Bewitched (TV series)

Fandom
Name:	Bewitched
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Sol Saks
Date(s):	September 17, 1964 – March 25, 1972
Medium:	television series
Country of Origin:	United States
External Links:	Wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Bewitched is an American ABC television fantasy sitcom about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man, and vows to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. The series starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens, Dick York (1964–1969) and Dick Sargent (1969–1972) as Darrin Stephens, Agnes Moorehead as Samantha's mother Endora, and David White as Darren's boss Larry Tate.

Subversion

It has been proposed that this series was subversive in advancing the rights of women, and that it also popularised the witch in both US and Japanese cultures:

Il saggio analizza l’impatto della sit-com Vita da Strega (Bewitched) nell’immaginario collettivo, a partire dal contesto storico in cui è nata: nel 1964, la magia di Samantha diventa una metafora della condizione femminile in una società che chiedeva alle donne di reprimere un potere che stava per esplodere nella Seconda Ondata femminista. Grazie alla sua protagonista, rassicurante e sovversiva quanto basta, la serie ha rivoluzionato l’immagine della strega nella cultura pop, aprendo la strada a numerose eredi non solo nella tv statunitense (Sabrina, WandaVision), ma anche nel mondo dei manga e degli anime (Sally la maga, Lamù, Oh Mia Dea!).

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The essay analyzes the impact of the sitcom Bewitched in the collective imagination, starting from the historical context in which it was born: in 1964, Samantha's magic becomes a metaphor for the female condition in a society that asked women to repress a power that was about to explode in the feminist Second Wave. Thanks to its protagonist, reassuring and subversive enough, the series has revolutionized the image of the witch in pop culture, paving the way for numerous heirs not only in US TV (Sabrina, WandaVision), but also in the world of manga and anime (Sally the sorceress, Lum, Oh My Goddess!).

Janet McCabe writes of gay subversion in the program:

I must confess that I would not have considered Bewitched (1964–72) an obvious contender for milestone status. Highly enjoyable as it is, the ABC series about a witch who married a mortal and moved to the suburbs seems a very conventional sitcom. But starting by “outing” the queer subtext of Bewitched, Walter Metz mounts a persuasive argument to suggest that there is more to the show than meets the eye.

Adopting Horace Newcomb’s model of “cumulative narrative” (that is a “television form that stands between the traditional self-contained episodic form and the open-ended serials” [48]), Metz identifies “a typology of Bewitched”. He emphasizes episodes “in which characters from the past are brought into the present and, conversely, in which characters from the present return to the past” (2), and uses this movement to trace how representing the supernatural contributed to creating a distinct aesthetic through sound and staging. Furthermore, using the past/present–present/past typology gives Metz the opportunity to illustrate how the show “bridged an important cultural era, from the assassination of President Kennedy to the Nixon years, from civil rights struggles and the rise of second-wave feminism to free love and landing on the moon” (77). Despite taking a paternalistic approach to liberal politics, or flirting with alterative lifestyles while endorsing traditional family life, the show did engage with broader historical and cultural questions related to the politics of citizenship, gender, and race.

Queer Connections

Bill Higgins states that the program has been a favourite among the gay community since it began, in no small part because of the inclusion of gay actor Paul Lynde and gay favourite Agnes Moorhead, and actor Dick Sargent, who later came out. Anna Kate Blair writes that in her younger days, "I had queer representation, I realised, because I had reruns of Bewitched." while Maria Helena Dolan explores a variety of queerness - both metaphoric and literal - within the series,

Brett White writes that Bewitched was especially iconic because of the role it played in helping actor Paul Lynde to metaphorically 'come out':

There’s a reason why Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur is so iconic, practically ingrained in our shared gay DNA. Uncle Arthur was the role that let Paul Lynde be Paul Lynde — and it was the role that let gay men see themselves on TV, perhaps for the first time.

Matt Baume states that "The sitcom Bewitched is "one of the queerest shows I have ever seen - which is a little strange since it's about a straight couple." When writing about this "super duper gay show" he notes:

From the very beginning, queer allegory was woven into its DNA. The show, based on the films I Married a Witch and Bell, Book, and Candle, was fundamentally about secrets; it was about a minority group, threatened by mainstream society, able to hide in plain sight. In one season one episode, unsubtly titled “The Witches are Out,” featured a group of witches lamenting their hiding during a coven coffee klatsch. “I don’t know why we don’t just tell people,” one of them sighs, before remembering that the last time they tried that, witches were burned at the stake. (A common urban myth is that stake-burnings were also the origin of the slur “faggot.”)...

Further parallels to queer life are littered throughout the series: Samantha warns her daughter Tabatha that “we live in a world that’s not used to people like us, and I’m afraid they may never be.” In another episode, Samantha’s repression of her witchcraft starts to overwhelm her, until a fellow traveler (who plays a tiny Liberace piano) urges her, “you must stop feeling guilty about doing witchcraft.”

The appeal to queer fandom might be summarised by a representative of Hammond Castle University in Boston:

Robert Thompson, a media professor at Syracuse University, categorizes “Bewitched” as “queer television that wasn’t explicitly queer television,” and believes it helped pave the way for more express representations of the LGBTQ+ community.

“‘Bewitched’ is filled with all of this coded, queer imagery and queer sensibility, including a lot of actors in it who were gay or lesbian,” Thompson said in a telephone interview. “But the coding was pretty obvious, I think, and it became more obvious to people as consciousnesses were raised.”

Fandom

Fandom wise, there are very little fanworks such as fanfiction and fanart, but the TV series was beloved by many Americans viewers and it's popularity is one of the reasons why it's still in syndication and fanworks or fannish communities focusing on Bewitched are created even decades later.

In 1998, three mailing lists were created that focused on Bewitched and/or Elizabeth Montgomery: lizzieandbewitched, theofficialbewitchedclub, Bewitched. The following years, several other mailing lists were created from 1999-2007. In 2003 the LiveJournal community bewitchedfans was created which was the first of a few Bewitched LJ communities. A few Bewitched Myspace pages were created in 2004 and 2005. Bewitched Fan Fiction, an archive for Bewitched fanfics, was started around or before 2004 and remained updated until late 2010. Harpies Bizarre, open since 2000, has pages for fanworks such as fanfiction, pumpkins and fan cosplays and is still open now.

The canon pairing of Samantha/Darrin is fairly popular, although some slash pairings have appeared.

Crossovers often appear in the fandom, mostly with I Dream of Jeannie or Harry Potter.

Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Zines

• Issue #11 of Burnt Toast

Archives & Fannish Links

• Bewitched works at AO3
• Bewitched & crossover works at FFN
• Bewitched Fan Fiction
• Bewitched.net
• Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre
• Mischa's Bewitched Site
• Vic's Bewitched Page
• 1164.com
• Bewitched at FanPop
• Bewitched section of Twisting the Hellmouth (crossovers with Buffyverse)

Mailing Lists

• lizzieandbewitched
• theofficialbewitchedclub
• Bewitched
• queensamantha, defunct
• Bewitched_
• Bewitched6472
• Bewitched-SamanthaStephens
• Bewitched_Fans, defunct

Communities

• bewitchedfans [1], general community
• bewitched_tv, defunct general community
• bewitchedicons [2], Bewitched icons
• befunk'd [3], Bewitched themed comics
• beatlebewitched [4] Beatles & Bewitched

Resources

• Bewitched at Fanhistory
• Bewitched at TVtropes.org