*** Spoiler Alert ***
“There will always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda”.
For anyone who lives in a cave and hasn’t been watching the series WandaVision, the character Agatha Harkness spoke these words in last night’s series finale and I have been thinking about them ever since. Agatha is a powerful sorceress and she faces off against Wanda Maximoff, AKA the Scarlet Witch, a woman capable of altering reality itself. These kinds of superheroines and supervillains from comic books (now transported to television and film) have fascinated me ever since I started reading The Uncanny X-Men when I was young. I loved their costumes, their powerful physiques and their startling powers. It was only much later when I developed more critical thinking skills that I began to wonder exactly why the women’s superhero costumes had to resemble leotards and why the material always clung so very tightly to their conspicuously impressive bosoms.
However, I digress. The season finale of WandaVision was a heart-wrenching, action-packed fight-fest and I have been hooked since the first episode... but it was Agatha’s words that sat with me long after the end credits had rolled. If we look back over the history of TV, the history of film and indeed, the history of the world… we will see that Agatha knows exactly what she is talking about. There are always torches and pitchforks for women like her and women like Wanda. And what do these women have in common? Power. For a very long time our societies have feared, demonised and even destroyed women with power and we still have a long way to go before we get past our collective hatred and fear of a powerful woman.
Agatha Harkness is clearly a BAD witch. She wears black. She wears very smoky eyeshadow. She cackles a LOT. At one point Wanda throw a car at her and only Agatha’s pointy boots are to be found underneath. Agatha is obviously a very wicked witch. But why? What does she DO in the series to deserve being vilified? Yes, a flashback shows her draining other witches and reducing them to lifeless husks; however they had tied to her a stake and were attempting to destroy her so she was only acting in self-defence your honour. However, the only thing she does in the present day world of the show is to try to take Wanda’s powers. That’s right. She wants more power. (We have already been appraised of the fact that this is her specific power so, arguably, she is only doing what comes naturally). What will she do with this power? That point is never addressed in the show (yes, it is addressed in the comics but we all know that the vast majority of viewers have never opened a 1963 copy of The Avengers comic book and so that point is rather moot). What is made clear is that she wants more power and therefore is obviously very BAD. Agatha is a bad witch and must be stopped. And she is. At the end of the episode, Wanda uses her powers to transform the supremely powerful Agatha into an obedient 1950s housewife and traps her in the quaint little town. If this doesn’t make your blood run cold then you haven’t been paying attention.
Torches and pitchforks is a pattern that we can see throughout history. Powerful women are dangerous. They must be tamed, stopped or eradicated. In Bewitched, Samantha the witch is reluctant to use her powers as her husband disapproves and busies herself as the good little housewife. In The Wizard of Oz, the powerful bad witches are crushed beneath a house or horrifyingly dissolved (the good witch is very maternal and merely floats around in a pink soap bubble and so she is allowed to live). In Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen becomes so powerful that of course, it causes her to become an evil, insane, murderous harpy and her lover is obliged to stab her to death (oh, the phallic symbolism is just so very subtle).
It is not only fictional women that are perceived and treated thus. Australian broadcaster Alan Jones said that the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern should be given a few “backhanders”. A group of grinning young men posted photos of themselves choking a cardboard cut-out of Alexandra Orcasio-Cortez. Greta Thunberg is inundated daily with threats of sexual violence (let us remember that she is a teenage girl). Hillary Clinton was vilified and lost the election primarily because she is a woman. Four hundred years ago they would have burned these women. You only need turn on your TV or open a newspaper to see our collective fear of female power. This is but a handful of examples. I could go on and on but I fear that the 21st century attention span means that any moment you may stray away to watch another TikTok.
It is time we stopped fearing powerful women. Of the 192 nations on our planet, only 21 have a female head of state. Our planet is riddled with war, horrific levels of poverty and wealth inequality and we are heading towards climate catastrophe. A study by the University of Liverpool in 2020 showed that countries with female leaders fare ‘systematically and significantly better’. I would argue that unless we stop fearing powerful women and start embracing them then there is very little hope for the human race. This does not mean that men must become disempowered. There is room for everyone at the table.
Put down the pitchforks. Put down the patriarchy. Promote powerful women.
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