Reading the other reviews on this documentary, makes me wonder if we ended up watching the same show. Comments about it not being true history, or valid information, yet there are interviews with actual professors on the subject. That there was no mention of the stereotypical hags and such, yet I saw many. That it excluded men, white men in particular, yet there are many references to both throughout the film. But... you've got to watch more than the first fifteen or twenty minutes, which it seems is all the other two reviewers saw.
And speaking of those first fifteen or twenty minutes, well, I didn't find them very conducive towards seeing the whole film at all. The intro came as across as somewhat "flaky" and new agey, and made it seem that the whole film was just going to be the opinions and experiences of these few unknown women being interviewed, and who sorry, I didn't really connect with... initially. So I almost didn't continue, but I'm glad I did. Any topic regarding something such as witchcraft can very easily come across as flaky if not handled correctly, as happened here at the beginning. As you progress through the film though, these women are shown to be anything but flakey. They became quite interesting. As did the whole film. There was a nice subtle level of self mocking about the whole topic; especially as coming from the mainstream understanding of witchcraft.
Comments about the information in this documentary not being historically correct are misleading themselves. Over and above what the actual professors interviewed during it had to say, of course anyone approaching this topic from the perspective of Christianity (which is the common mainstream approach) is of course going try to negate the whole thing by just denying it happened/happens at all. And to say that witch hunts were probably valid because it was done by men "sworn to office", well that's just laughable, and very sad. Naive comes to mind also. I've spent fair amount of researching the topic myself over the years and found similar information as discussed here, as did my sister who took it as a secondary study in the fourth year of her university studies before entering teacher's college.
I ended up really enjoying this. I laughed, I even blinked a few years away, lol. Did/does witchcraft appeal to feminists and suffragettes? Of course. As would any religion or philosophy that allowed them, or any woman, to step outside of restrictive societal boundaries. But that doesn't mean that this film or witchcraft in general is only for feminists, which is also discussed throughout the length of the film... if you bothered to watch more than the first fifteen or twenty minutes of it. 😉
