♪ I'm a T-Me, I'm a T-Me right now ♪
Hello, welcome to the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast.
I am Shauna here with my bestie...
Olivia.
Hi.
I'm pretty sorry to all of our listeners
for the way that I sound.
We tried to push this back twice
because I sound like Lindsay Lohan after a Vegas club.
And unfortunately, I was in Vegas.
I was not in a club.
I was just talking to accounts.
And one of them gave me the plague.
So that was a caring fund.
Stop lying counts.
Spit in your mouth, Olivia.
Jesus Christ.
I know.
It's such a kind of mine.
I can't help it.
Trade show quote unquote.
Yeah, that's what they call this.
Spitting in my mouth show.
We're trading viruses and saliva.
We're trade showing.
Our mutual friend was like, why does this keep happening to you?
Every time you go to a trade show.
And I'm like, I don't know because people are going to think sick.
And you know, if there's something that this
antivirus thing has popping up all the sudden
that's taught me is that we really didn't learn from COVID at all.
And nobody was like, oh, OK, I'm sick.
Let me not go around thousands of people.
Literally, if you are sick, stay home.
And there's no shame in wearing a mask.
I know a lot of like immunocompromised people still like mask up.
But like in Japan.
And I can't speak to other Asian countries.
But definitely like in Japan, if you feel like you have a cold
or something, but you have to go in public,
they just throw a mask on.
Like they've been doing every years.
And I think that's brilliant.
Like I don't want to spread my germs.
And I don't want anyone else's germis in my mouth.
Now, yeah.
Well, I think you sound seductive.
I like it.
I know when I was younger, I don't know if this was like a 90s
kid thing where like you wanted to have a raspy voice.
Like what was her name?
Her name was Brooke in the show.
Oh, gosh.
This is where the sick brain is coming in.
You're going to remember like 20 minutes.
Chad Michael Murray was on the show.
One tree hill.
Yeah, it was Brooke in one tree hill.
Whatever the actress's name is.
Oh, my God.
Sophia Bush.
She had a raspy voice.
She had such a good like raspy voice.
And then obviously Lindsay Lohan did too.
And I was like, if I had that voice, everyone will want me.
So I didn't know some way in guys voice.
But I definitely had this running joke with Jessica
about it was an SNL sketch.
And I think it was Vanessa Biers or Bayer's.
And she would go, it's Miley.
And she do Miley voice.
And then we would go, it's Lindsay.
Oh no, it wasn't SNL.
It was the soup.
It was the soup like a running gag on there with Joel McKayle.
Oh, my God.
So we'd always get Lindsay.
But I got cheesed in elementary school for my voice.
I was told I sounded like a boy a lot.
And now it is something that I get compliments on all the time.
Oh, your voice is incredible.
You should have a podcast.
And I go, actually, I'm actually.
It's showing.
But yeah, so I'm having tea.
So hopefully the vocal fry isn't too inseparable for you.
Oh no, it's good.
I don't think it's like vocal fry.
There's not like Kardashian fry.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I bought AFI ticket.
I was going to say tickets, but I bought just myself a ticket.
Just one ticket.
Oh, no, a ticket ticket.
But I figured it's in October.
And I just got a pit ticket.
Between now and then people will come.
Come to Arizona on October.
When is it October?
October 20th.
So we can do Halloween things too.
We can go in our punk rock costumes to the AFI show.
In our punk rock, I feel like we've told this story.
But yeah, we have to resurrect that.
We're just old people.
We love your millennial desperate costume.
Your desperate millennial costume.
That's just what I look like.
Things that's just how I dress.
Yeah, what have you been up to?
What have you been doing?
I felt like I've been taking a lot of depression.
I just stopped the depression part.
Love the nap part.
I didn't realize they were depression naps until I woke up after like a two hour long one
the other day.
And I was like, probably isn't good.
And it's so tired.
I'm so fucking tired.
Stephanie said something about like I don't know spending money every time she leaves the house
and I'm like, that's why I sleep all the time.
You can't spend money if you don't leave the house.
All you do is sleep.
Same with calories.
You can't consume calories.
Yeah, you're asleep.
You're also not burning them.
So that's true.
I don't know how I'm under the impression of dreams.
Seth Meyers pops in every now and then.
I get a little, it's my heart race going in my dream.
I also feel like it's older Seth Meyers.
Like I feel like younger Seth Meyers didn't necessarily do it for me older.
Yeah.
100%.
Yeah.
I didn't know that this was like a hidden thing I had until I had the most sensual sex
dream of my life.
I had this sex dream.
Oh my god.
I didn't text you.
I should have.
Okay.
It was a little bit of a problem.
So, dear listeners, it was incredible.
The most gentle, attentive lover.
And it was Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Oh.
Yeah.
Okay.
Which version?
Like a cannibal version?
Yeah, I think.
I mean, he always kind of looks old.
He's like, he's got like, one version.
Okay.
Is there other versions of him?
Okay.
I know.
I have to say.
I think that's a unique experience, but I love it for you.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't like think he's like hot.
Like, sometimes like people just pop up.
My dreams would be like, want me to bang you out?
And I'm like, sure, Anthony Hopkins.
How bad could it be?
And then it's wonderful.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Yeah.
We gotta unpack that.
I do love it.
It's incredible, but like not sexually.
No, no, not sexually.
I did actually.
This is so funny.
Maybe he was in my mind after that dream, but I recently rewatched Silence of the Lams
Hannibal and Red Dragon.
And the whole time I was trying, I was like, watch, he was like, is there any, any, nothing?
It doesn't do it for me.
Yeah.
Nothing.
You're like, you can't eat it in multiple ways, you know?
No, he could not.
In the novels, I guess, him and Clarice hook up though, which is strange.
Yeah.
She like, that does well.
And then he, and then they do it.
Oh, okay.
Tuck a turn.
Turn.
Tuck a turn.
I see why they kept that out of the movies.
Yeah.
I don't really want to breastfeed him.
That was my best, Tony Foster.
Was that good?
Do I really have to breastfeed him, I don't know?
It's terrible, Tony Foster.
It was, it was, it was the stupidest of all the complities though.
I really don't want to breastfeed him.
What do you mean?
You sound like someone from South Park, but I can't, I sound like Jennifer Foster had a child.
Oh, she's, you're going to have to breastfeed him.
Oh, geez, these carnival, they're trying to kill us.
Just big tree Jennifer Coolidge is Jodie Foster's part.
As Clarice.
Oh, hey, animal.
Oh, good.
Hey, do you want to know where to put you in that little cage?
I'm dying.
Okay.
Okay, I have no good segue for the topic.
Do I not know?
We're talking about witches.
We're talking about witches this week.
Oh my god, my abs hurt.
Okay.
We are going to get a little witchy for this episode.
We are breaking down the best and the worst witches in pop culture.
Movies, television, etc.
But remember, sometimes bad witches are the best witches.
Okay, we are going to go through kind of a timeline of witches in pop culture.
And when I first thought about this, I realized I think the first iteration of witches in pop
culture was Macbeth, wasn't it?
Like Shakespeare's stage production of Macbeth.
Yeah.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
So I'm going to count them.
Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, well, I guess there's probably been witches throughout like media
or media, like books, pop culture.
I mean, I think there are even witches in like Greek mythology, things like that.
So it has truly been like a theme throughout time of people taking power outside of their
own internal means is generally like how I think of a witch, right?
Like someone who is grabbing external power from wherever it is or power outside of typical
humans and harvesting that for good or evil.
I think a lot of what we saw in older, like Greek mythology and things like that was like
which is often where like a warning of too much power taken and things like that.
So I think that witches have always been an interesting theme throughout culture and what they're
trying to say.
Yeah.
And I definitely think that there's a lot to be said about like witches being seen as like
a warning for that men made that women were gaining too much power, right?
Like even the witch trials, like they didn't, they didn't put witches like to death in the
witch trials, right?
They put women to death.
These women like were, you know, I saw goody proctor dancing with the devil if you were
seen as anybody who was a strange woman or who was thinking for yourself or doing anything
outside of the realm of quote unquote, what a normal woman would do than you were considered
a witch.
So there's definitely like a lot of crossover between like witches and feminism.
I read this really great book years ago called Witches Sletz and Feminist.
It was written by Kristen J. Soley.
So yeah, which is Sletz and Feminist conjuring the sex positive and explored the intersection
between reclaimed powerful archetypes highlighting how modern women are reclaiming historically
misogynistic slurs such as she's a witch, right?
And I liked this quote, which is have always been women who dared to be groovy, courageous,
aggressive, intelligent, nonconformist, explorative, curious, independent, sexually liberated and
revolutionary.
So go on.
Yeah, I also think we're going to kind of go into the portrayal of witches in film throughout
the years.
But I do think that witches have often been like a queer flagging.
Yes.
And I think that's where they make a lot of these like evil characters really queer coded,
which is, you know, fucked up.
Yeah, but just to like, subordinate message to children.
Yeah.
But, you know, I think a lot of the time like people are like, oh, she's evil, but I love
her kind of like to all these witches because we could truly like see see ourselves within
them.
Or really have like an alternate character and a misunderstood character.
And so yeah, I think that we've seen, I think like in the 90s, we started to see more of
an introduction to like the good witch and good witches and people who use this external
power for good.
Yeah.
Or like witches, you want to be like, oh, I love her aesthetic.
She's so cool.
I mean, obviously there's a lot of crossover in like, golf culture and like the goth aesthetic
and like witches and stuff.
And you know, goth kind of started, I guess we don't have to do history of goth, but gothic
music and like style of things really started kind of popping off in like the 1980s.
Yeah.
But yeah, in the 90s was definitely the like whims of goth, like witchy, oh, she's so cool.
Sabrina, yes.
And then I mean, we saw kind of like the good witches versus the evil witches.
You know, we're just, we're going to start at the beginning.
Oh my god.
I'm not sure if I'm saying that right.
Hackson or hackson in 1922 was a Swedish Danish silent documentary drama.
It was widely considered the first cinematic depiction of witchcraft, dramatized the history
of witchcraft and the inquisition with striking imagery that is still cited today.
And so I think that's what I'm going to do.
It's like, I'm going to do the same thing.
I'm going to do the same thing.
It's 1939, traditional family values, women were expected to fit into a box.
Don't ask too many questions.
Truly blonde white was the ideal body type look and things like that.
100%.
We definitely see this continuing on through the 60s and 70s with domesticated witches.
So be witched which Samantha Stevens she normalized the witch as a neighbor and housewife.
Magical powers were played for comedy domesticated into suburban life.
It ran for eight seasons.
But yeah she was just you know a happy donnie housewife who also was a witch, but yeah I mean
she it was the 50's or the 60's you know they still had to fit into that what a woman
should be she's what if we made her a witch but she was still a good woman.
Yeah well she's also a little like mischievous but like harmless and like she is like a good
witch.
She knows more than people but she like does it to try to like improve her husband and
like the people around her and she gets in there like silly silly high jinks is probably
what I would say there also blonde and white.
Yeah she very much carries the gollinda look into be witched but she is widely known
as like our parents generation as like the witch right.
Yes 100% super cute show reminds me of I dream of Jeannie too is kind of like the
same thing that was also like she is a suburban housewife.
Oh but she's also a Jeannie.
Yeah and her mom was a witch a little more evil so she was a red head.
Oh and be witch yes Indora the evil witch and she was even that evil she was just a little
more.
I hate man I don't know sarcastic yeah a little misandrist we love it.
I will throw in the Adams family in the monsters morticia Adams definitely wasn't like a witch
right but she fits that kind of witch archetype kind of like the gothic witch aesthetic that
kind of like got it into Americans households right these weirdo got families who do strange
things but still are a happy family so we'll throw those in for good measure too.
And then honestly a very very iconic film we hate the man that made it but very very iconic
we go into 1968 with rosemary's baby so it's Roman Polanski's horror landmark reframed
which is as a secretive like urban cult that are real dangerous and conspiratorial rather
than fantastical.
This movie is amazing it is like an allegory for abortion all of these things and the
plight on women it has a lot to say it's a very good movie it still holds up to this day
I think so too I hate that it's Roman Polanski but I love that movie.
Yeah it's it's really really good me a Pharaoh and it is just amazing she makes me
gonna cuddle my hair off.
Like the fear of witches and Satan for sure.
Ultimately that's like a very old theme of witchcraft right like we saw that in the witch trials
is they were worshiping Satan so we had seen like a lot of these like oh fun silly goofy
witches but Roman Polanski kind of brought it back of like no these are devil worshippers
here.
Yeah same like yeah like the exorcist definitely laid groundwork for a satanic panic too I mean
there's no like witches in that movie from my memory it's just literally the little
girls possessed by Satan but we definitely see like that crossover with like witches
and Satanism a lot I I've personally been accused of worshipping Satan being a witch.
I think that's just anybody who looks a certain way or women who use their voices in a certain
way throughout history right but I'll allow it.
I'll allow our sister what you're saying is we then move into a golden age of witchcraft
in television and movies that you and I probably grew up with a lot of Olivia so empowerment
or teen witches like the witches we kind of want to be but they're also bad but we also
like them right.
We have the witches of Eastwick with share Susan Sarandon and Michelle Fyfer women who
discover their powers framed as female agency and sexuality tension with patriarchal forces
in Jack Nicholson's devil.
Oh my god Jack Nicholson is so gross.
I think he's probably all the time.
Well he better not sneak into like a dream tonight now that I just said that if I have a
sex dream of Jack Nicholson tonight I'm going to be so mad.
Yeah that absolutely is going to happen now.
It's going to happen.
I put it into the ether.
A hoax focus in 1993 camp comedic witches they're evil but we love them.
Yeah they just want to harvest some children they're like a real um Hansel and Gruddle story
there.
Just like I love Sarah Jessica Parker in the movie so much though she looks so good.
She looks amazing.
I know they were trying to make her look like scary and bad but I was like I just want that
outfit I just want to be her.
She looks great.
Yeah I absolutely love that movie.
In 1996 we had the craft which is one of my favorite which movies ever.
I think that.
It is such like a grunge goth like aesthetic iconic to this day and team girls discover
Wicca as a rebellion and power and we really see these young women dynamics at play as well.
I think obviously it's about witchcraft but you can kind of see yourself within these different
characters as well and it's just such a good story within it.
I mean I watch it every Halloween.
It's like a craft shirt I think it's like such a cool aesthetic and movie.
Yeah definitely that like teenage witch kind of rebellion.
Yeah like witchcraft was really good and could have cool and like Wicca was getting really
cool in the 90s right.
Well yeah it was like the god thing to do and you know being a god was cool so like leaning
into that.
Yeah.
Contending your witch with like light as a feather stiff as a board.
Oh my god do you remember playing that at sleepovers?
Yeah.
So funny.
I remember thinking I was a witch in elementary school and being like one of the weird girls
in the playground and we were making little like potions out of sand and the sand box
that Wicca says.
Such fucking dorks.
I love it.
Sabrina the teenage witch in 1996.
I want to have my favorite.
I'll go into more detail later about about my girl Sabrina but she was based on Archie
comics and the series return the witch to the gentle comedy magic as a teenage metaphor
silly shenanigans.
Oh I love it so much.
We had charmed which was the three sisters is the power of three ran for eight seasons.
They kind of brought the coven of women as a uniting thing and empowering thing and they
had this message of good versus evil but overall they were they were all good witches who
explored witchcraft as like identity and I watched it when I was younger kind of like how
I watched Buffy.
I wasn't like all the way through but I have been debating restarting charmed just for
nostalgia.
So maybe I'll have to have that in there.
I never watched charmed which is surprising because it seems like something I would really
like and like I've watched maybe the first like two or three episodes.
It was like when you were in your Christian girl era.
I mean honestly yeah but like I was like that I was like weird crossover between like Christian
girl but like I didn't care about things like oh that's evil no I don't know fuck I would
watch her listen to anything.
I don't know I just like the WB like you PN like never really like tickled my fancy for
some reason but maybe I should give it a whirl I don't know practical magic came out in
1998 just announced a sequel for this movie they so trailer everybody looks great.
Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are cursed sisters romanticized cozy witchcraft hereditary
gift in burgundy kind of a warm sit you know female lead fairy tale tone love that movie.
So then we really move into fantasy in the mainstream so we run into movies like the Harry Potter
series which is a whole world of witches and wizards.
We have you know these iconic witches like Hermione Granger, Professor McLeanigal as just these
memorable characters of course we're biased we grew up in the 90s and 2000s so these characters
despite its brighter will always have a iconic and melancholic feel for us.
I agree oh gosh I remember reading the Harry Potter series for the first time I read the
first book gosh I must have been in like the third grade and I was in like the gifted program
at school and we were reading Sorcerer's Stone and I didn't I didn't have to pronounce
Hermione kind of fucking name is that sorry if your name's Hermione.
So I would read it as hormone in my head.
That was me.
Hormone, Ron and Harry to class.
I knew it hormones were but the name Hermione is like what is that?
Hormone okay we will also talk more about this which later but but be the vampire.
Slaher also featured teenage witches in the form of Willow Rose and Berg.
So next we move on to Horr Renaissance revisionist witches or horrors.
Some of them are probably horrors.
I hope so.
American Horror Story Coven.
I think you're going to talk about this a little bit later right?
Yes I actually didn't watch that season.
And then and then we have to end the podcast right now.
I watched season one and a half a season two and Sean I don't like American Horror Story.
It makes me feel good.
No.
I'm not squeamish.
I will watch gross discussing things.
This show made me feel like I needed a shower after every episode.
You would like to.
Is there a lot of graphing people?
No.
I feel like every American Horror Story.
I'm like oh and someone's getting sexually assaulted there we go.
Cool.
I feel like season season one is dark but did you watch season two?
Because season two is disgusting and I don't like season two.
That's why we stopped watching.
It's because season two is amazing.
It's going anywhere and it's gross.
Season three is amazing.
Yeah.
No.
Season two is disgusting.
Season three is coven and it's so fucking good.
Oh my god.
Maybe I'll get that one.
I'll get that one.
You have to watch it.
It's so good.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
It's the minute somebody gets assaulted though I'm texting you.
It's one of my favorite.
Which series of all time?
Oh shit.
Well then I do have to watch it.
Yeah.
I love the movie.
The movie.
Oh.
That one's fucked up too.
But I love that movie.
Do you remember when I sent you that video of me naked outside getting buffy?
The movie.
Yeah.
It was very last.
Like okay.
Like a month before buffy died.
She was like, "Oh my god.
She."
I was letting her out to go to the bathroom and it was nighttime and she was blind in her
final days and I was like, "I was naked and getting ready for bed."
And I was like, "This will be fast, whatever."
Open up the screen door and she goes out and you know, she's doing her business and I'm
watching from inside and I see it make just a fast beeline to the pool.
And I'm like, "God damn it."
And I'm just butt fucking naked.
I'm like, "I'll hunched over for some reason."
And it's all captured on the ring camera and I'm like, "Hunching over to the dog."
And I whisk her up and run inside and it's that like grainy kind of green camera footage.
I showed it to Andrew and he said to you, "Look like you're in a Robert Egris movie."
But really, you're about to cook her in a stew.
Yeah.
All right, Peeb, I'm pretty.
My precious.
Yeah.
And then really kind of in 2018, we started to see a callback or a return to some of our
iconic characters, but with like a twist.
I absolutely love the show.
I think I like it more than the '90s one.
Maybe the chilling adventures of Sabrina.
I'm itbie on the show.
Yeah.
And it looks dark reimagining of Sabrina.
It talks about the satanic panic that we mentioned, feminist rebellion, gothic horror.
And it's a more serious shake.
I will not forgive them for not giving me a talking cat in it.
Oh, 100%.
But yeah, I think that I really, really liked the first two seasons of chilling adventures
of Sabrina.
They let the creator of it go a little river deal at the end.
But the first two were so good.
I totally agree.
I loved the first season.
I think it went off the rails once and it was so river deal.
Once people start singing and there's like musical, I love a musical episode.
But if everybody's singing here in every episode, it feels very Disney like we're trying
to launch these actors singing careers and especially if no one's like that good.
Yeah.
And I also didn't like the way it ended with.
Gosh, her boyfriend.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it came out eight years ago.
A little podcast.
You don't have to spoil everything.
I hated the ending.
Okay.
Thank you.
I hated what they did with her and Harvey.
Nicholas Scratch.
I hated what they did with Nicholas Scratch.
So yeah, I don't know.
I guess that's all I'll say.
But we move into Olivia.
I love spoiling things.
I'm just going to spoil everything.
2020's witchcraft examples.
We have two marvel examples of witchcrafts in the last witchcrafts, which is in the last
year.
Witchcrafts.
Witchcrafts in the past five years or so.
Wanda Maxima of slash the Scarlet Witch became Marvel's breakout witch figure tragedy,
grief, power, all portrayed with genuine emotional weight in the MCU.
I love Wanda Maxima.
I think she is so complicated.
She starts out as she's in the X-Men in the comics and she has her brother, quick silver.
I'm going to spoil this because this movie came out fucking years ago and I feel like everyone's
seen it at this point.
Age of Ultron, he dies, but she, you know, starts out as evil in the MCU and then kind of
comes to the good side and joins the Avengers.
But then as we see in WandaVision and Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness, she becomes
a very complicated, morally gray character who's willing to do anything to get her family
back even if it's killing anybody who gets in her way.
And I just love her.
I love all of her arc and I hope she comes back into the MCU soon.
Love it.
We also meet another iconic MCU which in WandaVision in the form of Agatha Harkness.
So she became so popular from WandaVision that they gave her her own show Agatha all along.
She's got that catchy theme song.
It was Agatha all along.
She is a fan favorite villain but also a broader cultural moment around the word which identity
reclamation, feminism, queer identities.
True, okay.
Yeah.
There is a lot of crossover with, you know, gay and witches which we will talk more about.
Goat.
And then of course, Hocus Pocus too.
We talked a little bit about the first Hocus Pocus but you know where that money is.
Got to make a see-ha.
And true me fashion.
I didn't watch that.
What?
No.
That's okay.
Yeah, it was like cash grab.
Not really.
It's cute.
Watch it.
Watch it to giggle.
It's fine.
We are going to take a quick break and then we are going to talk about who our favorite
witches are and what kind of witch powers we wish we could have.
While Olivia and I can be very witchy in the best possible way, we don't really have magical
powers.
Unfortunately.
We have to work for a living just like you do.
But you can make a little magic happen for us if you check out our Patreon.
Join the pop culture junkie, Cavan and help us keep the podcast going.
We are not asking for much even the smallest amount will make a big difference.
And of course, we have something special for anyone who joins.
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Olivia, tell me about your favorite witches or just some honorable mentions that we haven't
talked about yet.
As I mentioned, I love me, some American horror story, Cavan.
So honestly, all of them, I freaking love them.
I think that if I had to pick one of my favorites, it's going to be a real witch in our world.
It's going to be very level.
And she is the real voodoo queen of New Orleans.
And she was born a free woman of color in 1801.
She became a religious leader, healer, community activist and entrepreneur.
She's been working her own beauty parlor while working as an herbalist and midwife.
As the city's third voodoo priestess, she both together traditions from conjure to Catholicism
that is still very present in New Orleans.
And she is portrayed by Angela Bassett in American Horror Story, Cavan.
So good.
I think that in the story, because I want you to watch it, she is very much like a villain.
I mean voodoo is quite dark in practice a lot of the time.
They're sacrificing animals, things like that.
And you let Ryan Murphy in there.
So there are some crazy videos within that.
No, I don't think there's a dog that does.
Given the fact that it's not stuck in my head, but I'll go to does the dog die.com.
It's okay.
There you go.
I think it's a really, she's just an iconic, like real person.
And also just Angela Bassett's portrayal of her is great.
And that's what I mean when I say I love an evil witch portrayal.
Yes.
I agree.
I'm going to have to give it a whirl.
I didn't realize that there was like real life witches in there, the big, you know, historical
witches in New Orleans.
And the second New Orleans.
Yeah.
I love New Orleans.
I'm going to.
I can't.
As I teased a little earlier, one of my favorite pop culture witches is Sabrina Spell.
Melman, but specifically from the 1990s show.
And I know that it's cheesy and corny.
And you know, her and her aunts are not the most powerful of witches.
I don't know.
Like they're powerful, but they are just going to do it for high jinks, right?
But this show held such like ups place in my heart.
Like my mom and I watched it all the time on a TGIF every Friday night.
We would go and like sit in the couch and watch Sabrina.
It made me want a black cat so bad.
I got it.
I know.
Yes, I have my my obsidian now.
But the show stars Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina on her 16th birthday.
She learns that she has magical powers.
She lives with her 600 year old aunts Hilda and Zelda and their magical talking cat Salem
who is actually a warlock who tried to take over the world and had to be turned into a cat
as his punishment.
It definitely ran for a little too long, you know, they stretched it out.
And all those shows kind of suffer from the same like when they're in high school, it's
really great.
And then they try to get in the college years and the adult years and it starts to peter
off a little bit.
But it went from 1996 to 2003 over seven seasons and I loved that show.
Yeah.
I speaking of like iconic 90s, which is a very hard to pick between the Owen sisters, but
one, I think Gillian Owens really is like my one of my favorite, which is first of all
so iconic Nicole Kidman in that whole movie is like all of my.
What was the movie again?
The movie is a very practical film.
Practical magic.
And so yeah, I think as she looks good, she is good.
She's kind of a mess.
I feel like I really do resonate with like messy, but a hard-of-goal the characters.
Feel that.
Feel it.
Yeah.
Where it's like, you don't make the best decisions, but you have good intentions.
Yeah, that's kind of subredated too.
Yeah.
Nicole Kidman in it, like, oh my gosh, most of my Pinterest outfits are hers.
And that looks so good.
So hard.
And their magic is pretty like wide-spanning if I had to say like, okay, what is that that
look like?
And you know, Sandy was close, but she's a little altruistic for me.
I agree.
Nicole Kidman's definitely the more interesting character I think in the movie.
And I'm excited to see what they do with the second one.
I'm glad that they're getting most of the original cast back.
This is no surprise to anybody who's ever met me.
But one of my favorite, which is, as I mentioned earlier too, is Willow Rosenberg from Bubby
the Vampire Slayer.
She was portrayed by Alice in Hanigan.
She started off as Bubby's shy, nerdy computer loving best friend who really like uses her
intelligence, her hacking skills, her book smarts to help Bubby slay demons and vampires.
Comes into her own, comes out as gay, gets a girlfriend, girlfriend dies.
She becomes evil, tries to destroy the world and then becomes good again.
I mean, who amongst us?
Homest among us.
Homest.
Her, which craft is definitely an allegory for like her sexuality as well.
And they make that running joke a lot throughout the series of like, oh, Willow is exploring
a lot in college.
And it's like that snudge, wink, wink, you know, which craft and other things.
Her girlfriend, Tara, is also a witch and is just that full OE skirt 90s whims of
Goth, which you know.
So I love Willow.
You know, the series is definitely my favorite show of all time.
The Dark Willow is just iconic.
It's interesting how they compare magic to like her being a drug addict, which you know,
is more successful in some episodes than others.
It's addicted to magic and goes to like a magic crack, Dan gets her fix and like gets
into a magical car accident.
Yeah, it's, it's a little silly, but it's definitely kind of like an, you know, overarching
theme there to addiction and recovery.
And yeah.
So I love it.
I want to know who do you think is some of the examples of the most evil witches in pop
culture or the like dumbest most like really that's her power or that's their power.
Yeah, I think I mean, you have to say like Melisandre, right?
Evil or lame?
Evil, evil.
I got also lame to sacrifice and burn children.
Yes.
I would say that another one that like when I was really young in stuck in my head as like
the evil witch was Ursula, right?
Oh, yeah.
What do you mean you're going to take my voice just because I want like legs?
Why not?
So what can no less than us?
I do think Ursula is an interesting example because she kind of fits into that like if
you're quote unquote ugly than your evil like in, you know, she fed that like queer like
she's, you know, she's overweight.
She's, you know, definitely a little like gay coded and she must be evil if she's not
real thin and gorgeous.
Lusting for a man.
Yeah.
Exactly.
She doesn't want a man in her life.
I kind of like Ursula.
She's like bitch, really?
You're like her now.
For a man you're 16.
Yeah.
I know I feel like you're watching her as a kid and you're like, I think that the witch from
Snow White is super done like like she hates so much like the evil witch.
Yeah.
Her and Maleficent.
Like I like Maleficent now like kind of the character that they've made her into and
like I love Angelina Jolie's portrayal in the aesthetic of Maleficent.
She can turn into a dragon that's sick as hell.
But like both of those witches are definitely like no one could be pretty or younger than me
killing for many, which is what an evil woman must do, right?
Yeah, but she can't age.
No, we can't.
We're not allowed to.
Go too far.
Yeah.
So if you're aging, then you're evil.
If you, if there's someone prettier than you, then you must be jealous of them and therefore
evil.
So kind of stupid there.
But that's Disney movies, right?
We're a little rooted in the Saagini, but I do like how they kind of, you know, what they've
done with Maleficent now and kind of like fleshing out her character.
I think some evil witch shout outs could be Bellatrix Lestrange.
She's pretty evil.
Oh, that's a good one.
She's pretty evil.
All of the defaters.
All of the dev eaters are pretty, pretty evil.
I don't know.
I love pop culture witches and I will, I definitely think that you should read the book that I mentioned
at the beginning.
It's fascinating and just kind of that cross over the tree.
Oh, yeah.
I'm about to start.
Yeah.
Saagini again.
It is called Witch's Sluts and Feminist, Contrary the Sex Positive by Kristen J. Soley.
Before we jump off to, I have one more question for you.
Where are you and where are you and which what powers which you want?
I feel like this might be cheating, but I would want like elemental powers.
No, that's so weird.
I can control like earth magic.
I think that's what I would want.
She's an earth bender.
Yeah, like I think that's probably what I would want.
I love it.
I could grow things.
I could control stone, like dirt, things like that.
Or green, which I love it.
I definitely, yeah, control the weather, make it rain and Phoenix, like make it not 150 degrees
of weather.
Do it for me, please.
I think I would like Wanda Maximoff's powers, but I promise not to use them to create a fake
town to trap everybody in.
Just like the reality manipulation, telekinesis.
Okay.
She's like demoddy powers.
Yeah.
She can fly.
She can like warp things around her, create barriers, fight people.
I love it.
She's sick as hell.
Okay.
I think I would want that.
Would you ride on a broomstick?
Fuck yeah.
You told me about riding on broomsticks.
Yeah.
Say it real fast before we go because that was a long time ago.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Okay.
Which is on broomsticks was there was like a hallucigen drug that people were doing and
they were putting it on to wooden broomsticks and sticking it up their hoo ha's.
Yeah.
Whenever they would do that, they would see like a they would hallucinate.
Illucidate.
So they would act.
Yeah.
They would act a little crazy.
And so the witches on the broom came from, you know, people just doing drugs up their
hoo ha.
They were having a good time.
They were boofing.
They were, well, boofing is three or but so they're, I guess they were boofing.
They were boofing.
You know, better help nose flinter is in there because that would really hurt.
But, you know, I feel like you could work now with like plastic broom and bolts.
Yeah.
What was the name of what they were doing?
Write that down real fast.
Boofing.
Can I move with my spoon?
It's with a wet mop.
Okay.
It's got it.
It's picking stuff up later, you know.
You're gonna be visited by Jack Nicholson and he's gonna move you.
He's gonna want to move me on a swiffer wet.
Or maybe he'll ask if we can do it and I'll be like, I don't need you, Jack.
I have my swiffer dipped in hallucinogenic drugs.
And then Anthony Hopkins will show up and show me foster.
She doesn't want to fall for you.
She doesn't want to do it.
Oh my God.
Okay.
I think we're gonna wrap this up.
Thank you for falling under our spell on this episode of Pop Culture Junkie Podcast.
Olivia, where can the listeners find you on social media?
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The Pop Culture Junkie podcast is produced by Jeff Markin and Cheryl Lightfoot for the
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