How about the way Witches are depicted as evil and ugly?
Would ugly, evil looking Jesus decorations, be tolerated on Christmas?
2007-09-15 16:35:55 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Don't these witches feed into stereotypes? It seems kind of bigoted, and you Wiccans are always staeretyped for lack of understanding, cupcake.
2007-09-15 16:43:58 · update #1
Daughter: this question was addressed to Wiccans.
2007-09-15 16:51:52 · update #2
Laurie Cabot does seem to mind. I also have a couple of friends who do face discriminating comments, like the broom joke. It's fair game to ridicule witches, and none of you mind?
I am truly impressed, and my respect for Pagans just grew bigger.
2007-09-15 16:57:43 · update #3
Thank Mrs. Trout for me...and go to bed!
2007-09-15 17:07:23 · update #4
Voodoid: Epona widow doesn't have to "lighten up". Those are her beliefs, and I asked for them.
2007-09-15 17:34:21 · update #5
The image of the deformed witch has been around much longer than Wicca or the practice of identifying oneself as a witch. So no, I'm not offended. Such decorations are not directed at me, and its self-absorbed to insist otherwise.
I'm not surprised Laurie Cabot gets her knickers in a twist over it. She's an attention whore. She walks around town every day in a black robe which she calls "traditional Wiccan dress," which is untrue. A book she published in the 80s describes witchcraft as an ancient religion persecuted by Christians, which is completely untrue and based on long debunked academics. Please don't listen to her.
2007-09-16 10:02:03 · answer #1 · answered by Nightwind 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Actually, no.
I'm not offended at all by the "ugly" witch depictions. If you notice, most depictions of Halloween witches are actually not ugly or evil at all. Only people who are completely closed-minded think that witches or Halloween are evil and those people wouldn't be convinced even if witches were depicted as looking like angels.
I really enjoy Halloween as it's celebrated. It brings out the mystery of it.
Epona Willow, hon, you really need to lighten up.
2007-09-16 00:00:54 · answer #2 · answered by Voodoid 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I'm a Pagan of The Lore, not a Wiccan. For me Samhain/Halloween is a time of honoring those who left this life in the last year. A time of new beginnings, and a time for the children.
I Decorate to the point of a walk in haunted house in front of the house and an oak that becomes a 3 dozen jack-0-lanterns tree. We begin with a dumb dinner. Then our one child goes out trick or treating as I check lighting and speakers. At full dark children (and adults) start arriving. They are greeted with a full Halloween theatre set. My wife gives out Candy in full Witch regalia and a big scots-Irish grin. I run the whole works from a second floor window where I set up my theatre light board and power packs.
Even the lady who lives down the street and thinks I'm the devil incarnate, goes across town and picks up her grandchildren for Halloween in my front yard.
2007-09-16 00:00:36 · answer #3 · answered by Terry 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
I don't really get offended at the ugly witch decorations, because all it is is a character. It's not meant to offend real witches. The only thing that offends me sometimes is when I get people saying "Do you fly on brooms? Can you throw fireballs?" ya know, stupid stuff like that.
I celebrate both sides of Halloween. The deeply religious side of it, being my New Year and all. Showing respect and rememberence to all my ancestors and friends who have passed.
then I celebrate the other half. CANDY!!
2007-09-15 23:46:51 · answer #4 · answered by Kimberly A 6 · 4⤊ 0⤋
No. I'm a pagan not a wiccan though and I don't while I celebrate it like a lot of non pagans do I celebrate it like the Pagans do to. I plan on dressing up as a witch this year.(I've done princess and a ladybug all the other times really cheesy. So no I don't.
2007-09-15 23:43:40 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
I asked "Mrs Trout" and she said no one cares at all how it is celebrated
Aslo the idea of a national choclate day is widely held in a favourable light by Wiccan's
She also said I have to go to bed soon and not to wake her up again tonight or she will turn me into a newt (Newt a small frog )
2007-09-15 23:47:00 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Most Wiccans I know just make fun of it themselves.
Pagan in general, we don't take ourselves all that seriously cupcake. I feel no need to scream disrespect of my gods. Freyja's a big girl. Odin is a the Allfather. Really....they can take care of themselves.
edit: I am NOT Wiccan. I respect Wiccans, but I am NOT Wiccan. EVERYTHING has a stereo type. Good goddess look up the crap they put out there about Thor.
2007-09-15 23:39:22 · answer #7 · answered by ~Heathen Princess~ 7 · 6⤊ 1⤋
I am not offended and I do celebrate it with all the festivities...costumes, candy etc.
I celebrate Samhain on the cross-quarter day as to keep it separate from Halloween.
As for the ugly Witch depiction...
Each year they parade her about, the traditional Halloween Witch. Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, a toothless mouth beneath her deformed nose. Gnarled knobby fingers twisted into a claw protracting from a bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly legs. Most think this abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind or merely a Halloween caricature. I disagree, I believe this to be how Witches were really seen.
Consider that most Witches were women, were abducted in the night, and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under the secrecy of darkness to be presented by light of day as a confessed Witch. Few if any saw a frightened normal looking woman being dragged into a secret room filled with instruments of torture, to be questioned until she confessed to anything suggested to her and to give names or what ever would stop the questions.
Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world as a self-proclaimed Witch. As the Witch was paraded through town en route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned or disposed of in various other forms of Christian love all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body, the jeering crowds viewed the results of hours of torture. The face bruised and broken by countless blows bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving smile gone replaced by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that leers beneath a battered disfigured nose. The dishevelled hair conceals bleeding gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses. Broken twisted hands clutched the wagon for support, fractured fingers with nails torn away locked like groping claws to steady her broken body. All semblance of humanity gone this was truly a demon, a bride of Satan, a Witch.
I revere this Halloween Crone and hold her sacred above all. I honour her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of man. Each year I shed tears of respect when the mundane exhibit their symbol of Christian love.
Author: -Unknown-
2007-09-15 23:49:27 · answer #8 · answered by Epona Willow 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
I've never been offended by it. I look at it as a day of fun as well as the serious aspects of it for those of us who are wiccan and witches.
2007-09-16 00:52:15 · answer #9 · answered by Praire Crone 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. Its just a bit of fun. I personally don't mind dressing up. I don't have enough time to make it now, but I intend on making a Jedi Costume to wear next year. I'm hoping to have it ready for Dragon Con, and then I can wear it for Halloween. We'll see.
Its not meant as an insult, just fun. Kind of like Santa Clause.
2007-09-15 23:45:14 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋