Witches are having a moment in popular culture, from the blockbuster Wicked movies, to the Tony-winning play sensation John Proctor is the Villain (now headed to London’s West End and a movie adaptation) which reexamines The Crucible, to the MCU spinoff show on Disney+ Agatha All Along (2024), which came out of the narrative around MCU’s Scarlet Witch. What is it about women’s power that prompts the hysteria of a witch hunt and fears about that power being supernatural, monstrous or illegitimate? How are girls and women retelling the stories of witches in ways that turn the lens, recentering witches as possible heroines, and critiquing the systems that label them as evil? This paper uses the popular MCU television series Agatha All Along, starring Kathryn Hahn and her assembled coven on a quest, to analyze the ways in which (political) power available to women is often understood as evil or usurping, and how we might reimagine gendered power via a popular culture lens.
