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Our kids love TV. It is akin to a religious icon for them. To temper this questionable devotion, I limit the kinds of shows they watch, the channels they are allowed to watch and, encourage their love of particularly good shows. There are several shows I encourage them to enjoy, purely because they are educational...but the majority of our 'preferred shows' are preferred because they are Pagan friendly.
Some of the old classics of Pagan programming are Captain Planet, David the Gnome, Ghost Busters (if you ever get a chance to watch the Ghost Busters Halloween show, don't miss it! It goes through the trouble of explaining the holiday's true meanings/traditions/origins in great detail and does so very accurately, portraying Witchcraft in a very positive light!) And Wizard of Oz cartoons, these can be found still running periodically on Cartoon Network, Fox Kids, Nickelodeon, and PBS. There have been some wonderful new ones. Little Bear, on Nickelodeon, has a wonderful 'Winter Solstice' special, Dragon Tails has an overall magical setting and plot and had a wonderful Beltane episode, where the characters danced the May Pole Dance. Rupert also has a lot of magical material, and shows Witches, Wizards, and such in a good light.
The grandpapa of all Pagan friendly cartoons is my children's current favorite, Scooby Doo. (Well, besides X-men that has no educational value, no Pagan religious value...but does show a diverse group of super heroes, men, women, black, white, even disabled! And they are THE GODS as far as my son, Merlin is concerned!!!) Scooby doo's recent movies have been amazingly Pagan friendly, even Pagan promoting! Scooby doo on Zombie Island movie had the gang finally running into a real mystery, with real ghosts and Magic instead of just 'bad guys in masks.' Scooby doo and the Witches Ghost movie went even farther and had a real ghost banished by a "Wiccan!" In that movie the Wiccans are repeatedly described as 'Nature Worshipping,' 'healers' and 'virtuous!' In the end of the story a real Wiccan ("one 16th on her mother's side"...this is the only obvious misconception within the movie, that Witchcraft is a hereditary thing only.) uses an old spell book to banish an evil spirit back into the same book the Wiccans locked it into 400 years before. My children can recite this banishing spell with some amazing vehemence! I would feel quite sorry for any evil spirit that ever wondered into our home with these little Witches to banish it!
The sound track is wonderful too. The band, in the movie, 'The Hex Girls' is led by the Wiccan, Thorn. Along with her band mates, Dusk and Luna She plays several songs throughout the movie. The Hex Girls theme is quite magical in a modern "Eco-Goth" as the band describes themselves, way. Another song, 'to love the Earth is our one Desire' is worthy to be sung in Circle...and it already has been at the APA's first annual May Day Celebration! Thanks to my three daughters, who know every word and every step to every Hex Girl song in the Movie. I would be willing to bet, that song has been sung in some other circles, as well!
Now, that I know to look for it, I find quite a bit of Paganism in the old Scooby doo cartoons as well, I've spotted several pentagrams hidden in plain sight. I wonder if the Scooby Doo writers and artists have been Pagans all along.
Moving away from animation, the list of pagan friendly shows dwindle to a trickle...Sabrina the Teenage Witch, obviously, should be mentioned. My kids love Salem, the cat! And other than the unrealistic magic on the show, it does paint Witches in a positive light, so I can forgive the embellishment of our 'powers.' My kids are too young for Buffy, Angel, Charmed, etc. I've watched several of these shows once or thrice...they have their faults, but like Sabrina, do show that Pagans are good people, not evil green hags, with a wart problem...so I'll give them an A for effort.
Lastly, science fiction has always been a Pagan friendly genre. So those shows are good ones to encourage our little Witchlings to watch...though most require that the little witchling be not so little.
Lastly, I'd like to say, that TV gets a lot of criticism for being bad for children, I whole-heartedly disagree. It can be a wonderful resource. It isn't how much TV a child watches that is harmful. It is what kind of TV, he is watching! TV can actually be very educational, (a recent study showed children who watched a large amount of Sesame Street and other PBS programming, during their preschool years, continued on to out score their peers who did not, on standardized school tests, all through elementary school!) And of late, TV has done a lot to help us reclaim the word "Witch" from the negative propaganda machine, and has educated millions about the true nature of Witchcraft. It is only a tool, but it can be used by us, we must use it, and use it well!
Blessed Be! Ginger
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