Resurrecting this thread because of – wait for it – an interview with a horror movie director:
For those who don’t want to read the spoilers: in the interview, the director talks about researching witchcraft, covens, and the occult, and claims he learned some very scary things about witches.
And I get he’s promoting a film, but here’s my thing about that:
Imagine a neo-Pagan horror film director making a film about a bunch of Christians who drink blood during rituals and swearing up and down it’s totes legit because they did the research – and that no-one questioned it. That there was no-one to say, “that’s Sunday Mass and they’re really drinking watered-down sherry, you idiot, dogma of transubstantiation notwithstanding.”
This happens for neo-Pagan stuff all the time.
The major European and North American sources describing witches doing evil things with demons… are Christian. The main book is The Witch’s Hammer, propaganda invented by monks and so disbelieved even in their own time they had to forge the Vatican permission document required to publish it. Or anti-Pagan folklore that took root after the mass conversion to Christianity in Europe.
With few exceptions, everything by actual Pagans was either suppressed until the oral tradition died, or was written well into the Christian era and therefore is coloured by its context.
But in pop culture, the one cluster of religions TV shows and films can demonise (heh) with impunity are witchcraft/Paganism, despite there being real neo-Pagans in the world. Because not enough people seem to want to interrogate that vilification.
And eat human flesh. Just to put it a little closer to how Paganism was propogandised against. I mean, the words are right there in the text, right?
Let’s not forget that it wasn’t just Christianity, but good old patriarchy, too. How dare some old woman who studied herbs and humans her entire life try to do a man’s work? The nerve of that witch to assume her decades of experience could come close to a physician’s training. Why he spent a few years reading books. Written by men. Who had brains, not uteri. I mean, what would a woman know about childbirth?
Mix that with the male-dominated hierarchy of the Christian church, and a male-dominated literary press versus a female-centric oral tradition… any traditional research (in the context of storywriting) will be messed up.
The thing is, we know that, and should be keeping that bias in mind. We should be telling better stories.
Me too! I think there was a sequel or two. I didn’t have a magic cupboard, but one of my sets of ‘cowboys and indians’ came with a stagecoach that had doors on both sides. It became my magic cupboard, and cowboys, indians, or little green army men would go in one side as toys and come out the other as living people. That little 5¢ and 10¢ store toy was priceless to my childhood. Then there was a tank that had a trunk, which never made sense, but was a great way to smuggle people into places (because the trunk fit several toys and who’s going to argue with a tank?).
Can’t say whether the books hold up, but now I’d kind of like to read them again too. Sad part is not being able to read them for the first time. Good news is I’m related to a kid who hasn’t experienced these stories yet. So much magic to share…
We don’t do necro-shaming here. Posts that add to the topic are always welcome. There will always be new people and people who missed it. Any of those necro-whiners can just go cry in a corner by themselves, since they never have anything to add to the conversation anyway.
(Yes I’m responding about 6 months after this post)
It took me 3-4 listens to hear this, for those curious it’s around 1:50, and rhymed with other people called out by name regarding sucking, bluffing, nothing, production (words that kinda rhyme). It fits what I remember from that timeframe. Squicky yeah, but to those living it at the time, it was how it was.
I’m glad we’ve moved on from those days. Well, we’re trying. At least we’re making progress.
Even KRS has since gone on record all like, “yeah, ok, that was pretty messed up”. He doesn’t even perform the second half of the song anymore as BDP and the Juice Crew have long since buried the hatchet.
Given the date and recent events, there’s one obvious choice:
Let’s look at the premise for that film.
A group of aliens travels from planet to planet, exterminating all indigenous life and stripping their destinations of all natural resources. They appear to come in peace and are greeted peacefully, but, when the natives have let their guard down, the aliens attack, and cripple the defenders’ ability to respond.
It’s a worldwide mess, but the Americans have found a solution: The only way to defeat these aliens is to corrupt and bomb the place they came from, and then hunt them down and kill them all. The POTUS gives a big speech, the US military mounts up, and, ultimately, the killing blow is dealt by a drunken, back-country crop duster from Nevada flying a US Air Force jet.
…Now, I admit that I’m picking and choosing what I include in that description, but does that description of the “aliens,” ring with an uncomfortable resonance to anyone else? Or the fact that genocide is the only way to resolve the threat?
Speaking of deprogramming and creepy songs, just how creepy was Layla (written by Eric Clapton, who was in love with George Harrison’s wife, Patty Boyd) taken to be at the time. Because, after reading all that went down, that whole business seems insanely skeevy.
A decade and a half ago, maybe it was excusable to think that accepting low levels of racism as just being part of basic human nature was okay. After all, it “doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes.” It’s harmless, right?
I think the past few years have shown that racism needs to be excised, root and stem, because if you let it simmer below the surface, you’re giving it the opportunity to burst forth again, full-strength.
And I’d disagree with the idea that even back in 2003, racism was as harmless as how Avenue Q tried to present it.
