That said though, I have yet to see a good Hollywood movie in which my religion isn't treated as a plot device. If Christianity or Judaism were treated the same way, there would be much hell to pay. So why ours?
I happened to be surfing channels and found "E!" channel playing The Craft. Originally released in 1996, it was one of the first movies I saw that had anything to do with what would become my chosen spiritual path. Glad I did NOT take it seriously. Here's the cover:
Remember this movie? Yeah, it was a big movie that year, and for years after it would come back to haunt me. "Are you a Nancy or a Sarah?"
This movie commits just about every crime Hollywood has ever made against my religion. First, they still use terms like "God" and "Devil", terms most seasoned practitioners don't use. Yes, we believe in God, but generally as the term "Goddess", the creatrix of our world. Some even go so far as to say "The All" is just that. It's nameless, genderless and unaligned with good or bad. It is whatever is in your heart. Myself, I feel nature is a duality, all things have male and female. Therefore that is reflected in my spirituality, God and Goddess.
The "Devil" just outright doesn't exist. We believe in personal accountability, so no scape goats. You f*** up, you own up to it and learn from it. No one made you do it. No "Hell" either, folks are reincarnated if they make poor life choices and keep doing it until they get it right. People can also choose to come back to be a guiding light. To be fair though, this is just how my view of the world works. I understand this conflicts with a lot of other religions, but I'm not saying they are wrong. It's just how I perceive the world.
Back to my rant. They refer to a made up entity named "Manon", referred to as a male (which is a big travesty seeing as male and female are balanced in the true Craft, if not in favor of female) and exhibit powers. Powers, I might add, that do not subscribe to the known laws of physics. Last I checked, Witches are human. We don't fly or change our hair color by whim (unless you buy the hair dye) and we don't cause snakes and bugs to just appear. If I could, do you really think I'd be working at Best Buy and living check to check? Hell no! I'd be making money off my abilities and you wouldn't have to ask if I have powers, I'd just show you.
The Craft has always been about embracing the divinity invested in you by nature. You're born divine, you are a part of nature, and there is magic in the blooming of flowers. Not green f****** sparks shooting out of your fingers or waving a wand and saying "Wingardium Leviosa!". I love Harry Potter, but it doesn't further the Craft's public image.
I digress, the first half of this movie you kind of get a skewered sense of the Craft. They use our language, our symbols, and our close bond, but they turn it into something high school outcasts delve into, instead of something anyone might find comfort in. And did anyone else notice it was the sexually promiscuous, "slutty" character that's deemed evil? Sexist much?
By the second half of the movie, all character development and integrity is shoveled out the window and it's all special effects and girls wearing tons of black. Since when did Witches become synonymous with vampire? Snarky comments rule the ending and while it's entertaining, it's still butchering my personal beliefs.
The Craft isn't what misfits do to bond, it's what legitimate folks do on a daily basis. The Craft doesn't give you special powers to break the laws that govern our world, they just help you see the divine in everything. And slutty, goth adorned girls are not the sole practitioners of our Craft.
With our image already so damaged, why does Hollywood continue to trivialize something so important to people and make it a vehicle for fancy effects and cheesy plots?
So I pose this question to you. If your religion, spirituality or personal beliefs that you hold sacred were continuously butchered to market movies to mass audiences, how would you feel? The only other example I have seen of this was the Hindu religion being slaughtered by Mike Myers in "The Love Guru".
I'm still somewhat indifferent to Hollywood's antics, but I wonder how much of this people outside of the Craft believe. How much of what's portrayed in these movies affects what people really think of us?
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