Stop Perpetuating Sterotypes and other things we wish we never hear again.
I have never been more embarassed
to be a Wiccan than I was when Phyllis Currott, supposedly speaking on
the behalf of people just like me, picketed, whined, and all around media
blitzed the movie "The Blair Witch Project," for committing the sin of
bothering her pretty little head by using the term witch. I'm not
going to turn this into a rant against blonds, because, as a red head,
I'm aware of my innate superiority over blonds, and it's just not fair
to fault someone for a naturally born (or chemically induced) handicap.
Well-meaning blonds, I mean
witches, of all kinds have targeted this or that for misappropriating (their
word) the word witch, a word they are attempting to "reclaim." Of
course, any Witch worth her green skin and broomstick knows that this reclaiming
is, of course, nonsense, because the good wittle witches of our past didn't
call themselves witches, the people hanging, burning, torturing, threatening
or just looking for them did. (and don't tell ME green skin is an evil
stereotype, Ranter Delta is a beautiful hunter green, with a complexion
to die for, and if you are racist enough to hate green people, that is
YOUR problem). You're CLAIMING, not RECLAIMING, and while there is
nothing wrong with that, other people got first dibs on the word, and you
don't have the right to tell them what to do.
The closest thing I can
imagine to the outcry over Blair Witch that Carotbrains thought to create
on our behalf would be if a group of middle class rich West coasters suddenly
screamed and whined over the Disney Movie Atlantis because they, in fact,
were the Atlanteans, and Disney got it all wrong. Or if they fought against
the Jurassic Park movies because they were reclaiming the word "dinosaur"
and those movies clearly made dinos out to be evil bad critters when "everyone"
knew that dinosaurs were sweet gentle souls that lived at one with the
earth.
In literature, and in the
myths of our past, Witch was ALWAYS used to mean the bad guy, the green
skinned (sorry, Delta), kid-boiling, sometimes satanic, Hansel and Gretl
luring Wicked Witch of the West. You can call yourself a witch and
by it mean a practioner of Modern Wicca, a Satanist, an FMT, a BTW, or
just a weirdo. You can even call a mythical creature in a forest in a stupid
low budget movie that some people actually paid to see a witch, and not
only are you NOT politically incorrect, you aren't wrong.
So Phyl, dearest, sweetie-poo,
stuff it. If it was called the Blair Wiccan Project you'd have a valid
gripe, but it wasn't and you don't. They have as much right to the word,
maybe more so, than you. As we so often end these things :