The Zeitgeist: Parsing Out Neo-Paganism?

 culture, film, tv  No Responses »
Sep 032012
 

Hey Pagan Fans- both the Fall TV Season, and Fall Movie Schedules are upon us, affording an annually unique opportunity to re-access the Paganism of the Zeitgeist: as revealed through Popular Entertainment. The Faerey-Tale aspect of popular preoccupation continues, as the Faerey-Tale-inspired TV show Grimm begins its second season; never mind last spring/ summer’s dueling Snow White movies, or Disney-Pixar’s Brave (which attracted so much attention as a modern animated-Faerey-Tale, complete with Comic Witch and all). Never mind such clear Supernatural (meaning, “Beyond the Natural”) interest (sometimes involving Witches) as indicated by last summer’s Dark Shadows, ParaNorman, and the upcoming Hotel Transylvania-

What is really interesting, is the storyline that I call “young people- often females- empowering themselves through Witchcraft-related Magicke.” This is a storyline that began with The Craft in 1996: intended as a Teen Witch-Shock flick, it incorporated just enough Wicca into its storyline (indicating enough of a cultural-presence felt by Wicca in the mid-90s, for The Craft to address it in its presentation) to influence viewers. (Personal story, which I love: I have a friend in his early ’20s, who admits to being turned on to Wicca as a teen by The Craft. ”Sure, I know it’s The Craft,” he says, sheepishly. “But that scene where they invoked the Gods in that meadow- that really spoke to me.” The thing is, my friend starting collecting books on Wicca- which his mom discovered. Looking them over, my friend’s mom began to become interested in Wicca- which killed Wicca for my friend for some time after. As he explains it: “I was like, Damn it, Mom! Wicca was supposed to be MY thing!!” Having gotten over this, my friend is now pursuing a Young Adult’s study of the NYC Pagan Scene. What I find interesting is, that it is The Craft that my friend credits with turning on both him [directly], but also [indirectly] his mom, to modern Witchcraft).

The Craft surely played a part in such subsequent TV portrayals as found in Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch and Charmed. Maybe not directly related, is the kind-of concurrent Godzilla-Mega Cultural Phenom of the Harry Potter series (both the books, and then the 2000s’ movies). A British cultural juggernaut originally, that went on to reach volcanic global-impact: Harry Potter reinforces the “Young Adult Finding Her/ Himself through Witchcraft and Magicke-related Empowerment” theme noted prior in American movies and television.

As intended, surely, last season’s The Secret Circle, which was derived from a series of Young Adult novels and covered extensively here at the Juggler- until Scott kind-of threw in the towel on the series, wondering finally if the TV-viewing segment of the American Pagan populace should not be protesting the show (perhaps not as a surprise, The Secret Circle is not reappearing this year for a second season). Yet Scott- so always on-the-ball with this sort of thing- has announced the production of a British show Switch, called the “New” or perhaps “British” Charmed. (Think “the Spice Girls practice the Craft”; humor aside, this would seem to provide a unique opportunity- beyond Harry Potter- for Yanks Pagans to become better-acquainted with the Brits take on, and interpretation of, modern Magickal-Useage in Fictional Story-lines.)

However- what I hope is here readily apparent as a persuasive demonstration of Up-to-the-Moment interest in a certain fictional exploration of “Young People, Magick-Use, and Witchcraft,” might be considered in contrast against what could be understood as the equally-compelling Zeitgeist-fascination with Demonic Story-telling. Consider the recently-released The Possession, which covers the ordeals suffered when a young girl purchases a curious “antique box” at a yard sale- unwittingly loosening (betcha you didn’t see this coming) a “malicious, ancient spirit,” with much subsequent Possessing and Exorcising to come. Perhaps compare this with such other recent “Demonic Possession”-related films as 2007′s Paranormal Activity; 2010′s The Last Exorcism; and 2011′s The Rite, to determine if you also perceive a certain Zeitgeist-related anxiety going on here, perhaps relating to lingering cultural misgivings over what we have been culturally indoctrinated by now to believe, accept, and expect (“brainwashed” might be another word): that the merest interest in, and pursuit and support of, Neo-Pagan Witchcraft has the potential and power to let loose the Demons and Hordes of Hell. (A really kind-of medieval superstition, if you think about it, but apparently also a really-current sort of subconscious fret, namely: is modern Magick-Use actually OK, or am I, and are we all, facing “End-of-Times” Tribulations for our implicit turning from the God of the Bible, in endorsing what Western Culture has been culturally conditioned to believe is Sinful Transgression enough to warrent the hastening of the Apocalypse).

The sowing of further confusion can perhaps be discerned in one of TV’s newest shows 666 Park Avenue- a show that has started a street-level Manhattan advertising-campaign (if you are in Manhattan, and are curious as to what the most “up-to-date” things are, on the scene: check out street-advertising). Here we have a tony, upscale address in “The Drake,” a mysterious old building where the Young and Beautiful converge, leading lives of glamor and fortune- until the suspicion begins to dawn that all this excitement and wonder is paid for with the Price of one’s Soul, and the fearful thought develops that this collection of the New York Happening-Crowd lives in the “dark embrace of supernatural forces” (think Melrose Place meets Rosemary’s Baby). The obviousness of the address “666,” combined with the circular stairs swirling downwards- down as deep as the pits of Hell, perhaps- should be enough to clue the viewer as to the Faustian situation awaiting those who check into the swanky environs of 666 Park Avenue: perhaps never to check out again- at least, not with their Immortal Souls intact!!

It seems to me that there are two competing impulses to be located within the Subconscious Group-Mind: one would be a daring desire to believe in Magickal Practice as a means towards personal and universal growth; the other is a fearful alarm that perhaps the medieval Bogey-men and Ghost-stories are right, and traffic in the Magickal Arts imperils one’s Salvation. I hope that, as a Neo-Pagan Witch, it is clear on which side of the board I hope the coin falls. (That would be on the Magickal Repairing of Humanity side, by the way, by the Re-Adopting of the Ancient Pagan/ Magickal Mindset of Mortals.)

Movie Review: Dark Shadows

 culture, film  No Responses »
May 122012
 

So my Pagan Pal Gary and I caught Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s movie-spoof of that eminently representative day-time soap of the late ’60s-’early ’70s Dark Shadows this afternoon. (Seriously, there were such a number of supernatural pop-culture things going on in the late ’60s- early ’70s, Dark Shadows least among them.) We both agreed that (1) the film is a total hoot (2) Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer are both brilliant, and (3) it has a problematic, but kind of unavoidable Witch (the slinky babe whom you see in the clingy red dress to your right). Going through, point-by-point:

(1) Dark Shadows was unique in TV culture at the time (and since) for being a Supernatural Soap-opera, starring the Vampire Barnabas Collins. The movie is therefore a fantastic Gothic spook-story, populated with Witches, Vampires, Ghosts, Curses, Haunted Mansions, and what-have-you. It opens with a prologue of how the Collins family came from England to America- hilarious for being played in very straightforward-manner as eighteenth century Romance Lit. The young Barnabas Collins “takes up” (as they say) with a servant-wench, whom he jilts. The lesson he learns (the cad): the wench is also a Witch, who gains her revenge (in a couple of spine-tingling spooky scenes) upon Barnabas, by cursing him into a Vampire. The rest of the movie concerns this eighteenth century Vampire reconnecting with his family in the “modern age” of the 1970s. (One of my favorite moments: Barnabas is confronted by a “TV” for the first time, upon which Karen Carpenter is singing “Your love has put me on top of the world.” Barnabas attacks the box, demanding that the “tiny songstress REVEAL herself!!”) A vast amount of humor derives from the efforts of a 200-year-old Vampire to adjust to the 20th century, whilst sending up the tropes of American soap-opera; all the while playing up the unworldly creepiness of a New England mansion haunted by centuries of ghosts and family-hexes and the Living Undead.

(2) Johnny Depp is so spectacularly brilliant as Barnabas Collins, he deserves some sort of notice (such as an Oscar nomination). He probably won’t get it, as Dark Shadows is a “comedy,” and therefore not as “worthwhile” as a “serious drama”- but seriously, show me the actor able to pull off Barnabas Collins as well, or better. Watching Depp inhabit the role of an eighteenth century Vampire so thoroughly, I started thinking, “He must have spent months, like wandering around his house, ‘being’ a Vampire, in order to ‘get into’ the role this fully.” A vast amount of Depp’s performance that sells this picture so wonderfully  comes from “having” the really-romanticized mind-set of someone in the late 1700s, married to a physical characterization of a Vampire that- from napping upside-down, to tapping forks to judge their silver content, to fashioning a “coffin” out of a packing box- captures perfectly what one imagines must be the behavior of the Nosferatu.

Totally his equal in satiric brilliance is Michelle Pfeiffer as the Family-Matriarch. Her genius in sending up the cliches and melodrama of the TV soap is so understated, it might be missed- but again, show me the actress better able to pull off this material without camping it up through the roof. She nails in perfect subtlety the ideal nuance of the soap-convention; her scenes with Depp represent  marvels of the acting profession.

Two things to watch out for: keep your eye open for the sea-captain whom Depp meets in a bar; this is Christopher Lee (the Dracula of the ’60s English horror-films, in a brilliantly called-out cameo); also watch for the scene where they are throwing a party at Collinswood Manor, and Barnabas is greeting his guests at the door. The guests whom you see entering are actors from the original series.

(3) Fun though all of this is, the thing that makes it “Pagan” is the really-complicated 200 year-old love-affair between Barnabas and the Witch whom he loves in spite of himself. It is her (really effective) screen-curse that changes him into a Vampire, and her unrelenting desire to have her revenge upon him and his family that drives the movie. On the one hand, she is a very Empowered individual, due to her Witchcraft. She successfully curses her unfaithful lover (call that empowered as you will); she keeps herself alive over two centuries, amassing a business fortune to rival the Collinses’; she is totally unafraid to go after exactly what she wants (like her Vampire-Lover; the scene where she and Barnabas “get it on” in unabandoned Witch-Vampire sex is pretty amazing). She fits comfortably into the category of “Carnal” or Temptress or Seductress-Witch: the Witch with the Supernatural Erotic wiles (not for nothing is she the Witch in the Scarlet-Red Dress who shows up at the Collinswood Ball).

She is the female counterpart to a male Vampire, in a Gothic horror-comedy; in as much as she is amoral, Barnabas is as well (he gleefully “feeds” upon humans to satisfy his Vampire-thirst: one of the funniest scenes concerns Barnabas “rapping” with a bunch of stoned hippies in the woods- just before he announces sorrowfully that he must kill them all. The camera cuts to a long shot, punctuated by the hippies’ screams as Barnabas gorges on their blood). If a Vampire can get such a pass as this in a Vampire-comedy, presumably so can a Witch, and one notes that oftentimes, the Wicked or Corrupt Witch will actually make an admirable catalyst for a dramatic story-line.

Yet, my friend Gary expressed frustration afterwards, that here again was an instance of a Bad Witch, causing trouble, stirring up mischief, hexing people who piss her off. At the least, he asked rhetorically, could you tweak the script to make mention of GOOD Witches, who might not be so into cursing people for 200 years?

It’s difficult to say what the solution is. On the one hand, we have had Jugglers communicate irritation over the predominantly “bad” or maligned presentation of Witches in pop-culture before (a habit growing, as Supernatural and Fantasy stories gain in popularity). On the other: Bad Witches make for a compelling plot-conflict faster and more neatly than just about any other Supernatural Entity (try imagining The Blair Witch Project with anything else other than a Witch in the title). As the Witch is an Archetypal Symbol, perhaps the most graceful thing is to concede the value of the Bad Witch in Archetypal story-telling.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to agitate for “equal-time,” positive depictions of pop-culture Witches; it is just to recognize that maybe there is a value to both the Good and the Bad Witch, in fictional narrative.