What is a witch?
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A witch isn’t a woman who worships the forces of darkness (although she might), nor is it a woman who worships gaea and the forces of nature (although she might). It’s certainly not a woman who has mystical command over magical bullshit (although... I guess it’s possible? Jury’s still out on whether magic is real). All of these things describe what a witch might possibly DO, but not who she IS.
Historically, a witch is a woman who isn’t married and therefore can choose for herself the way she lives, and doesn’t have to (and usually does not) have children. If your goal is to have power over people (and, let’s face it, that’s the goal a lot of time), independent women aren’t going to seem very cool, so you’ll make up the forces of darkness thing to criminalize her. If you’ve achieved your goal of accumulating power, and want more people to rule, women without kids are at odds with your entire business model; so obviously *they* have to go as well, so you accuse them of magical bullshit. After all, how else can a woman exist without a man, unless she’s using magical bullshit? That’s why the vast majority of convicted witches were spinsters or prostitutes. No men, no kids, no way they’re staying alive to serve as an example to other women. While I’m not a witch, I’m a big fan (of all 3! Even if they’re not necessarily fans of each other). Being a witch is almost as hard as pimpin’.
Such is the lot of Hypatia, our heroine from “Agora”, based on the real woman. She lived in Alexandria, Egypt, right around 400 AD. Her dad was rich, and, despite pressure from his fellow oligarchs to marry her off, he actually cared about her studies so he didn’t. Because Hypatia doesn’t spend all her time making tiktoks where she’s lookin’ tight to try and land a husband, she’s able to be a teacher, a philosopher, and “natural scientist” (which means she studies physics and astronomy). She figured out gravity, relative motion, and elliptical orbits over a millennium before more famous men would do the same (her work was eventually destroyed along with the library at alexandria, so you can’t prove that she *didn’t* do these things... And even if she didn’t, the movie isn’t claiming to be a factual recreation of history, so I’m fine with it).
The city is constantly at war. The ‘pagan cultists’ (peeps who worship osiris and horus and the like), the jews, and the christians are always battling it out for control of the city, and the world! Hypatia doesn’t care about any of that nonsense, because she is too focused on her science. In fact, she doesn’t care about anything other than her studies. Her student, Orestes, publicly proposes to her, and she answers him by publicly giving him a handkerchief covered in her menstrual blood. There’s got to be some symbolism here about her utilizing her bodily functions in order to retain agency over her own body... But really it’s just a heck of a burn notice to hand somebody just for proposing. Possibly costly, as well, because she could have sold that handkerchief to a japanese businessman for 3.5 million yen. Of course, rejecting the proposal was the correct call, because marriage is a scam. Believe you me, getting married helps the shareholders of zales a lot more than any of the involved parties.
So, that’s the movie. Religious zealots fights, and Hypatia does her best to ignore them so that she can study science. Yup, I just told you the whole damn two and a half hour movie. Hypatia is both the only atheist AND the only woman in the film, and she’s the only character not engaged in mindless violence. Is it saying that science is superior to religion? Is it saying that women are superior to men? Fool, I’m not here to tell you how to interpret the movie, I’m only here to point out what’s interesting about it!
What’s interesting... Is this line. Hypatia can’t stay neutral forever. Eventually, the christians win control over the city, and the prefect, who is a former student of hers, gives her a choice: Be baptised or be branded as a witch and killed(note: if the church got something right here, it was the correct definition of witch! Nobody accuses Hypatia of casting spells, just of being different). She says this: “You do not question your beliefs. You cannot. I must.”
Are those... Science words? I don’t think so. Those are *kung-fu* words. The idea that scientists always question their beliefs is laughable. I mean, obviously, a lot of scientists do question some of their beliefs, but then again so do a lot of religious folks. Does a scientist question that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is 3.whateverthefuck? Most of the time, they don’t. Do you know who does? A kung-fu master. You see, the point of kung-fu isn’t to kick unholy ass (although that’s a side effect), the point of kung-fu is to discover. Not just discover martial arts moves... But discover what your road means to you. To do that, you are always questioning... Because the kung-fu road stretches on. The point, as they say, is not the destination, but the journey. You strive for understanding, knowing that you’ll never fully achieve it, which in turn makes you strive for it even more.
“You do not question your beliefs. You cannot. I must.”
Sure sounds kung-fu to me. I wanted her to follow up with this statement with a scorpion kick to the face, but she doesn’t. She dies.
Now... That’s hardcore. Movieshyte ain’t religious, but if somebody puts a gun to their head and says get baptised or die, they’re going into the drink. I wanted Hypatia to do the same! While it’s a powerful moral statement to chose death over religion... “I must”. She must always question her beliefs. Well, she can’t do that if she’s dead. Hypatia’s decision to die is closing the door on knowledge the same way that... Deciding that Osiris is the shit or whatever closes that same door. Don’t be telling you “must” question your beliefs then immediately stop doing it! I guess if there’s a more universal constant than pi, it’s hypocrisy.
“Agora” won 7 goya awards. Those are the Spanish academy awards. First of all, the movie’s in english (although made by a spanish director), so way to just give props to the good ol’ american filmmaking industry. Second... Spanish folks are pretty religious. “Agora” is a spanish-made movie that essentially takes a dump on the country’s religious beliefs. I think, that by giving the film so many awards, the spanish film intelligentsia were trying to say “We’re not mindless zealots. We think about stuff!”
I hope they do! Less osiris, more kung-fu. More *real* witches as well.
2/10