Witch Institute

Film Representation: Generations and Genealogies

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Stream began August 18, 2021 1:30 PM UTC
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Looking across geographic and temporal boundaries, this roundtable investigates the ideological implications of witches on-screen.


Opening the discussion, Mary Okocha considers the ways in which Nollywood film producers have authored mythical imaginings of witches that rely on stereotypes of age, gender, physical features, and mannerisms. She considers questions of authorship and reception, asking: if witches are “never do-gooders,” what then are members of the audiences being told/taught; of what benefits are these witches to the society; and is there a need to keep crafting these images, especially in the same manner?


Ela Przybyło and Breanne Fahs similarly think through stereotypical representations of the witch. Using an anti-misogynist, anti-ageist, and antiracist aging-femme theory, they look at witchy aging femmes and witch-spinsters to better understand how femmephobia and ageism intersect. They argue that an aging-femme theory is needed to make sense of witches as figures of feminine aging excess in Western film.


Moving from aging witches to witchy teenagers on-screen, Miranda Corcoran starts her investigation with Marion L. Starkey’s 1949 historical study “The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry.” She shows how Starkey’s anachronistic representation of Salem’s ‘afflicted girls’ as cliquish, hormonal teenagers represents an effort to comprehend the contemporary phenomenon of the teenage girl using a language of witchcraft and wonder. From this discussion, she moves on to explore how a myriad of diverse writers, artists and filmmakers employ the figure of the teen witch as a trope through which the new, often contentious, category of the teenage girl could be comprehended.


Please Note: this event will be recorded.


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