Can We Please Have Witch Shows Where the Men Are Just Decorative?

Can we please bring back witch shows and films? And can we make them actually about witches?

Because so many stories that are supposedly about powerful women, magic, covens, bloodlines, and ancient feminine rage somehow still end up being painfully male-centred. It is genuinely disappointing. Give us the witchy aesthetic, the inherited power, the beautiful houses, the secrets, the blood magic, and then suddenly the entire plot is about a man. A demon man, a dangerous man, a misunderstood man, a man who has apparently become the centre of a woman’s life because he is hot and mysterious. Groundbreaking.

Take Mayfair Witches. It started off with so much potential. Rowan is set up as someone who wants to have fun, live her life, and not be tied down. There’s even that whole suggestion that she is different from the women before her, that she will not fall into the same trap, that she will not be pulled in by the same old mess.

And then what happens? She falls for the demon man, sleeps with him, has his baby, and we are right back where we started.

So… how exactly was she different?

Maybe that is faithful to Anne Rice’s original story. And listen, Anne Rice is a complicated, problematic fave. Some of the things she wrote were wild. But still, witches are meant to be bad bitches. They are meant to feel dangerous. They are meant to be feminist, strange, powerful, complicated, and not easily contained.

I remember reading so many incredible witch stories growing up, stories that have never been adapted, probably because they are not soft enough, romantic enough, or comforting enough for the patriarchy. They are not interested in making witches powerful if that power does not eventually get funnelled back into men, marriage, babies, or family duty.

And then there was Salem. I went into it thinking, Yes. Give me powerful witches. Give me women who are terrifying. Give me women who are in charge. But again, the men still have too much power. The men still shape the story. The men are still allowed to win.

No. I’m tired.

I want witch stories that are unapologetically feminist. I want women with power that does not need to be softened by romance. I want witches who do not have to fall in love, get married, have babies, or build their whole identity around a man just because he has cheekbones and a tragic backstory.

And obviously, historically speaking, witches were often just ordinary women who were persecuted, accused, tortured, and murdered for existing outside what society considered acceptable. If you want to learn more about that history, I really recommend the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, which has covered witch trials and the treatment of accused witches. 

But in fiction? I want the fantasy. I want the vengeance. I want the covens. I want the glamour. I want the power.

Give us witches who choose each other. Give us witches who choose themselves. Give us women who are not punished for wanting freedom, pleasure, ambition, knowledge, or power.

And please, just for once, let the men be incidental. Let them be decorative. Let them be confused in the background while the coven handles business.

No offence. Okay, some offence.

It is 2026. We need more feminist witches, fewer Patriarchy Patties, and far fewer storylines where a woman’s supposedly extraordinary power ends with her carrying some demon man’s baby.