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“For all that the monster may be cast as a figure vulnerable in its own right by reason of its own lack of fixed form and definition and its putative status as an outsider, what causes anxiety is that it threatens to expose the vulnerability at the heart of the ideal model of body/self.”
— Margrit Shildrick, ‘Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self’, p. 5
Unsurprisingly, seeing as people will study literally anything, much has been said in critical theory about the figure of the monster—and it is quite fascinating. As we all know, witches are often portrayed in this way: with powers beyond comprehension that are used capriciously to heal or to harm, the witch is associated with evil, magical familiars, and the Devil and demons (with these, too, viewed as monsters—which is another post entirely). But what does it mean to be a monster?
I introduced this post with a quote from one of my favourite books, Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self by Margrit Shildrick. It is, essentially, a book about how the monster represents society’s Other. The “Other” can be a nebulous term that means different things in different traditions, but here it can be explained in the following way:
“Social identities are relational; groups typically define themselves in relation to others. This is because identity has little meaning without the “other”. So, by defining itself a group defines others. Identity is rarely claimed or assigned for its own sake. These definitions of self and others have purposes and consequences. They are tied to rewards and punishment, which may be material or symbolic. There is usually an expectation of gain or loss as a consequence of identity claims. This is why identities are contested. Power is implicated here, and because groups do not have equal powers to define both self and the other, the consequences reflect these power differentials. Often notions of superiority and inferiority are embedded in particular identities”
— Andrew Okolie, cited here.
This means that when social identities are constructed, such as race, gender, and sexuality, there is the creation of an “in” group and an “out” group. The Other are those that we designate as outsiders, and the power to decide who is an Other is socio-political: it is those with privilege who do this. Consequently, this means the Other for man is woman, for whiteness it is people of colour (and especially Blackness), and so on and so on. I will talk more about this creation of the Other momentarily.
Back to Shildrick, by looking at the misogyny of Aristotle through to teratologies of the medieval period as well as contemporary film and television, she is at pains to show that what we consider the monster to be—a threat of harm, a threat of annihilation, a threat of assimilation into evil—is essentially that on which we project everything we disavow in ourselves when we create these “in” and “out” groups.
The Enlightenment: Where the Other as We Know It Was Formed
So, what is it in Shildrick’s view that we disavow? Let’s take a jaunt through the Enlightenment period of philosophy—I promise there’s a reason for this that doesn’t involve boring you.
This was a time when learned men were theorising on consciousness and what constitutes a human. Naturally for the time, they excluded anyone who wasn’t like them from this category. While the masculine, ‘civilised’ figure was seen to have a mind capable of reason (“I think, therefore I am”), women and people of colour were thought to be tied to their bodily needs and controlled by the ‘passions’, aka emotion. This also applied, of course, to other oppressed groups—those with disabilities, including the Mad, as well as queer people, people of colour, and the working classes.
Another key part was that these boundaries were fixed. One could not traverse from being a woman to being a man (yes, transphobia), and therefore could not escape their bodily and mental constraints. While good education could encourage reason in women and ‘the uncivilised’, it was not a replacement for being born a white, wealthy cishet and abled man. Binary oppositions were thus formed: body/mind, savage/civilised, emotion/reason, female/male, etc.
Essentially high on their own farts, the power these men controlled made them feel inviolable. Harm was what was done to others—domestic violence was, of course, rife, as was the violent rule of colonialism. This state of invulnerability could be said to be the basis of the liberal conceptions of ‘freedom’, which at the time (and arguably today) only applied to the few.
Of course, notions of the Other did not originate in the Enlightenment. Colonialism began in the 15th century. Heretics and witches were burned during the medieval and early modern period. But the creation of the Other and its relation to monstrosity as both exist today, while influenced by earlier periods, was really crystalised during the Enlightenment and beyond.
So, What is Monstrosity?
Monstrosity, then, is everything that the Self repudiates in order to keep a sense of its own personal autonomy, freedom, and inviolability. The Self can only be claimed by a select few, of course: men, white people, the able-bodied and sane, cishet people… you get it. Of course, that means for many of us we are at times the Self and at time the Other: that’s just how power structures work. But in general terms, the Self must create its Other by disavowing certain characteristics that makes it feel uncomfortable and reveals its inherent vulnerability. It is precisely this Other that is monstrous.
It is vulnerability to harm that is the first thing seen in the monster. The point of most horror movies is to be scared but to also have a resolution at the end where the monster is overcome and we return to a sense of normalcy. The monster, then, is actually the one who is vulnerable, because it is they who must be defeated in order to keep Us safe. Of course, the notion that we are not vulnerable but the monster is is a false one: we are all vulnerable to harm (though some more than others), but the Self cannot sleep well with that hanging over them, so this notion is cast out and instead placed onto the Other.
The monster is also that which threatens boundaries. As already said, the Self likes to neatly categorise things, especially in binary oppositions. This allows them to cast out certain undesirables from the people they associate with. But us undesirables often do not remain sequestered: we seek to break this boundaries and are constantly pressing against them. The monster, then, threatens the boundaries that the Self has created around itself. Whether its because they traverse the lines between life and death, as the vampire and zombie do, or between human and animal, as does the werewolf, monsters are creatures that refuse to be categorised.
What Makes the Witch a Monster?
As walkers between worlds—that of life and death, the material world and the Otherworld, mundane and magical—the witch is naturally a monster. They also even traverse the lines between human and animal, with their legendary ability to turn themselves or others into animals, thereby crossing even the border between the natural order of God and the unholy powers of the Devil. Feared for these powers and others, they nevertheless can be defeated by witch hunters—even if most of the people executed for such crimes were based on moral panic and personal grudges instead of, you know, solid evidence. But still, the idea of witches lurking and ready to use their inexplicable power to do harm has captured the minds of people for literal centuries because the fact that they can be harmed tells us that, secretly, we can be too.
Let’s look at representation now, as it is quite instructive of how this all works. In pop culture, society makes witches look ‘spooky’, with big hook noses (hello, antisemitism!), green skin, and dark clothing (because black has long been associated with evil). We also typically figure them as women. Much has been written on how women are tied to horror, such as Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. This is because of many reasons including those listed above: they are of the body, not the mind; they have long been considered weak and thus vulnerable to harm; they are unpredictable, unlike a mind of reason; they seek to corrupt men with their feminine wiles. All of these notions of femininity was pushed onto the popular depiction of witches, even if men were executed during the witch hunts too.
Consider this further with an example: The Craft. In it, we see teenage girls—often considered to be the most dangerous of the female kind due to their hormone fluctuations—take up the power of magic for various reasons. It works, thus making them a threat. However, the movie could not end with a message about female empowerment because this is mainstream Hollywood in the nineties. Instead, they had to get their come-uppance, with one such case that literally results in our protagonist Sarah almost getting raped. Yes girls, you heard it here: try and overcome your lot in life and a man will be there to brutally put you back in your place. We also see how Nancy turns into a villain, even if we read it in a queer feminist way to see that she was merely rebelling against the patriarchy. However, because of this, she too had to be punished, this time by being locked up in a mental institution. What a happy ending—those bitches witches can be defeated!
Present-Day Perceptions of the Witch: Becoming Mainstream, Becoming Threatened
Of course, as true witchcraft (not the stuff we see in films) becomes more prevalent, more and more people are becoming aware of us. That is both good and bad.
It can sometimes result in greater acceptance and fewer myths being passed around about us. It’s also led to a huge influx of curious seekers who look towards witchcraft (and often paganism, too) as a form of spirituality, self-fulfillment, self-healing, or something else entirely. In 2021, it was estimated that there are around 1.5 million witches in the United States in 2021—imagine how many more there are now, with the explosion of #WitchTok.
But unfortunately, in the eyes of many, we are still monsters. In particular, organised religion can still be hostile towards us, including within Christianity, which is particularly pertinent to those of us in the West. I won’t link any here because they don’t deserve the clicks, but I’ve screenshotted some choice takes from various websites:
I think we get the picture.
To add a global perspective, witch hunts are still sometimes practiced in the Global South, although I do not have the experience to speak more on this with the nuance it deserves, given the probable role of colonialism in these witch-related fears developing. To bring it closer to home, let’s take a look at what’s happening in the West: witches (and pagans) have been known to experience harassment or bullying when their spirituality becomes known. Metaphysical stores have been protested and the owners threatened or harassed, including by police. I personally hide my witchcraft and pagan religiosity when asked about my beliefs by healthcare workers because I know it will be used to further pathologise my Madness.
The witch, then, is still a monster in our society to many. We are monsters because we traverse boundaries, pointing out that things are not quite as simple as they seem. We show that all of us are vulnerable to both harm and our free will being impinged upon. We defy tradition, mainstream culture, and neat classification. Popular culture plays into these ideas, painting the witch as an adversary (even my beloved TV show What We Do in the Shadows does this for kicks). We might not be experiencing the same widespread level of persecution that other marginalised religions experience—particularly Judaism and Islam—but things can still get awfully tricky for some of us.
However, as awareness of witchcraft grows, the acceptance of it—even if it is a confused acceptance—does grow too in many place. More join the flock. There will always be those who hate and revile us, but we grow stronger as a collective by the day, and the more people join, the more diverse we become. Let us just remember the monstrous Other when engaging with this diversity, hmm?
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