I remember watching Bewitched as a kid. I was really into things magical and mind-bending, and I liked seeing the Stephens’ mishaps be caused and solved by a little pinch of magic. Last night, I started watching the series from episode one on Hulu. This was a much awaited treat, as I never had seen the original black-and-white seasons. (It was also interesting thinking about what the transition to color TV must have been like, now that we’re transitioning from analog to digital broadcast.)

The premise of the show, as you may recall, is that Samantha, a witch, agrees to mortal newlywed Darrin’s request that she stop using her magical powers. She does, for the most part, though of course she slips here or there, or has to user her powers to fix the trouble caused by her supernatural relatives. Her goal is to lead “the normal life of a normal housewife,” doing all the chores manually that she could do magically. Indeed, fitting in and being “normal” is the central idea of the show, lest the neighbors, colleagues, or other mortals find out about Samantha’s magical lineage. And all for what? So that Darrin can maintain the dominant power position in the marriage.

Goodness gracious, the show is all about conformity! It’s not just submissive gender conformity in the Leave it to Beaver sense, though there’s plenty of that: women on the show are either witches, housewives, secretaries, or vixens. It’s conformity as a plot device: Sam actually aspires to be a perfect housewife and she strives to act like a mortal so as to not aggravate her husband!

Sam enters into this agreement with Darrin of her own free will, and it is not my place to second-guess private marital arrangements. I do, however, wonder what was going on in the writers’ 1960s minds. As Wikipedia notes, “some storylines take a backdoor approach to such topics as racism”—and indeed, in early episodes one finds statements that witches are people too, that what counts is on the inside, and that people are uncomfortable with “mixed marriages.” How quaint it seems now that these messages of self-worth were presented in the context of a show based on self-denial!

A gay-lib reading is even more jaw-dropping. Sam is a closet case who desperately wants to hide who she is and be the “normal” that is expected of her, yet she can’t help tapping her fabulous powers to right things. In all of this, there is one voice of reason and self-respect warning Sam that she won’t be happy if she denies her nature and urging her to embrace her birthright. Who is this? It is Endora, the meddling mother-in-law who is often the cause of aggravation, the anatagonist who we are set up to hope is proven wrong!

How delightful to look back with older eyes on childhood fixtures and better understand their complexities! Who would have guessed that the villain in this show would turn out to be the character that most intrigues me now? Who would have guessed that my judgement about the compromises in this fictional marriage is checked by an appreciation of the give-give that makes relationships work?