The Problematic Christian Propaganda in Disney's ‘Hocus Pocus’
Disney
Disney's Hocus Pocus (1993) is a movie much beloved by American audiences. Even more than Casper (1995) and Beetlejuice (1988), it's perhaps best thought of as the quintessential Halloween movie. The film is played on repeat across America every Halloween season and dutifully watched online on streaming platforms like Disney+.
However, after rewatching it as an adult, I couldn't help but notice all the religious symbolism scattered throughout the film. The movie is not only a fun romp but somehow manages to wax poetically about the sanctity of the immortal soul. When we examine this movie more closely, we begin to realize how it perpetuates a pretty harmful trope about the dangers of powerful women, reaffirming centuries-old Church propaganda in the process.
At its core, Hocus Pocus is about a naive, LA transplant named Max Dennison (Omri Katz) accidentally resurrecting the evil Sanderson sisters. These witches have a single night to brew a potion of eternal youth for themselves from the life essence of children, or they die forever this time. Max does his best to stop this grim fate from coming to pass, teaming up with his sister Dani (Thora Birch), his crush Allison (Vinessa Shaw), and a boy trapped in the immortal body of a cursed cat named Thackery Binx (Sean Murray). The movie is quite the trip, and all the while, there are fun one-liners, and of course, a brilliant rendition of the song "I Put a Spell on You," sung by witches Winifred (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy), and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker).
Yet, for a movie this fun, there are many problematic elements bubbling just below the surface. The uncomfortable subtext surrounding it has to do with the concept of the witches themselves, and for that, we need to briefly contextualize what witches historically were in the real world.
In many European communities, witches used to hold a prominent place, interacting as intermediaries with local deities and mythological creatures to provide magical functions such as casting specific spells, brewing love potions, and the like, but starting in the 14th century, this identity was rebranded by Christianity to be demonic in nature. Witches went from being neutral and even benevolent in some cases to being agents of the devil, now responsible for curses, spoiled crops, and most importantly for our analysis of Hocus Pocus, murdering children. As a German Catholic Inquisitor wrote in the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches):
“A third and fourth method of witchcraft is when they have failed to procure an abortion, and then either devour the child or offer it to a devil…The former of these two abominations is the fact that certain witches, against the instinct of human nature, and indeed against the nature of all beasts, with the possible exception of wolves, are in the habit of devouring and eating infant children.”
This "rebranding" had deadly consequences. From the 14th to 17th century, it's estimated that somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 "witches" were killed (though some older estimates place this far higher), and overwhelmingly these victims were women. Some theorize that these purges were because witchcraft competed with Christianity's role in explaining the world. Others claim that it was a way for the Catholic Church to compete with its emerging protestant competitors (i.e., we kill your witches better than the other guy).
There are many competing theories, but regardless of the overall justification, assuming a singular one even exists at all, Christian officials took advantage of gender inequities to kill tens of thousands or possibly even hundreds of thousands of people. It's important to note that these practices have still not technically died. Thanks to imperialism, Christianity was spread all over the world, and witch hunts have been reported in places as far-ranging as Papua New Guinea and Sub-Sahara Africa.
Hocus Pocus takes this ancient myth rooted in misogyny and treats it seriously. The Sanderson sisters did sell their souls to the devil. They are creatures of pure evil who want to kill children. They hate wholesome things like a child saying "bless you." When they brew potions, it's only with vile substances such as newt saliva and a dead man's toe. Their version of soothing thoughts includes things such as rabid bats and the black death. The witches of this film are as bad as church officials claimed all those centuries ago when they sent tens of thousands of women to their deaths. The good townspeople of Salem (who in reality killed 25 people for no real good reason) are justified in the film when they hang them.
The movie not only doubles down on the fact that these women are evil but the misogyny these myths are rooted in. A component of the Christian demonization of witches in the 14th through 17th centuries is that they claimed witches fornicated with the devil and each other. Throughout the movie, the Sanderson sisters are hit on by nearly every male character they stumble across. The fact that they are vain and overly sexualized is coded as a component of their evilness. When their old, zombified lover, "Billy" Butcherson (Doug Jones), gets his voice back, he calls them wenches and trollops — two words that have heavy implications with sex work.
None of these examples are meant to defend the actions of the Sanderson sisters — they are undoubtedly made to be awful — but we are critiquing the way this text frames them as characters. We have a story validating a misogynistic myth (i.e., that witches are evil agents of the devil). It then advocates for us, the viewer, to dislike them partially by appealing to the misogynistic sensibilities of mainstream 90s culture. We aren't supposed to be horrified by Billy when he calls them wenches and trollops, but agreeing with him and probably thinking far worse.
These women are vile, and that demonization does not merely come in a secular, patriarchal sense but framed in a Christian one as well. As we have already mentioned, the devil is real in this movie's universe. There is a scene where they confuse a man in a devil costume with the devil himself and fawn over his very presence. They call him "master" and offer to do his bidding.
Another thing that exists in this movie is the soul — something that the Sanderson sisters traded for their unearthly powers. We are supposed to think that these witches are evil partly because of this trade. The character Dani tells us this explicitly near the end, saying: "It doesn’t matter how young or old you are! You sold your soul! You’re the ugliest thing that’s ever lived, and you know it!" The trading of the soul is framed in this sentence as the cause for that ugliness.
Compare this characterization to that of Thackery Binx, whose soul is very much intact by the time the film comes to a close. He is someone the witches cursed to live forever in the body of a talking cat. When he finally is given the right to die after vanquishing the witches, it’s portrayed as a positive thing because he is allowed to go to the afterlife. With a Christian cross around his neck, his ghostly spirit walks into the sunset hand-in-hand with the spirit of his dead sister through a gate, alluding to heaven’s pearly one. Heaven is not directly mentioned in the film, but it’s heavily implied that’s where he is headed.
Thackery Binx, who is seen as Christian, is rewarded, while the soulless Sanderson sisters are sent to hell.
There is unquestionably a religious framing in this film, and it's not merely subtext but woven throughout the text itself. When we look back and see the plot of this movie for what it is, we have three women rejecting God, albeit before the events of the film, and because of that choice, becoming evil child murderers. It's a film with a rather traditional morality that reaffirms centuries of toxic storytelling in our culture.
Hocus Pocus is not the only story that leans on the evil witch trope. We find this trope everywhere, from the Netflix movie Nightbooks (2021) to the childhood classic The Witches (1990). Disney did not invent the evil witch trope in media, but it does seem to replicate it a lot in its filmography (see Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Tangled, etc.), and it will probably do so in the future. There is something constant about our culture's fixation with power-hungry, evil, often over-sexualized women.
It’s fine to like Hocus Pocus — I rewatch it every Halloween. I also want to stress that this isn’t a dig at all of Christianity. We are criticizing the narrow conception of good and evil presented in this film — one that some religious organizations in the real world have tried to make a reality. This movie repeats archetypes that come from a very dark place in history, where entire swaths of people were condemned to satisfy those in power at the very top of Catholic and Protestant hierarchies.
Hopefully, by being a little bit more honest about this past, we can make space for media that's less patriarchal and even more magical.