“Bewitched:” Between Housewifery and Emancipation

Abstract

It is not inconsequential that the first broadcast of Bewitched coincides almost perfectly with the publication of Betty Friedan’s preeminent work The Feminine Mystique, often considered the starting point of Second-wave feminism. The book and the series have a common goal: enabling housewives to become aware of their alienation and gradually bring them towards emancipation. It is therefore by using the portrait of the American housewife of the 1950s discussed by Betty Friedan as a framework for analysis that we propose to show how Bewitched, through Samantha’s character as a housewife, renews the portrait of the typical housewife, but by being a witch, allows a whole generation of women to become aware of the bonds which imprison them and thus to tend towards a release.