In times that require moral clarity, we have to look to different skies and different lenses to find a new kind of heroism.
Most moviegoers who went to the box-office hit Wicked can pinpoint the moment in the show-stopping tune “Defying Gravity” that sent chills down their spine. Once Cynthia Erivo, in her career-defining role as Elphaba, famed Wicked Witch of the West, belts out, “It’s meeeeeee!”—which introduces the bridge to the song—her vocals combined with the movie’s special effects have quite literally lifted us to a higher plane: sonically, visually, even spiritually.
Basking in her newfound powers to “defy gravity” when she uses her magic to fly on her broomstick, Elphaba triumphantly declares: “And if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free … And nobody in all of Oz / no wizard that there is or was / is ever gonna bring meeeee down!”
This anthem resonated so strongly, my movie audience applauded at the end, and “Defying Gravity” is currently rising on the pop music charts, standing at number 1 on U.S. iTunes. Adapted from the Broadway musical, which debuted in 2003, and based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked—which is the first of two parts—became the highest grossing movie musical when it premiered and broke records for the highest second weekend box office. Co-starring Erivo and pop singer Ariana Grande, the film came just in time to kick off the holiday season and to provide escapism from a contentious and politically divisive presidential election that concluded earlier in the month.
Perhaps it is precisely against this political backdrop why Wicked has become so popular. There are many parallels to our own universe: the rise of fascism in Oz; the vilification of a powerful woman (whose laugh some incidentally described as a “cackle”) concerned about the well-being of the most marginalized among us; a media enabling propaganda to villainize said powerful woman and prop up an empty shell of a man specializing in elaborate cons; and the failure of solidarity between women. (More on this later.)
Maguire had intended his novel (subtitled The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) as a political allegory of the dangers of a fascist ruler. (The Wizard of Oz in his story banned talking animals from speaking and turned them into a common enemy against which the citizens of Oz can unite.) The Broadway musical toned down much of this allegory, with the exception of a few zingers against President George W. Bush’s unpopular war in Iraq that year.
Indeed, the original children’s story, The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (1900) is often considered both an economic and sociopolitical allegory of American life during the late 19th century, with its allusions to changing values of the nation’s monetary currency and midwestern livelihoods.
However, it is the 1939 movie, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale whisked away by a tornado to the magical land of Oz, that is etched into our collective memory—replete with the immortalization of her nemesis, the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton.
The hatred of the witch found a corollary in hatred of women—powerful women specifically.
The Wicked Witch is so memorable, she stands at number 4 of the American Film Institute’s Top Movie Villains of All Time, only topped by Darth Vader and the serial killers Norman Bates and Hannibal Lector. Perhaps it’s no mere coincidence that this witch is one of six women in the Top 10 list, compared to only two women who topped the AFI’s Top 10 Movie Heroes list, suggesting that women are uniquely positioned as villains, nemeses, outsiders and marginalized others in the cultural imagination.
Indeed, between the 14th and 17th centuries, witches—who were accused of Satanic worship and harnessing supernatural powers through pacts with the devil—were routinely burned at the stake throughout Europe. The majority of those accused were women (somewhere between 75 to 85 percent of the victims). Women targeted as witches presented a threat to their society in one form or another: as property owners or widows, unmarried or queer women, or outspoken wives and adulteresses. The hatred of the witch found a corollary in hatred of women—powerful women specifically. It is no wonder the “witch” became a subversive symbol for many a feminist and has even inspired modern-day reclamations of the wicca religion.
While the character of the Wicked Witch of the West continues in the long tradition of vilifying powerful women, Maguire’s novel sought to rewrite her story, giving this demonized figure a name—Elphaba (based on the initials of L. Frank Baum)—and a moral compass.
Perhaps the Wicked musical spawned the trend of the revisionist history of movie villains, as we have seen in the origin stories of Maleficent, the Joker and Cruella De Ville. However, we could argue that the past few decades of the late 20th and early 21st centuries also began centering the stories of the marginalized: from women to people of color to LGBTQ+ communities. Wicked, directed by John Chu, features a cast filled with diversity, from Michelle Yeoh’s mysterious Madame Morrible, to Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, portrayed by mixed-race and disabled actor Melissa Bode, to its queer Black star Erivo herself.
Conversations on social media have already questioned whether or not Elphaba is “Black-coded,” even though the character has mostly been portrayed on stage by white actors. They are nonetheless often Jewish, including its legendary originator Idina Menzel, who appears in the film in a cameo role (and who, incidentally, famously voiced Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, another villain with supernatural powers who is rewritten through a sympathetic lens and often interpreted as queer). It’s not difficult to imagine Elphaba as either Black-coded or Jewish-coded. After all, historians have noted the parallels between accusations of witchcraft and anti-Semitism, specifically in depictions of witches as miserly, baby-stealing oddities with warts and hook noses.
Such misogyny, combined with anti-Semitism of the “Jewish nose,” also transfers to other “heathens,” as exemplified in the story of Tituba during the Salem witch trials, who is sometimes described as Native American, at other times as African. This racial ambiguity lent itself to modern reclamations, as occurred with Maryse Conde’s subversive novel I, Tituba, which attempts a heroism for the titular character as opposed to a continued vilification—as seen with such Black witches as Evillene in The Wiz (portrayed by Mabel King in both the original Broadway cast and the 1978 film), a Black urban retelling of The Wizard of Oz.
While Elphaba’s differences—her green color, her supernatural powers—could be viewed as a racial allegory, these cultural transferences work precisely because they serve as signs of marginality. As Salamishah Tillet has noted, “Elphaba’s color makes her more vulnerable to being ostracized, stereotyped and oppressed by the Wizard.”
Erivo admitted to adding such touches as microbraids and long nails to signify her Black womanness; however, there are other elements in the story that come close to reinforcing stereotype. We learn that Elphaba is the offspring of an adulterous affair, her visibly Black mother cast as a hypersexual “Jezebel,” while her green skin at birth signifies the mark of sin—which is akin to white supremacist-based Christianity sermonizing that Black skin represents the “mark of Cain.”
Moreover, Elphaba is given over to be raised by a talking bear, which connects her to nature as much as it also animalizes her. Of course, this kinship enables Elphaba to rise up in solidarity with the animals when they are targeted by society, including her beloved professor, the goat Doctor Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage).
Elphaba’s racial otherness is especially magnified in the presence of her friend/rival Galinda (Ariana Grande) who will eventually become Glinda the Good. Contrary to Elphaba, Galinda represents all the privileges that elude her: whiteness, blondness, prettiness and popularity. But, as with all popular girls (who mask their inner mean girls), we detect that Galinda envies Elphaba’s magic (her “Black Girl Magic”?), the innate talent that convinces Madame Morrible to enroll Elphaba along with her sister at Shiz University and have her be a roommate to Galinda.
Much has been discussed about this unlikely friendship, but what truly stands out is Elphaba’s grace and generosity in this relationship which is not often reciprocated. A poignant scene demonstrates Galinda standing (or rather dancing) in solidarity with Elphaba who finds the courage to dance alone on the dancefloor at a school dance. But, this is the least she can do after setting up Elphaba to be the butt of the joke when offering her a hideous black hat that becomes a staple of her wardrobe.
Strangely, Galinda has mostly only contributed to Elphaba’s wardrobe, despite Elphaba’s invitation that “if we work in tandem / there’s no fight we cannot win.” Up until this point, we have not seen any real powers of Galinda, other than the power of her popularity. When Elphaba is disillusioned about the power of the Wizard and, worse, learns that he is behind the oppression of the talking animals, she refuses to allow her own magical powers to be used to uphold the system. Galinda chooses to remain in the system since she benefits from it. In this moment of failed solidarity, Elphaba becomes “wicked,” defiantly casting herself against the status quo since she refuses to play by the rules.
While there is more story to be told, and Part 2 will be released a year from now as its own movie, Wicked offers a powerful feminist message and one that has truly resonated for Black women who have been reeling from the results of this year’s presidential election. We have seen how our nation would sooner use our knowledge (like Elphaba’s literacy of an indigenous language to interpret the Grimmerie magical book) and our “magic,” but would never trust our leadership.
L. Frank Baum had an interesting relationship to women’s power, which is why the hero of The Wizard of Oz is depicted through a young girl like Dorothy, while she encounters equally powerful women with witch-like powers. His mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a famed suffragist and radical feminist who had a direct influence on his own views on women’s suffrage. However, Baum was also anti-indigenous and believed in the manifest destiny settler colonialism that displaced Native Americans—which echoes in Dorothy’s house literally displacing and killing Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, the Wicked Witch of the East. As such, these witches “occupy spaces of Otherness,” to cite Alissa Burger’s The Wizard of Oz as American Myth (2012). However, it is in that otherness and her willingness to “fly solo, fly free” that enables Elphaba’s real transcendence beyond a morally bankrupt system.
Part 1 ends with Elphaba’s ostracism from Oz, but the cinematic pan of her ascension in the sky looks less like tragedy and more like triumph. In times that require moral clarity, a perpetual outsider coming to self-actualization, freed from systems of power because she’s found her own, highlights that we have to look to different skies and different lenses to find a new kind of heroism.
