Bette Midler, a renowned American actress and singer, is known for her versatile performances and unique style. However, one of her most iconic roles was when she portrayed the character of a witch in the film "Hocus Pocus." In this movie, Midler brilliantly transformed herself into a captivating and theatrical witch, capturing the hearts of audiences. Midler's portrayal of the witch in "Hocus Pocus" showcased her immense talent and ability to fully embody a character. She embraced the wickedness and darkness of the witch, but also injected humor and charm into her performance. Her larger-than-life personality and amazing stage presence elevated the character to new heights, making it one of her most memorable roles.
Initially, I wanted to play around with the concept of tea magic, and as the world grew in my mind, I started to incorporate elements of Chinese history and culture into the story. I’ve always been fascinated by the Song Dynasty because of the various economic, cultural and agricultural developments that occurred during that time period. Much of the worldbuilding in terms of the court, the palace, the capital, was influenced by that era.
I ve always been fascinated by the Song Dynasty because of the various economic, cultural and agricultural developments that occurred during that time period. And though Ning has some experience in both working with tea and the art of healing thanks to her parent s gifts and experiences she feels woefully out of her depth.
Her larger-than-life personality and amazing stage presence elevated the character to new heights, making it one of her most memorable roles. Midler's transformation into a witch was not just limited to her physical appearance. She effectively used her voice, facial expressions, and body movements to bring the character to life.
A Magic Steeped in Poison
They say you can spot a true shénnóng-shi by their hands—palms colored by the stain of the earth, fingertips scarred from thorns, a permanent crust of soil and blood darkening the crescents of their nails.
I used to look at my hands with pride.
Now, all I can think is, These are the hands that buried my mother.
Our house is dim and quiet as I move through the rooms like a thief. Rifling through boxes and drawers, fumbling with things my father kept hidden, so as not to be reminded of his grief. I weave between chairs and baskets, drying racks and jars, my footsteps careful. I can hear Shu coughing softly through the walls, tossing in her bed. She has gotten worse in these past few days.
Soon the poison will take her, as it did our mother.
Which is why I must leave tonight, before my father tries to stop me and I’m bound here by guilt and fear until it is too late. I touch the scroll hidden in the folds of my tunic, to reassure myself it is still there.
I find what I’m looking for in the back of the storeroom: my mother’s shénnóng-shi box, hidden from view in a corner cupboard. Memories slip from beneath the opened lid with a sigh, as if they’ve been waiting for me there in the tea-scented dark. I run my fingers over each groove in the wood, touching every compartment, remembering how we repeated the names of the stored items over and over again. This box is a map of her. Her teachings, her stories, her magic.
But the sight brings back other memories.
A broken teacup. A dark stain on our floor.
I shut the lid quickly.
In the back of the same cupboard, I find other jars, labeled in Mother’s meticulous writing. My hands tremble slightly when I open the jar of last summer’s tea leaves. The final harvest I helped her with, walking along the garden paths, plucking the leaves from willing branches.
As I inhale the scent of the roasted leaves, the fragrance turns to bitterness on the back of my tongue. I’m reminded of how my last attempts at wielding the magic resulted in tears and failure, and I swore I would not touch these tools again. But that was before the scroll appeared on our doorstep. Failure is no longer an option.
People who don’t know any better often reduce the shénnóng-shi to the role of the skilled entertainer, able to artfully pour and present the common drink. Trained shénnóng-shi are proficient at the basics, of course—the flavors appropriate for different occasions, the correct shape and make of the cup to match the tea being served. But the true wielders of Shénnóng magic have their unique specialties. Some brew teas for emotions—compassion, hope, love. Others are able to imbue the body with energy or encourage the drinker to remember something long thought lost. They move past the walls of the body and into the soul itself.
Using the flickering light of the brazier to guide me, I pull out the tray and the accompanying pots, one for steeping and one for resting. Over the sound of the bubbling water, I hear a creak in the next room. I freeze, afraid of a long, dark shadow against the wall, and my father’s accompanying wrath.
But it’s only the rumbling of Father’s snores. I let out a quiet breath and return to my tools. Using the wooden tongs, I pick up the balls of tea leaves and place them in the vessel. With a careful turn of the wrist, the hot water flows over the leaves. They uncurl slowly, releasing their secrets.
The greatest shénnóng-shi can see the future unfolding, wavering in the steam over a well-brewed cup. Once, Mother brewed fù pén zi, dried from the leaves of the raspberry bush, for a pregnant woman in the village. The steam burned blue in the morning air, taking the form of four shining needles. From this, she discerned correctly that the child would be stillborn.
I hear her voice as the leaves expand in the water. How she used to tell us the evening fog follows the white wingtips of the Mountain Guardian, the goddess who turns into a bird at dusk. She is the Lady of the South, who dropped a single leaf from her beak into the cup of the First Emperor, and gifted humans the pleasure of tea.
When I was little, Shu and I would trail behind our parents through the gardens and the orchards, baskets at our hips. I often thought I felt the brush of those wingtips against my skin. Sometimes we’d stop to listen as the goddess guided us to the place where a nest of hatchlings chirped, or warned us of heavy rains that could cause rot in the roots if we weren’t diligent in turning the land.
I empty the golden liquid from the steeping pot into the one for resting. Mother never allowed us to forget the old, old ways, from before the conquered clans, before the rise and fall of empires. It was in every cup of tea she brewed, a ritual carried out with reverence. It was in the way she knew every single component that entered her tea—the origin of the water, the aroma of the wood that stoked the fire, the vessel the water was heated in. All the way to the leaves plucked by her fingers, steeped in a cup shaped by her own hands and fired in her own kiln. Distilled into liquid contained in the palms of two hands, offered as a blessing.
Here I am. Drink, and be well.
I lean forward and breathe in the sweet scent of apples. I hear the drowsy drone of bees among the wildflower blooms. A feeling of comfort envelops me, wrapping me in warmth. My eyelids start to droop, but the moment dissipates when something darts across my vision.
My entire body prickles with awareness.
A flutter of black wings to my right. A crow, gliding through the smoky dark before disappearing.
It takes a lifetime of training to learn how to read tea like a master, and I had already resigned myself to becoming a physician’s apprentice. A year ago, it was decided. For my sister could not stomach the sight of blood, and my father required another pair of steady hands.
Doubt crawls across my skin as my fingers return to clutch the scroll once more. An invitation meant for someone else—my mother’s true apprentice.
But Mother is dead. And only one of us is strong enough to travel now.
I force myself to focus. Deep breath in, let it go. The steam wavers in the path of my exhaled breath. No more visions. A trickle of tea is transferred to the small cup for drinking, just a mouthful. The drink goes down my throat with the honey taste of optimism, the promise that summer will last forever …
Courage burns bright and strong in my chest, hot as a sunbaked river rock.
Confidence ripples down my limbs. My shoulders pull back, and I feel poised, like a cat ready to leap. The tightness at the bottom of my stomach uncurls slightly. The magic is still there. The gods have not taken it away as punishment for my neglect.
The sound of violent coughing disrupts my concentration. I knock over one of the pots, tea spilling onto the tray as I run into the next room.
My sister struggles to hold herself up with shaking arms, the coughs racking her slender frame. She fumbles for the basin we keep beside her bed, and I pass it to her. Blood splatters against the wood, too much of it, again and again. After an eternity, the heaving finally relents, and she shivers against me.
“Cold,” she whispers.
I climb into bed beside her and pull the blankets around us. She clutches at my tunic and draws a rattling breath. I hold her as her breathing eases, and the strained lines beside her mouth smooth away.
We have tried our best, my father and I, to treat Shu in the absence of my mother’s knowledge. Me, struggling to recall those childhood lessons, and my father, himself a trained physician, educated at the imperial college. He knows how to set bones and mend cuts, how to treat the external ailments. Although he’s familiar with some of the internal medicines, he always deferred to Mother’s art for the more complex problems. It was what made their partnership work so well.
My father has used every drop of knowledge he possesses, even swallowed his pride to send a letter to the college for aid. All possible antidotes within his reach, he’s tried. But I know the dark truth we circle around.
My sister is dying.
The tonics and tinctures act as a dam to keep the poison at bay, but one day it will spill over. There is nothing we can do to stop it.
And I’m the one who failed her.
In the dark, I wrestle with my thoughts and my worry. I do not want to leave her behind, but there is no other way forward. The scroll is the only answer. Delivered by royal procession to the household of every shénnóng-shi in Dàxi. Shu was the only one at home when we received it. I was in the village with Father, tending to one of his patients. She unfurled it for me to see in the privacy of our bedroom later that evening. The fabric glimmered then, threaded with gold. The dragon rippled from its back, the embroidery so fine it seemed it could come alive and dance around us, leaving flames trailing in its wake.
“This came for us today,” she told me with an intensity I’ve rarely seen from my mild-mannered sister. “An imperial convoy carrying a decree from the princess.”
The words I have almost learned by heart: By Imperial Decree, Princess Li Ying-Zhen welcomes you to a celebration and remembrance of the dowager empress, to be honored through a festival to seek a rising star. All shénnóng-tú are invited to the challenge, and the next shénnóng-shi to serve in the court will be decided. The winner of the competition will be granted a favor from the princess herself.
The words sing to me, beckoning.
There has not been a shénnóng-shi admitted to court this generation, and to be the one selected would be the highest honor. It would allow a shénnóng-tú to bypass the trials and become a master. Riches would be bestowed on their household, their village celebrated. But it is the hope of the favor that calls out to me the most. I could demand that my sister be attended by the best physicians in the realm, those who have read the pulse of the emperor himself.
My throat clenches as I look down at my sister now, sleeping soundly beside me. If I could take the poison inside of her and ingest it myself, I would do so gladly. I would do anything to ease her suffering.
I brewed that fated cup of tea for Mother and for Shu, from the brick of tea typically distributed to all the emperor’s subjects for the Mid-Autumn Festival. For a moment, when the scalding water seeped into the block of leaves, I thought I saw a snake, white and shimmering, writhing in the air. When I waved away the steam, it vanished. I should have known better than to dismiss it.
But not long after, my mother’s lips turned black. The snake had been an omen, a warning from the goddess. I didn’t listen. Even while she must have been in immense pain, even as the poison ripped through her body, Mother made a tonic that forced my sister to empty her stomach and saved her life.
At least for the time being.
I climb out of bed, careful not to disturb my sister’s rest. It doesn’t take long to pack the rest of my belongings. The clothes I stuff into a sack, along with the only possession I own of any value: a necklace I was gifted on my tenth birthday. One I will sell to fetch some coin to travel to the capital.
“Ning!” Shu’s whisper cuts through the night. I guess she wasn’t asleep after all. My heart aches at the sight of her face, pale as milk. She looks like a feral creature from one of Mother’s tales—eyes glimmering wild, hair a tangle around her head, a deer wearing human skin.
I kneel at her side while her hands find mine, holding out something small wrapped in cloth. The sharp end of a pin pricks my palm. Unwrapping the handkerchief, I raise the object to the moonlight and see a jeweled hairpin from one of Mother’s grateful patrons, a precious memory of the capital. This treasure she had intended for Shu, like the necklace Mother gave to me.
“Take this with you,” my sister says, “so you can feel beautiful in the palace. As beautiful as she was.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she quiets my protests with a shake of her head.
“You must leave tonight.” Her voice takes on a stern tone, sounding like she is the older sister, and me, the younger. “Don’t stuff yourself with too many chestnut tarts.”
I laugh too loud and swallow it down, gulping back tears in the same breath. What if I come back, and she’s gone?
“I believe in you,” she says, echoing last night’s ferocity, when she told me I had to go to the capital and leave her behind. “I’ll tell Father in the morning you are visiting our aunt. That will give you some time before he notices you are gone.”
I squeeze her hand tightly, not sure if I can speak. Not sure what I would even say.
“Don’t let the Banished Prince catch you in the dark,” she whispers.
Copyright © 2022 by Judy I. Lin
As I inhale the scent of the roasted leaves, the fragrance turns to bitterness on the back of my tongue. I’m reminded of how my last attempts at wielding the magic resulted in tears and failure, and I swore I would not touch these tools again. But that was before the scroll appeared on our doorstep. Failure is no longer an option.
Her cackling laughter, piercing eyes, and exaggerated gestures added depth and authenticity to the portrayal. Through her exceptional acting skills, Midler was able to create a three-dimensional character that was both fearsome and amusing. Moreover, Midler's portrayal of the witch in "Hocus Pocus" showcased her unparalleled ability to entertain and captivate audiences. Her energetic and charismatic performance drew viewers in, making them laugh, gasp, and root for her character. Whether it was through her powerful singing or her comedic timing, Midler demonstrated her immense talent as an actress. In summary, Bette Midler's portrayal of a witch in the film "Hocus Pocus" was a testament to her versatility and incredible talent. Through her captivating performance, she transformed into a wicked yet lovable character that continues to be cherished by fans. Bette Midler in the guise of a witch is a true testament to her ability to entertain and captivate audiences like no other..
Reviews for "The Evolution of Bette Midler's Witchy Performances"
1. Sarah - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with Bette Midler in the guise of a witch. I don't understand why she chose to take on this role. Her performance felt over-the-top and cheesy, which made it hard for me to take the character seriously. The whole concept of a witch just didn't work for me, and Midler's portrayal only amplified my dislike for it. Overall, I felt like the movie was a waste of time.
2. Michael - 1 star - I couldn't stand Bette Midler in the guise of a witch. I found her character annoying and her performance exaggerated. It felt like she was trying too hard to be funny and it just didn't work for me. The movie itself was also poorly written and lacked depth. I was really disappointed and wished I had spent my time watching something else.
3. Emily - 2 stars - I wasn't a fan of Bette Midler in the guise of a witch. I think the whole concept of a witch as a central character was cliché and uninspired. Midler's performance didn't add much to the film either. She relied too heavily on stereotypes and cheap humor, which made the movie feel shallow and predictable. Overall, I didn't enjoy this film and wouldn't recommend it.
4. Jason - 1 star - Bette Midler in the guise of a witch was a complete disappointment. Midler's performance was over-the-top and lacked any real substance. The story was also weak and unoriginal, offering nothing new to the genre. I was expecting something better from Midler, but this movie didn't deliver. I wouldn't waste my time watching it again.
5. Michelle - 2 stars - Bette Midler in the guise of a witch didn't impress me at all. Midler's portrayal of the witch character felt forced and unnatural. It seemed like she was trying too hard to be funny, but it fell flat. The story was also lacking and didn't keep me engaged. Overall, I was disappointed with this film and wouldn't recommend it to others.