Wizards of Waverly Place - "Yea, I Went There"

The Wizards of Waverly Place is a Disney channel show with Selena Gomez as the front woman, so yes, I know, this blog post should end right now. However, the show provides a great case study in understanding the witch as a medium for social regulation.

Alex (Selena Gomez) is a witch in training with her two brothers. Once they reach a certain age, the three wizards/witches compete to keep their magical abilities. Only one witch may continue using their powers, and a little sibling competition is the perfect test for which sibling ‘deserves’ the mantle. Competition based on meritocracy is just another word for capitalism, and our society today is run on the ideal of capitalism. In the show, the magic is upheld as the end goal through fun shenanigans and predictable farces, but just look at the father who teaches Alex and her brothers magic. He was the good child in his family and was the rightful winner of the magic mantle, but he fell in love with a regular human and had to give up magic to his brother. Clearly, a message is presented here, one can either have a social life (wife, friends, etc.) or material wealth (magic), and based on the magnitude of quips tossed the fathers way and the fact that the show is about who is going to get the magic, wealth is clearly more highly valued. Yet, this is still a contemporary interpretation specific to the show. Taking a step higher, the witch as a symbol has evolved in its social, regulatory function, which is even more interesting.

Before, witches were used to symbolize behavior and ideals that were transgressive and not ok. They operated as a negative regulatory function. Negative of course meaning behaviors and world-views a person should not possess. However, today the witch serves a positive regulatory function. In other words, these are the behaviors and world-views one should part take in and value. So why were witches able to make this shift? Well western civilization evolved socially, technically, and economically. Now the original substance of the witch is irrelevant because of progress, but that doesn’t change the fact that the witch is a medium. Witches, werewolves, and vampires are paintbrushes, while the ideals they symbolize are the picture. These days the pervasive world-views and ideals revolve around capitalism, and ask any psychologist which works better: negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement.