JAG: The Witches of Gulfport- Initial Airdate April 25, 2000 on CBS

I will start off by saying I got a LOT of Email regarding this episode, starting about a week before it aired, and all the Email I got was very negative -; I think some people actually WANTED this episode to be bad, to be another terrible negative stereotype against Wiccans and Witches everywhere. Really, I think even a part of me went into the episode with the same apprehension, just knowing it was going to be bad, that it was going to treat Witches horribly, another black eye against a noble and beautiful religion. I am happy to report, we were all wrong.

Oh, the episode wasn't perfect, but it's just about the best representation of Wicca in a fictional TV Show I've seen. There were no 'magic powers', no levitation, no glowing eyes, and the words 'has nothing to do with Satanism' were actually said twice, emphasized even. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this program, JAG stands for Judge Advocate General, and they are like the Navy's version of a justice system, Navy lawyers who solve crimes and win cases. In this particular episode, a Navy Chief Petty Officer, who also happens to be the High Priest of the base Wiccan group, is accused of rape by one of the Wiccan group members, who claimed that the High Priest put her 'under a spell' and had his way with her. A female member of the JAG team goes undercover to infiltrate the Wiccan group and see if there is any truth to the accusations, and the rest of the JAG team conduct their own investigation into both the crime and the Wiccans themselves.

When the episode wrapped up, the girl who initially cried rape all but admitted the sex was consensual, and that the rape claims were actually from the guilt she felt the morning after due to her previous Baptist upbringing. The High Priest may have used the excitement of the initiation ritual to seduce her, but he did not force his way onto her at all. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about another young female Wiccan member - the High Priest did, in fact, rape her, and she never came forward because she thought it would look bad for Wicca. The High Priest is found guilty of rape, and the JAG team saves the day, hooray for the home team.

Let me tell you why I think this was a well-done episode. With the events of the Ft. Hood Wiccans still fresh in recent memory, an episode like this should have been expected on some TV show or another eventually, especially a show dealing with the military and scandals. Fortunately, the writers of this program did their homework on Wicca before putting this episode together. Their facts were all correct, as far as general Wicca goes, they made a strong effort to distance Wicca form Satanism, Santeria, and any type of sacrifice, animal or human. The topic of Wicca, both in the military and in general, was treated with an educated opinion, not a misinformed reaction. They talked about how we follow a God and a Goddess, and that Wicca is nature based. They talked about our beliefs in harming none, in helping our community. They even accurately described the five-fold kiss and stressed that it is in no way a sexual act, it was a blessing. The episode even went so far as to show the reality of being openly Wiccan - while sitting at a table in a local diner, an older woman just walks up the Wiccans and starts preaching Jesus to them, then chases them out of the diner while singing hymns. This wasn't made up for TV - I have been in similar situations myself, and just about every open event my Coven has hosted has had a few Christians picketing it, chanting hymns and 'burn Witch burn' rhetoric. Even in the year 2000, in our 'enlightened age', this is a real part of life for anyone who is Wiccan and open about their faith, and I'm glad they showed it. 

The program treated Ritual with respect as well, they used real Wiccan prayers and chants, they consecrated the circle with saltwater - it was all the real deal, with no special effects, no evil music, no droning chants, and no calls to 'the dark Gods'. Except for the elaborate robes, it was fairly indistinguishable from my own worship, to be honest. 

Now, people who saw the ritual will certainly say 'what about the scene where the HP was blessing the undercover JAG officer and everything went into slow motion, getting weird and otherworldly'. My answer? I liked it. While in circle, while doing Ritual, I feel that way; I try to attain another level, a clearer, more spiritual level than my normal mundane self. That's what Ritual is for, and I think they captured it well. It wasn't the HP 'putting a spell' on the woman, it was her actually experiencing the spirituality of Wicca. 

Of course, there were parts of the program I didn't like. The program focused way too much on the Skyclad elements - Wiccans worship naked, etc. Yes, it is true, some Wiccans DO worship Skyclad, but MOST Wiccans don't, and this show made it sound like every Wiccan in the world dances naked under the moonlight on a nightly basis. Also, it insinuated that Wiccans were sexually promiscuous. With all the Wiccans and Witches I know and have known over the years, I can definitely say this is patently untrue. I'm sure there are some - Wiccans don't have the vilification of sexuality that many of the larger religions have - but all the Witches and Wiccans I know are monogamous, discreet, and faithful to their partners. My coven is certainly not a 'swap meet' where people switch partners or engage in sex with everyone, and I don't know of a single Coven where that sort of thing occurs. 

A segment in the episode that I actually found humorous was 'The All Seeing Eye'. In researching various magicks and spells, one of the JAG team orders a 'magickal item' called the 'All Seeing Eye', which is supposed to allow it's possessor access to curses and dark magic. First, if you want to know what this 'Magickal item' looked like, look on the back of the US Dollar bill - it's a big green plaster pyramid with an eye in the middle of it and rays of light beaming from it. This item was sort of a running gag, because every time the Admiral (The JAG teams' boss) offhandedly said he wished something bad would happen to someone, it would happen. It had nothing to do with the Wiccan plot, and everything that happened was apparently co-incidental, but it was handled humorously, I got a few chuckles out of it. 

Overall, this episode made me happy. The writers did some serious research and got their facts right, it didn't use too many negative stereotypes about Witches or Wiccans, and Wicca was shown in a very positive light. The villain might have been Wiccan, but he wasn't bad because of his religion, he was just a bad person, bad men sometimes rape women, that is a very sad fact of society, but it doesn't have anything to do with religion. The other Wiccans were very supportive of one another, and said that had they known the High Priest had raped the girl, they would have been the first ones to bring him to justice, they didn't try to protect him at all once the truth came out. The negatives on this one were few - too much focus on naked worship, hinted sexual promiscuity among Wiccans - and really didn't detract too much from the overall message of the show, which I feel was summed up by a phrase give on the stand by the undercover JAG officer, who said that during her time with the Wiccans she found them to be kind, considerate, honest, and were of no threat to military readiness or morale, and with the exception of the Chief who was on trial, were a decent group of people.

Finally, In an unexpected twist, the JAG officers themselves were somewhat vilified at the end of the episode, due to their dishonesty in investigating the case, from placing an agent in undercover to infiltrate the Wiccan group to using trickery and dishonest legal tactics in the courtroom to get a Wiccan to testify against the High Priest. Once the undercover officer is unmasked, one of the Wiccans asks her how it would feel to have a 'spy in her bedroom' just because of her religious beliefs. It was a powerful statement in it's context, and really brought another message of the show into focus - Wiccans, as well as other 'fringe groups', are often persecuted unjustly simply because they are different. The Wiccans (all except the chief) were actually given the moral high ground at the end of the show, which was a long time in coming. I guess CBS, a network fairly famous in recent years for it's negative portrayal of Wicca and Witchcraft, can get it right after all.