ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM (8)

By: Lynn Peril
July 30, 2025

One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite sympathetic villains. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

ENDORA

I loved watching Bewitched when I was a kid. If you had asked me then, I probably would have said my favorite character was Samantha’s sister Serena, a sassy mod witch in miniskirts who used magic whenever she wanted. Indeed, I never quite figured out why Sam’s mortal husband Darrin wouldn’t let his witch-wife use her powers. I mean, why use a dull old vacuum cleaner when you could have the whole house spic and span with a twitch of your nose, leaving plenty of time for fun and frolic?

A half-century later, I adore Endora, Sam’s mother and Darrin’s nemesis. With her flamboyant dress sense, acerbic wit, and unwillingness to suffer fools, she is a role model for every woman of a certain age sick of either being ignored or called “young lady” by smirking strangers. Furthermore, if Durwood, I mean, Darrin (described by Variety in 1971 as “an all-American husband under constant threat of public ridicule because of the powers of his wife and, particularly, those of his mother-in-law”) is a stand-in for every mediocre man who keeps a talented woman from reaching her full potential, then Endora is a feminist icon for encouraging Sam to use her powers.

Within the confines of the show, however, the joke is that Darrin’s mother-in-law really is a witch, a longstanding pejorative for a difficult woman, not to mention a family friendly stand-in for “bitch.”

In mid-20th-century pop culture, the mother-in-law was a stock character, an annoying, interfering old bag, poking her nose in where it didn’t belong. She caused mayhem in the nuclear family, dividing a wife’s allegiance to her husband and causing her to question his authority. (Not that daughters-in-law couldn’t have a rough time of it. “You have two things your mother-in-law wants most, but can’t have. You have youth — and her son,” was the pull quote from a story titled “The Natural Enemies” that appeared in the November 1962 issue of Ladies Home Journal.) “Sent from down below… Satan should be her name,” sang Ernie K-Doe in “Mother in Law,” a number one hit record in 1962.

Today, Endora’s crown of bright red hair, blue eye shadow up to her brows, and wardrobe of flowing chiffon gowns accessorized with statement-making jewelry are an inspiration to anyone over the age of 50 unwilling to give up personal style because they’re “too old” to wear something.

Best of all is Endora’s allegiance to her and Sam’s otherness. “Why do you object to my daughter being herself, young man?” she asks Darrin shortly after their first meeting. He smugly responds that “we don’t need those powers of hers” because “we want to live normal lives.” Endora then delivers a stinging rebuke to those who would attempt to squelch individualism: “What is normal to you… is to us asinine. Samantha is what she is and that you cannot change.”

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ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM (8)

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