From Fear to Frosting: Why I Painted Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist as a Cupcake

The Exorcist came out the year I was born, 1973, and just a few short years later, I was already watching it.

Looking back now, that may sound shocking to some people. Parents today might never dream of letting an eight-year-old watch a film like that, but it was a different time. I had young parents who were barely into adulthood themselves and probably needed more time to grow before having children, but such was often the way of the 1970s. Kids of my generation were given more freedom, exposed to more, and generally not as coddled as children are today. In some ways, that was a good thing. In other ways, not so much.

Watching The Exorcist at such a young age terrified me. Part of it was personal: I looked a lot like Regan MacNeil at the time. I had the same haircut and even owned the same style of nightgown. That led to plenty of comments from neighborhood kids who loved to tell me I needed an exorcism, throwing water at me while shouting, “The power of Christ compels you!” But that’s neither here nor there. Kids can be cruel. We all know this. 

Beyond my age, the subject matter hit close to home. I’m not going to debate ghosts with anyone. You either believe because you’ve had experiences yourself, you’re indifferent because you think anything is possible—or impossible—and prefer to take a detached approach, or you’re like much of the population and assume people like me have lost their minds. What I will say is that I’ve had my fair share of ghostly experiences since I was a young child. Before anyone jumps to conclusions—no, I am not mentally ill, and no, I will not attempt to communicate with your dead loved ones, so please don’t ask.

For a child with a vivid imagination, a love for monsters and horror movies, unusual experiences, and a pack of savage neighborhood children always ready to tease me with movie references, that was more than enough to make the film horrifyingly unforgettable. 

I did my best not to think about it and pushed the memory deep into some faraway corner of my mind.

Years later, I found myself revisiting that memory through art. 

One thing about me is that I often use comedy to soften difficult experiences. Humor has a way of taking the power out of fear. It lets you reshape something unsettling into something playful, strange, and manageable. In many ways, laughter can become its own kind of survival skill. 

That’s exactly what happened when I decided to paint Regan MacNeil as a cupcake. 

Instead of a symbol of childhood terror, she became something absurd, whimsical, and definitely impossible to take seriously. The demonic became decorative. The nightmare became a pea-flavored dessert. Fear was replaced with frosting. That transformation says a lot about how art can work in our lives. Sometimes art is beautiful. Sometimes it is emotional. Sometimes it is deeply personal. And sometimes, it gives us the chance to laugh at the things that once haunted us. What once scared me at eight years old became paint, color, humor, and creativity. In the end, the monster didn’t win, the cupcake did.

XO, 

Margeaux Wex ❤️ 

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