Good Witch?

ADVICE

Best known for her role as the blond bombshell meets girl-next-door genie on NBC’s I Dream of Jeannie, the actress born Barbara Jean Morehead was teased by boys at school as a young child. They constantly pulled her braided pigtails, hard. She didn’t know if they picked on her because they didn’t like her or liked her too much. After she ran home crying, her mother took one look at her and declared, “Rise above it, Barbara Jean! Rise above it!” In a recent US Magazine article celebrating her 90th birthday, she claims this advice became her mantra, helping her through many struggles, including the death of her thirty-year-old son to a drug overdose.

ROTATING ON A SPIT

“You black-hearted son of a misbegotten jackal” is the first thing Jeannie of I Dream of Jeannie says after sprinkling a birthday gift potion from her sister Jeannie II on astronaut Major Anthony Nelson (Tony). She crosses her arms and blinks. Suddenly, Tony is tiny and rotating on a spit in the oven. This is the first episode where Barbara Eden plays both the obedient, kind, and blond Jeannie devoted to Tony and her evil and brunette sister Jeannie II.

With blond Jeannie loathing Tony, dark-haired Jeannie II blinks Tony into civilian clothes for a trip around the world, promising to “teach him to swing in seventy-three different languages.” She even promises to give him energy without sleep.

Instead of being excited about this gift, Tony complains about her using power to make men slaves, saying, “I thought I was the master and you the genie.”

She tweaks his nose. “I know, but I run a tight ship.”

EYE BLINKS

At age six, I obsessed over a fancy, copper-colored bottle my sister Karen had on a shelf in her bedroom. My parents let her keep it after they finished drinking the coffee liquor inside. I loved its genie-bottle shape. One afternoon, I climbed on Karen’s desk chair and plucked it from the shelf. Holding my breath, I unscrewed the top and braced myself for the geyser of Jeannie’s pink smoke. Nothing. I pressed my eye to the bottle’s opening in search of a plush velvet sofa or any other sign of magic trapped in there. Nothing again. The frustration of failing to find magic sealed in that bottle built like trapped Jeannie smoke in my chest, my neck, my skull. Maybe developing my own powers would relieve the pressure. Staring intently at the disassembled Hot Wheels track and Lite-Brite pegs littering the rug, I blinked with purpose. Unfortunately, instead of magically floating toys to the toy box and dirty pajamas to the hamper, the bedroom floor stayed a mess.

YELLOW BRICK ROAD

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” This is the first question Glinda asks Dorothy after her house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only the ruby slippers exposed.

Some writers have surmised that “Glinda” is a play on the name of Matilda Joslyn Gage, an American suffragist and abolitionist. She posited that women were accused as witches in the early modern era because the Church found their intellect threatening. “The witch was in reality the profoundest thinker, the most advanced scientist of those ages,” she writes in her feminist treatise of 1893, Woman, Church, and State. Her vision of so-called witches being brilliant luminaries apparently inspired her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum, to incorporate that notion into his children’s-book series about the fantastical land of Oz.

ON-SCREEN/OFF-SCREEN

From 1964 to 1972, Elizabeth Montgomery starred in the television show Bewitched. Montgomery played Samantha, a blond suburban witch who, to please her advertising executive husband, tries to avoid using her powers. In real life, Montgomery used her powers for political activism, advocating for AIDS victims before the disease even had a name, and narrating The Panama Deception, a documentary that criticized the 1989 US invasion of Panama.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL

In Taylor v. Louisiana, prior to trial on a kidnapping charge in the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Tammany, Louisiana, the defendant, a male, sought to quash the petit jury venire from which his jury would be selected, contending that women had been systematically excluded, thus depriving him of his federal constitutional right to a fair trial by a properly selected jury. Females made up 53% of persons eligible for jury service in the judicial district. However, no more than 10% of the persons on the jury wheel were women, and none were selected for service on the defendant’s venire. The discrepancy between females’ eligible for jury service and those included resulted from the operation of Louisiana constitutional and statutory provisions, which excluded a woman from jury service selection unless she had previously filed a written declaration of her desire to be subject to jury service. The trial judge denied the defendant’s motion to quash the venire, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the Louisiana constitutional and statutory provisions were constitutional (282 So 2d 491).

On appeal, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded Louisiana’s decision, holding among other things that the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community was an essential component of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. It also held the operation of the Louisiana constitutional and statutory provisions governing jury service by women violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

ANNOYING TWEEN

My mother’s career choices were limited to teacher, secretary, or nurse. She chose nurse on a whim when her friend urged, “Come on. Let’s go to nursing school.” My mother’s resume is phenomenal, despite her taking a break from the workforce from the time my oldest sister was born until I (the youngest) entered junior high school. During this hiatus, she served as substitute nurse at Foster Grant, Leominster Public Schools, and JCC Day Camp, and as President of Congregation Agudas Achim Sisterhood. She organized the first Earth Day, chaired the League of Women’s Voters, attended conferences to support the movement for women rabbis in conservative Judaism, and returned to school to earn a Bachelor of Science in nursing to upgrade the registered nurse credential she’d earned before we were born.

After Mom graduated from college (again), she worked as a visiting nurse, a job chosen for its school-day hours. As an annoying tween, I teased Mom for making me a latchkey kid—a term I probably learned from some made-for-TV movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery. In truth, I had no problem filling the time between the school dismissal bell and the end of Mom’s workday with reruns and old movies on TV. I desperately wanted magical powers like the fair-haired Samantha Stevens or Jeannie. Truth be told, my favorite witch was the white-bobbed cartoon character Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, who added magic to the Archie comic series and used her spells to help solve problems. However, my mess of curls, blue-black like the locks of the evil, conniving, and intelligent Serena, Jeannie II, and Wicked Witch, made me wonder if I were a good witch or a bad witch.

GINSBERG, RUTH BADER

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg appeared before the Supreme Court six times as an attorney. In the last of those appearances, she argued for petitioner Billy Duren, indicted in 1975 in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Mo., for first-degree murder and first-degree robbery. In a pretrial motion to quash his petit jury panel, and again in a post-conviction motion for a new trial, he contended that his right to trial by a jury chosen from a fair cross section of his community was denied by provisions of Missouri law granting women automatic exemptions from jury service upon request. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Taylor, both motions were denied. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld Duren’s conviction. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Ginsberg’s argument established that only 14.5% of the persons on the post-summons weekly venires during the period in which his jury was chosen were female. Therefore, his right to trial by a jury chosen from a fair cross section of his community was denied. The United States Supreme Court held that such systematic exclusion of women that resulted in jury venires that averaged less than 15% female violated the United States Constitution’s fair cross-section requirement. The undisputed demonstration that a large discrepancy occurred not just occasionally, but in every weekly venire for a period of nearly a year, manifestly indicated that the cause of the underrepresentation was systematic—that is, it was inherent in the jury selection process.

OYER AND TERMINER

U.S. News and World Report once ranked Leominster, my hometown in central Massachusetts, the second-worst city in the United States. In 1980-something, our high school organized a field trip to the Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. During a three-month period about three hundred years before our visit, the courts of Salem, believing in spectral evidence and teenage girls’ evilness, hanged or pressed to death twenty innocent people: fourteen women and six men.

At the museum, wax figures reenacted the imprisonment and trials of those convicted of being witches. The lifelike figures, confined and tortured, left my chest feeling like a vise gripped it between two boards. We learned that the dark time in seventeenth-century Salem ended when Governor William Phipps’ wife was accused of being a witch herself. He disbanded the court. A Superior Court of Judicature formed to replace the Court of Oyer and Terminer and no longer allowed spectral evidence. The new court released those still awaiting trial and pardoned those awaiting execution.

Being a teenage girl from the second-worst place to live in the United States, the experience left me with mixed feelings. The tightness in my shoulders loosened as I imagined the clattering of keys unlocking cages and teens flowing free from the dungeon like a ringing dismissal bell releasing a river of my classmates from school. However, the grapes from lunch churned in my gut like indigestible eyes of newt as my mind conjured the shrieking screams of someone like me—lead plates flattening her flesh like a bus tire squishing a squirrel until its guts oozed. What kind of a teacher showed students such horror? Then it dawned on me—the second-worst place to live in the 1980s clearly ran circles around the worst in the 1680s. Mission accomplished, Leominster High School!

OPPOSITES

Elizabeth Montgomery not only played Samantha on Bewitched but also played Serena, Samantha’s mischievous look-alike cousin.

We first meet Serena when Samantha and her husband Darrin become script parents in 1966 with the birth of daughter Tabitha. Serena seems shrewd, assessing what it’s like for her cousin to be married to a mortal. Serena completely disagrees with Samantha’s decision to adopt the ways of her new family and pretend to be mortal.

In a later two-part episode titled, “Serena Strikes Again,” Serena pops in unannounced while Darrin and Samantha are wining and dining an important ad agency client, Darrin’s boss, and his wife. As the client, a woman-owner of an Italian vineyard, seduces Darrin right in front of Samantha, Serena turns the client into a monkey. While Darrin flies off the handle, making matters worse, a farce ensues whereby Samantha loses the monkey and searches for the monkey. Serena returns the client to her human state in time for the pitch session. Ultimately, the fiasco inspires a winning slogan for the wine advertising campaign. The winning outcome fails to win over Darrin. In the end, he demands that Serena never interfere again.

DECISIONS AND GOALS

As an undergrad at George Washington University, I majored in mass communications. As my interest in working in front of and behind the camera diminished, I searched across disciplines for interesting career paths. Studying impacts of violence on television and propaganda on society intrigued me. However, after reading large samples of sociological studies, I began to see a pattern of results that led younger me to believe that the meta-purpose of each study was to obtain funding for the next study. (Years later, I realized the importance of building a research trail whose small answers tell a complete story.)

One day, a guest lecturer visited my Regulation of Media class—Jill Kasle, formerly an AT&T attorney during the antitrust case that led to divestiture of Bell telephone companies and local phone competition. She shared stories about defending against the Department of Justice and the colorful characters involved. Her voice—both warm and authoritative—and her gestures—both grounded and open—contributed to a charisma that riveted me.

As she spoke, something inside me shifted like a Tetris shape in my identity’s puzzle. It flipped, landed, and cleared the board. My degree offered more opportunities than those in production and performance. Immediately, I started practicing logic games for the Law School Aptitude Tests and researching law schools.

Fast forward to fall 2021, as the George Washington University celebrated its 200th birthday while it simultaneously revitalized after the COVID-19 shutdown. I held the honor of serving as a faculty marshal for October’s graduation celebration for the classes of 2020 and 2021 who had missed their commencements during the pandemic. As I entered the Platform Party tent to collect my regalia, I caught sight of a familiar face from long ago. I stood for a moment, reviewing the checklist in my head that was forming and ticking-off simultaneously: smiling eyes, warm-yet-authoritative voice, charisma up the wazoo. Our eyes met.

I said, “Are you—”

“Jill Kasle,” she said.

I thanked her for magically changing my life. I told her how I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I shared how I practiced communications law for over a decade and now teach at GW.

Her face lit up. “That’s wonderful!” Larger than life, a kind and encouraging energy flowed from her to me, just like it had when I was a young coed.

WARRENTS FOR JURORS

December 23, 1692, The Superior Court of Judicature issues Warrants for Jurors to a dozen towns: The Towns of Lynn, Ipswich, Salem, Gloucester, Marblehead, Topsfield, Beverly, Haverhill, Andover, Newberry, Rowley, Wenham received Warrants that read:

These are in their maj’ties Names to require you forthwith to Asemble the free holders and other the Inhabitants your towne who are hereby also required to Choose Six good and lawfull men of the Same towne each whereof to have a reall Estate of fourty Shillings [pbar] Annum or a personall Estate of fifty pounds—to Serve as Jurors town upon the Grand Jury and four upon the Jury of Tryalls at a Court of Assises and Gen’ll Goal Delivery to be held at Salem for the County of Essex on tusday the third day of January next Ensueing the date herof which persons so chosen you are to Summons to attend the Said Court by nine of the Clock in the Morning of the said day and make returne hereof with the names of the said persons the day before the Said Court and hereof not to faile Dated in boston the twenty third day of December 1692.

(Note: The numbers of jurors requested from towns varied. The town with the highest number of jurors was Ipswich with eleven, the lowest Gloucester with three.)

IRONY

Like many great movie villains, Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch in the movie The Wizard of Oz, was the opposite of the characters she played onscreen. Described as charming, friendly, and funny, “Maggie” was adored by casts and crews alike.

A great supporter of charitable causes, including the Read-a-Thon for multiple sclerosis research, she volunteered to meet with local winners of the children’s contest. This always included a discussion of the difference between her most famous role as the Wicked Witch of the West and her real-life self. When asked about this experience, she said,

“Almost always they want me to laugh like the Witch. And…I’ll do it. And there’s always a funny reaction, like, ye gods, they wish they hadn’t asked. They’re scared. They’re really scared for a second… I guess for a minute they get the feeling they got when they watched the picture. They like to hear it, but they don’t like to hear it. And then they go, “Oh…” The picture made a terrible impression of some kind on them, sometimes a ghastly impression, but most of them got over it, I guess… Because when I talk like the Witch and when I laugh, there is a hesitation, and then they clap. They’re clapping at hearing the sound again.”

TRIAL PROCEDURES FOR THE SALEM WITCH CASES

1. The afflicted person makes a complaint to the magistrate about a suspected witch. The complaint is sometimes made through a third person.

2. The magistrate issues a warrant for the arrest of the accused person.

3. The accused person is taken into custody and examined by two or more magistrates. If, after listening to testimony, the magistrate believes that the accused person is probably guilty, the accused is sent to jail for possible reexamination and to await trial.

4. The case is presented to the Grand Jury. Depositions relating to the guilt or innocence of the accused are entered into evidence.

5. If the accused is indicted by the Grand Jury, he or she is tried before the Court of Oyer and Terminer. A jury, instructed by the Court, decides the defendant’s guilt.

6. The convicted defendant receives his or her sentence from the Court. In each case at Salem, the convicted defendant was sentenced to be hanged on a specified date.

7. The sheriff and his deputies carry out the sentence of death on the specified date.

CREATE COMMUNITY

I should have camped overnight outside the DC Convention Center before the 2019 National Book Festival, the way I used to buy concert tickets in the 1980s, because two hours early was too late. Before I reached the lobby, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s discussion of her book, My Own Words, reached capacity. As event staff turned me away from the main auditorium, I queued up instead to see author Julia Alvarez. Julia explained how she learned about the power of stories through Scheherazade, the narrator of the classic tales, A Thousand-and-One Nights.

Scheherazade lives in a kingdom ruled by an evil and misogynistic sultan who rapes a virgin each night and kills her in the morning. She saves herself and the entire kingdom by entertaining the sultan with stories, ending at a cliffhanger at sunrise. Each morning, he spares her, because he wants to hear the end. This goes on for a thousand and one nights, ultimately opening the sultan’s heart.

Julia made a comment in passing about wishing we could do this for our own “sultan” by telling stories in front of the White House. Moved by this, I stepped up to help make this idea a reality. Julia and I cofounded The Scheherazade Project, an activism-through-arts movement that uses the power of story, creativity, solidarity, and courage in promoting social justice, nourishing our spirits, and enabling a more beloved community. Our first campaign celebrated women’s right to vote and brought together hundreds of artists, streaming at least one story per night over one hundred and one nights to countdown to election day. This sisterhood of artists came from all over the world. We represented diversity in race, ethnicity, sexual preference, religion, and socioeconomic status. We found strength from one another and built a beloved community that included Presidential Medal of Honor recipients, poet laureates, Guggenheim Fellows, in-shower singers, and family quilters. We opened the hearts and minds of audience and participants, proving that stories remain a powerful force in building empathy and understanding.

HIDDEN MAGIC?

Animated and live-action television producers have repeatedly recycled the characters and premise of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, making her witch aunts look less like old-school witches with pointy hats and long noses. This highlights these characters’ desires to hide their magic from ordinary mortals like me. Sometimes, though, I still test my ability to make magic and use it for good.