Which Witch to Watch

In an article stemming from Oz the Great and Powerful, EW pointed out that the presence of witches has made as big an appearance in recent popular entertainment as vampires, zombies and werewolves. In Oz, three witches played by such powerful (ha, get it?) actresses as Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and then Rachel Weisz. Witches are "now the go-to supernatural trend in movies, TV, and books." Of course I find myself forgetting that the last decade or more of my life has been dominated by the greatest of fantasy franchises: Harry Potter, where witches and wizards run abundant. 

Witches have recently been popping up as side rolls in many television series, such as American Horror Story, and in the next year, we will see 3 large scale witch features. The thing about witches is that they tend to be diverse in their genre. Why in the Super Natural "genre" can we have such projects as Oz and go the reverse end of the spectrum and have Samantha from Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch? And why, when I was first writing this post, did I COMPLETELY forget to give nod to such witches as Hermione Granger? 

I suppose the important difference is that Witch fantasy, by definition, centers around a powerful female (of course, to assuage sexist cries, I'm sure these witches will be accompanied by a Willy of Warlocks or Wizards). But we can admire these characters by the literal manifestation of their power over men (uh, I mean, other people). Vampire Diaries Exec, Julie Plec says, "there's this great empowerment and wish fulfillment attached to [witches]." Witches can't really be pinned under one or similar genres. Unlike zombies and vampires, which tend to look the same, and have life-sucking qualities to them, witches are just like us! Kind of. But when you think of Hermione Granger, you don't think of a witch, you think, Bad Ass Genius Teenager and Best Friend. 

Because witches represent females with powers, rather than simply the evil undercurrent of Walt Disney classics, they alone can't dictate a genre. Unlike Zombies and Vampires, death and blood isn't mentioned anywhere in the bylaws of witchitude. Thus you can implement them in all "real" world situations and they span across all genres, despite the powers. 

--

As a side note, and I'm just making a feminist argument for fun, it is kind of alarming, that the most powerful women in cinema and television need to have magic powers to explain it. No one wonders why Liam Neeson is such a badass, or Don Draper is such a boss (punnnyyy), or Tony Soprano runs his town. The list goes on and on. Of course, there are plenty of films and shows that argue against what I just said. I'm just planting a small thought seed.