Witches vs. Witches : A study of witches in TV-series and their wiccan counterpart

This essay examines how witches are portrayed in American produced TV-series in the year 2000 and forward, what elements could have effected that portrayal in the series and also how this portrayal differs itself from witches within Wicca. The material used for this examination are the TV-series Charmed, The Vampire Diaries and Witches of East End and as comparing literature; Living Wicca, The Spiral Dance and Witchcraft Today. The methods used for this process are discourse analysis and content analysis. I used theories of Pierre Wiktorin about religion and popular culture. I used three themes (Characteristics, Practice and mode of thinking) for the processing of the material and to structure the result. The results showed that the witches in the TV-series had a lot in common such as they were all women, they were born with their powers and the human life is sacred in comparison to other creatures that exist in the series. The comparison showed that there are significant differences between the witches in the TV-series and the witches in Wicca. Practicing witches within Wicca is part of a religion where rituals are of high importance and the Goddess and God are worshiped. These are the most important discrepancies that are not a part of witches in TV-series. The question about why the series are so similar has been analyzed with theories about moral panic and post-feminism to show how social structures can play a part in how TV-series are written. The conclusions that I have reached is that the witches in the series are portrayed very similar. They are all women, they have inherited their abilities as witches and they keep searching for love and are in a constant battle with evil. Elements that could have effected this portrayal are the theories about moral panic, that discusses the fighting against evil, and postfeminism, that discusses the love aspect and the fact that they are all women. The witches in the series and the witches within wicca are very different. The biggest one is the fact that wicca is a religion that involves rituals for the God and Goddess. This has no part of the portrayal of witches in the TV-series.