From the ancient time witch story till now, people's attitude towards witches has changed a lot. It could be argued that the feelings changed from hate and scared to interest. People no longer want to burn them we stared to make video games of them, movies about them. Why there is such a big difference between the old time and now? What have witches done that washed off their notorious reputation?
I believed that witches does not change. It is the people that's changing. The witch Medea in the Greek mythology can be an great example. Medea is the granddaughter of the God of the sun. Sh fell in love with the hero Jason and married him, they had two children. However when King Corith offered Jason his daughter, Jason left Medea and married the princess. In the mythology Medea started the avenge by killing both of their children and then she send the princess a dress and gold covered by poison. This cause the death of both the king and the princess. Medea's figure had been seeing as the evil witch and people used her cruel avenge to prove her evilness. Even the women believes that all faults was on Medea. The Patriarchal society modeled how people think at that time.
However, people these days are holding a highly different opinion. The most recent Maleficent movie has the same story line as Medea's story. The guy that Maleficent loved had betrayed her and cut off her wings. Maleficent cursed his daughter and bring the whole forest to the dark. People did not blame anything on Maleficent, the witch this time, actually we seem more considerate. Obviously, the man is the bad guy and he deserves the punishment.
The society has been through a great change. With the rise of women status, powerful women have been treated more equally. The definition of good woman is no longer obeying the men. Here comes the time to stop the unconditional offers from women. From the Patriarchal society to a equal society people became more open about the topic about witches and people started to put real thoughts into defying good or evil.
I think you bring up an interesting point comparing Maleficent to the ancient witch Medea. Medea is a witch from truly ancient times, the time of the Greeks to be exact. As we have seen and as you have mentioned the newest form of Maleficent in Disney's film shows her in a very different light. However her story is undeniably parallel to Medea's story. Personally in this day and time looking at Medea's story I feel like she was the one that was wronged and that she was the one that was betrayed. I don't see her as a bad guy like how the greeks interpreted her back then. I also don't see Maleficent as a 'bad guy''. I am therefore a product of the change that you mentioned that people go through the times. I agree with you that it is not actually the story's itself of witches that change over time but the people, and how we choose to interpret these stories. I think that it is crucial to think about what sort of things are causing these shifts in thought in people today. What types of things are responsible for causing the old patriarchal model to start steadily fade out? How come almost identical stories have been interpreted so differently? Things that come to mind are movements like the feminist movement. The feminist movement fights for equal rights among the sexes and promotes the idea of a strong independant woman. The greeks didn’t have active groups such as the feminist group fighting for the equalization of the sexes and therefore they accepted a patriarchal society very easily.
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