Lesson from “Witches of Eastwick”

Recently, on an afternoon of dodging writing deadlines, I decided the best way to avoid doing any real work was to re-watch The Witches of Eastwick. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved the 1987 movie. As a Gen Xer there are plenty movies that I was subjected to that were not kid friendly but made their way into my line of sight, much like many other latchkey kids of my generation.

Originally a book by John Updike, (a book I never read and am not going to pretend that I will in the near future) the movie follows three small town women, each repressed in their own ways by unseen forces, conjuring up the warlock Daryl Van Horne played by Jack Nicholson.

I don’t know when I first saw the movie but there are parts that were so vivid to me that come back in flashes— Susan Sarandon’s Jane Spofford, in the throws of a cello orgasm.

Or my questioning why Michelle Pfeiffer’s Sukie Ridgemon always seemed to be a bit sickly with a cold sore that clung to her upperlip.

Or maybe it was the booby dolls made by Cher’s Alexandra Medford. The movie was messy and playful at times but watching it as an adult, there were SO MANY things I didn’t understand.

And rightfully so. There is no way that I could have picked up on the polyamourous relationship as a kid in the 80s and 90s.

Three best friends who were unsettled with the humdrum life of their small world. Each without a man but they had each other. None of them appeared to be interested in one another any romantic way but loved one another in the way that women love and care for each other.

Then enters Darryl. First seducing Alexandra, the artist, the one that appears the most sane, vocal and least emotional of the three women. Then seducing Jane, with a cellogasm. Then, finally Sukie, in a pool as her friends floated away, magically out of frame and of mind, asked Darryl how he was going to seduce her?

When I was younger, I could never understand why she was first. Looking at it now, I can see how she was the easiest target because she was the artist, the most vulnerable and open because of her child was a self sufficient teenager and she only was consumed by her art. Jane was tightly wound, had just finalized her divorce and was being sexually harassed by Walter, the elementary school principal. She was curious but distrustful of men.

What I found interesting in my re-watch was there was no subtly or trickery in the seduction of Sukie. There was permission, consent and she was in control. As the mother of six children in the 80s, I would imagine there had to be some ability to be an authoritarian in her.

As an adult now in my [redacted age] this movie playing up the female archetypes- mother, maiden, crone-spoke to how no matter how old or young we are, women are always playing into one of them. At one stage the matriarch of family and household and at another moment giggling like a child with our friends.

There is the fourth woman, Veronica Cartwright’s Felicia Alden. While standing outside the church, after spewing both literally and figuratively about the evils that were happening in the house, Felicia says “I have nothing against a good fuck, but there is danger here and somebody has to do something about it.” She wasn’t entirely wrong. Something was wrong but she was directing her focus in the wrong direction. She herself was not entertained by or seduced by Darryl’s charms, like ever other woman in town and takes the brunt of the abuse throughout the movie until her ultimate demise at the hands of her own husband.

Far from innocent Felicia did convince her husband into slut shaming our heroines by writing a scandalous column in the local newspaper. Another familiar sight, based on women being pitted against each other.

Darryl entered these women’s lives to give them reassurance that they were still desirable. He uses a pinch of charm, negging and a splash of toxic feminine divine to give them permission to let go. Then when being dickmatized wears off, they realize the bubble they have been living in is not real and he really his a demon. Been there, sis.

The women, like me and so many other women, realize the desire to get a bit of dick also needed to come with time to reset and reassess. There wasn’t a moment in my re-watch of this movie that I didn’t feel called to look at the women who are my support system and understand what it means to lean on them.

I’m not sleeping with none of them hoes, though. I’m old enough to keep demon dick and my coven separate for my own mental health.