“I Put a Spell on You and Now You're Mine”: A Vulvacentric Reading of Witchcraft Available to Purchase

The popularity of images of witches and witchcraft in fifteenth and sixteenth century established a visual code for witchcraft in the West. This chapter argues for a vulvacentric reading of this code that reveals visual cues representing witchcraft as a story of female alliance, female knowledge transmission, and female authorship. Through an analysis of the movie Hocus Pocus, the author proposes the concept of the funny witch who refuses to apologize for her transgressions. With the power to ridicule the forces of oppression, the funny witch crosses the boundaries of who a woman is allowed to be while she accesses a broad audience that might not necessarily indulge in openly political and feminist form of humor. Hocus Pocus shows how witches can use metaphors that have been created to subdue them to instead enchant, build covens, and convert the audience to their wicked ways.