebrations of the placid quality of suburban American life, so Bewitched is very much concerned with the domesticity of the household (Samantha’s whole thing is that she wants to give up her Witchcraft, in order to keep a nice home for Darrin and their kids).

At the same time, American culture is preparing for some monumental shifts in its consciousness by the late ’60s, with Racial Equality, Women’s Liberation, and the “coming out” of the LGBT communities. It is interesting to speculate that Bewitched, in the gentle form of its fantasy, helped to bridge the gulfs between the Dominant and the Minority cultures at the time: being a Witch, Samantha is something of a minority herself; her marriage to Darrin is kind of metaphoric for a cross-racial or a cross-cultural union; and Samantha obviously has talents that could stretch beyond the sphere of homemaking. However, what I definitely picked up on as a Gay kid, watching this show in reruns (I loved Bewitched as a kid), was the really-curiously coded suggestion that Samantha’s Witch-friends and relatives, all of whom seemed to live very exotic, bohemian, free-spirited lifestyles: might have served as an unconsciousness acknowledgement of Queer Identity (Samantha does actually “closet” herself, hiding her Witchcraft and carrying on the pretense of being merely a “Mortal,” and Darrin does kind of pressure her into this, protesting that he does not want a wife who is a Witch). All of this is very confusing to Samantha’s family, who cannot understand why she wishes to abandon the glamorous life of Witchcraft, to moor herself in conformist suburbia. A really interesting thing to note is how strangely politicized in their thinking the Witches are, in some of the earlier shows, clearly having established a sense of Witch-Identity and strategizing opposition to what they feel are demeaning stereotypes of Witches in Mortal-Culture- again, the sense comes through, that one sees the revolutionary effects of the Identity-Politics of the ’60s reflected in a coded, and perhaps unconscious, way in Bewitched- especially in its suggestion (or promise, to closeted little Gay-kids) that there was a way of life beyond the homophobic terrains of early ’70s life, that could be free, and adventuresome, and liberating: that there was indeed something “better” out there.

For all that there is (arguably) all this sub-text going on in Bewitched, there is a reason that Samantha is beloved (so much that she has her own TV Land statue in Salem), and I think I know why: she is the greatest example of the Witch-as-a-Mom. Her whole deal is that she finds herself fulfilled by the domestic tasks of keeping the Stephens home and seeing to the rearing of their children. Granted, this was a role that tons of women began to find stifling, and is (at least for now) a social model that is no longer economically possible for many, many families; indeed, there is a tendency to think of women who “just” stay home as the homemaker as unrealized somehow (as if maintaining a tidy, well-organized household, supportive of the family environment, is a trivial thing). Samantha’s provence as the Homemaker-Witch is that of Hestia and Vesta’s, and the Witch-like Good Women of European legend, who bless well-kept homes.

An interesting thing that happened, when they made Samantha a Mom on the show, was that Elizabeth Montgomery spent the better part of her contract acting opposite a tiny little tot of an actress, as her Magickal daughter Tabitha. As W.C. Fields observed, acting with children is a tricky business, but I feel that it is clear that Ms. Montgomery made a point to bond with the little girl as a special “TV Mommy”: it’s so adorable how she acts scenes with Tabitha, catching the child’s attention with a secret “Mommy look,” and keeping her focused. The show is available at Hulu.com; there is one episode where the little three-year-old actress suddenly goes to make a spontaneous bolt from the living room into the kitchen; with the aplomb of an acting professional and the sure instincts of a Mom, Elizabeth Montgomery catches her up and deposits her into her playpen: all the while running her dialogue so that the scene is not interrupted and there is no need to cut the camera.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and it seemed like there was this Magickal person, who could Magickally correct any sorrow or injustice or grievance, and this Magickal Being was called “Mom”? That is why I think Samantha is so beloved: she is the ultimate expression of the Witch as a Magickal Mom.