9/28 Assignment: The Blair Witch Project vs. Wizards of Waverly Place

          The contemporary "witch" is perceived in various ways, and I believe it all depends on the environment in which it lives. In Palmer's reading, he describes witches of the past as being marked by the devil through the spirits that possess them.  They are able to cause harm or even death, take part in incest, cast spells, and they primarily do all of these things in the dark of night.  Palmer also describes them as turning neighbors and families against each other through accusations.  In the times where people actually believed in the possibility of witches, that description would have made just about anyone scared of them.  Whereas nowadays people know they don't exist, and the only place you will find witches are in the movies or reading books.  Because of this, there can be many different types of witches.  Two examples of polar opposite witches is the witch from The Blair Witch Project, and the witches from the Disney channel show Wizards of Waverly Place.  In The Blair Witch Project, this witch is shown to make things that humans could not very easily replicate, inflict pain and torment, and cause calamity between the group of friends trying to hunt it down.  At the same time, all of these things tended to happen at night.  This description of the witch coincides with Palmer's description of the witch in almost every aspect.  The Blair witch typically only interacted with the people in the night, it caused harm in some cases and eventually killed them all in the end, and the most obvious similarity was that fact that this witch was able to make the group of friends start to fight with each other, which eventually lead to their demise.  This is the type of witch that would scare people of today, as well as the people in the time that Palmer describes.  The witches from Wizards of Waverly Place would do the exact opposite.  These witches are portrayed as being very friendly and only use their magic to help others in need.  One similarity between these witches and Palmer's is that the witches of Waverly Place also live in societies with normal human beings.  The major difference however is that they cause no trouble to anyone else, and some humans know their true identities and feel completely safe being around them.  These two examples of witches in today's time shows that witches can be viewed as being just as bad as they were back then, or, they can be seen as being helpful people that no one should be afraid of.