Magical mothers : the representation of witches and motherhood in contemporary fantasy cinema

Abstract

Over the past decade, powerful mothers in cinema have reappeared in the fantasy genre in the form of “witches”. Some witches’ stories, such as that of Maleficent (the wicked witch from the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty), have even been rewritten to place greater emphasis on maternal values, while simultaneously having feminist undertones and subverting the ways in which witches’ stories have been told previously. In contrast to the widely regarded belief that only evil witches (who are often also read as femme fatales) are considered to be “feminist”, the author argues that recently, witches that are both good and feminist have started to come to the fore. Significantly, the source of these witches’ power is their display of motherhood, which is an issue that many feminists (especially those who deny gender difference) have been grappling with for some time, as motherhood and feminism seem to be on two opposite ends of the spectrum. Thus, the author argues that, as is displayed in science fiction heroines from the 1980s and 1990s who are often discussed in feminist circles, these witches’ maternal values do not undermine their transgressive potential, as it is conventionally assumed, but rather become the source of their empowerment.