Look to the Western Sky and follow me down the Witches Road as we reflect at the year’s outstanding celebration of all things witchy. 2024 has seen some of the most successful stories told about witches across film and television. The pinnacle achievement came from Universal Pictures Wicked which became the highest grossing Broadway musical adaptation of all time and has earned nearly 500 million in box office worldwide as of this publication. There also was a period of time where you could not open your social media apps without hearing “The Ballad of The Witches Road” from the hit Disney+ series Agatha All Along. The series hit high ratings for the streaming platform seeing a 321% increase from the premiere into the double-episode finale week of October 27th according to Variety’s Luminate.
However, there was more magic than just Elphaba could conjure as witches appeared all year-round, many in television series. When asked about the Rise of Witch storytelling, fashion designer and pop culture YouTuber Samantha Rei explained:
“I mean part of it is definitely the need to connect with something definitively feminine due to the current climate, as well as something where that femininity is an intrinsic part of gaining and establishing power. Plus, there’s always that aspect of taking dark things and making them a little bit romantic. We’ve lived in an incredibly frustrating political and social climate for the last few years, it makes sense that this would really resonate with people. There’s also a lot of queer elements in this media and with more stories being told that include a wider range of people, it’s wonderful to see oneself in a story about strength, magic and self-discovery.”
Below is a highlight of a characters we saw in 2024.
The Cast of Agatha All Along
It’s without a doubt that the cast of Agatha All Along made the TikTok crowd heads turn to the now iconic “The Ballad of the Witches Road” written by Academy Award-winning songwriters Bobby Lopez and Kirsten Anderson-Lopez (Frozen, WandaVision). The clever coven of witches in the show displayed a variety of disciplines and dynamic personalities all centered around specific challenges to their specific talents. The divination witch Lilia Calderu (played by Pati LuPone) had possibly the most hyped episode centered around her ability to exist in various moments of time and how the show was laying out the groundwork for the outstanding episode of television. Not pictured in the photo above is Rio (played by Aubrey Plaza) who proved to be Death – the original Green Witch. It would also be remiss to not mention our favorite boy witch of the year, Billy (played by Joe Locke), who captured every goth queer heart across the world.
Jodie Turner-Smith as Mother Aniseya from The Acolyte
When the coven of force witches appeared in The Acolyte – we were instantly captured by their mystery and power. Mother Aniseya especially held a status as a witch to be reckoned with, but we as an audience were cut short of her brilliance after she perished during a confrontation with Jedi Master Sol.
Jenn Lyson as Esther Finch from Dead Boy Detectives
When Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne chose not to enter the afterlife, they instead decided to stay on Earth and investigate supernatural crimes. On one of these cases, the boys come across a fierce witch named Esther Finch – known for kidnapping children to absorb their essence to stay young and beautiful. This witch trope is made into a joke in Agatha All Along, but Esther’s unending confidence and resolve make her an incredibly fun antagonist to the Dead Boys.
Alison Sealy-Smith as Weather Witch Storm from X-MEN ’97
Mutants and witches have been fictionalized over the decades through Marvel Comics featuring characters like The Scarlet Witch, Magik, Amanda Sefton, and many more. Ororo Munroe as Storm is frequently called a “weather witch” as she seemingly summons lighting, wind, rain, and hail with very little effort. Storm’s journey in X-Men ’97 also found her powerless and amongst Native Magic cast by Forge in the deserts of New Mexico.
Monica Bellucci as Delores LaFerve from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Witches sometimes are coined a succubus, or a supernatural female entity that steal men’s energy and sometimes kill them. Delores in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a scorned ex-wife of the title character and she’s out for revenge. This portrayal is another example of the witch as antagonist (as they often are shown in media), however Delores was once a cult leader during the Black Death who’s goal was to reach immortality by stealing the soul of a husband, so she lured Beetlejuice into marriage and killed him on their wedding night – thus making him the ghost with the most!
Emily Watson as Valya Harkonnen in Dune: Prophecy
The Bene Gesserit in the Dune universe were often considered copies of Christian nuns – sisters of the faith who help powerful leaders decern when someone is lying through their trained efforts of Truthsaying. This all changed once Valya Harkonnen raised in influence within the Bene Gesserit order and became Mother Superior. Her inherent gifts of “the voice” added an air of witchcraft allowing her to control her subjects by making them do her bidding just by speaking the commands. The citizens in the Dune universe often refer to the Bene Gesserit as witches as well.
Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda in Wicked
It’s hard not to avoid the infectious joy of Wicked as it soars through the cinemas and into everyone’s ears through the award-winning songs by Stephen Schwartz. Beautifully performed by the cast, there probably is not a more famous witch than the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz”. The 1939 film is one of the most endeared films of all time and was one of the first introductions to witches on screen to a wide audience. In the story we learn about good witches (like Glinda) and bad witches (like Elphaba) and pop culture grabbed onto their bad side and the green-skinned, pointy hat, broom-riding witch mythos took over the world.
The story of Wicked, originally written in the 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire, is a stirring exploration of how one becomes “wicked” and the series of events that happen in Elphaba’s life that forced her into the role of the Wicked Witch of the West. Prejudice, Intimidation, Propaganda, and inherent Racism in Oz drove Elphaba to embody and become what people placed upon her.
However, one of the most endearing elements of Wicked is the relationship of Elphaba and Glinda (wonderfully portrayed by Erivo and Grande). The two actresses support system in interviews and the media frenzy around Wicked is one of the most delightful things to witness on our tiny phone screens. This year has given us a wealth of diverse stories of witches and the good and evil they will do in order to reach their hopes and dreams.
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