Wicked
Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion, and the final newsletter of Women’s History Month felt like an appropriate time. Wicked has meant so much to me for the last 16 years (I believe it was around 2009 the first time I saw it.) I wrote about all the times I saw it on Broadway in my Wicked 20th-anniversary newsletter, but this time, I’m diving into the film. This is a newsletter I didn’t want to rush through. I wanted to be able to sit down and thoroughly explore it, digging into the most relevant aspects and everything that makes Wicked one of my favorite musicals of all time.
When I first learned they were actually following through with the Wicked movie, I was nervous. I wasn’t sure how the magic of the stage production would translate onto a movie screen. I was especially wary about the film being split into two parts. However, John Chu blew me away, as did the cast and everyone else who worked to bring the movie to life. I wanted Wicked to be the final newsletter of Women’s History Month because, with all its themes, it is mainly a story about women, mainly female friendship, and how one powerful woman became the infamous Wicked Witch of the West.
G(a)linda & Elphaba
We meet the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz as mortal enemies, but in Wicked, we learn about their complex college friendship that began when they were roommates. We watch them go from frenemies to best friends, and then we see it all fall apart again at the end. However, I believe that even in the last moments of the Wicked film (which is right before the intermission in the stage production), their loyalty to each other is undeniable. What I love about the movie that we don’t get on stage is the camera close-ups of the characters' faces. This was evident in the opening number, “No One Mourns The Wicked.” As the Ozians are celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch, we can see Glinda’s attempt to hide her horror and sadness. She’s caught off guard when she hears citizens chanting, “No one mourns the wicked!” And even as she throws a torch on the Wicked Witch statue, watching it burn, she seems riddled with hidden guilt and regret.
Elphaba was her friend, and even though she’s become a public enemy, Glinda knows the truth. She’ll never tell this to the Ozians out of fear they’ll turn on her too, so instead she goes along with their celebration, which is the ultimate betrayal to her former friend. When we flashback to Glinda (formerly Galinda) and Elphaba in college, the two are off to a bad start upon meeting. Glinda is one of the many people Elphaba has encountered in her life who judges her for her green skin. Elphaba is also an immensely powerful sorceress, the kind Glinda could only dream of being. Madame Morrible takes pride in helping Elphaba harness her powers while repeatedly expressing how little faith she has in Glinda. But Glinda desperately wants Morrible's approval, and seeing Elphaba get it instead hurts, especially when she's used to always getting what she wants.
While it isn't explicitly stated, Glinda is deeply jealous of Elphaba, which is interesting because she seems like the kind of girl other people would be jealous of. But this time around, the person she dislikes the most has the thing she wants more than anything else. However, despite their deep loathing for eachother, they unite at the Ozdust Ballroom. The "Dancing Through Life" scene is one of the most heartfelt of the film, even if it is a result of Glinda doing something very mean. After guilt rises over giving Elphaba an ugly hat and seeing everyone at the party laugh at her, Glinda regrets what she’s done and decides to join Elphaba on the dance floor. This is the first time we really see Glinda do something out of the goodness of her heart. It's also the first time she rights her wrongs and risks other people not thinking positively of her. The film accentuated this scene far beyond what the stage production was able to do. It really felt like an intimate moment where we watched the most unlikely friendship bloom.
“Pink goes good with green,”-Glinda, Wicked.
The friendship was officially solidified for me when the two hug at the end before running off together hand in hand. Another defining moment of their friendship is before “Popular” when Glinda and Elphaba share secrets. When Elphaba confesses she feels she's to blame for her sister being in a wheelchair, we can tell this is the first time she's opened up about this to anyone. This is one of Glinda's best moments because she immediately tells Elphaba it's not her fault and she can't blame herself for that. With so many people in Elphaba’s life who view her as a villain, Glinda is the first one to validate her. For the first time, it occurs to Elpaba that maybe she isn't a bad person. We can also see that Glinda is the first person Elphaba feels truly comfortable confiding in. There’s a whole song in Act 2, which we’ll get to see this November, where the two sing about how they’ve changed each other, but this scene is the first look at how the two have already impacted each other's lives.
We also see Glinda's jealousy quickly fade. When Elphaba is invited to meet the Wizard, she's not envious but thrilled for her friend. Through her friendship with Elphaba, she becomes more selfless. She expresses genuine joy for her friend, standing back and watching her go off to the Emerald City. We see how much Elphaba has changed, too, when she invites Glinda to join her. Elphaba reaches out a hand to the girl she previously couldn’t stand to accompany her on her big day. For someone who was previously a loner and didn’t let anyone in, this is massive character development. I still believe Glinda stuck by Elphaba's side til the very end, even if things crumble apart in the end. Ultimately, she goes to the dark side and betrays Elphaba, but as she's looking up at her friend levitating above Oz, I can't help but see the tiniest sprinkle of amazement in her eyes. Even as Oz turned on her and everyone descended into fear, I believe Glinda was proud of how far Elphaba had come.
Do People Have Wickedness Thrust Upon Them?
Glinda raises an important question in the middle of "No One Mourns The Wicked": “Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” This is prevalent in the film and in the real world. Elphaba was feared throughout her entire life because of the color of her skin and because of her powers. Her father hated her and blamed her for her mother’s death, her peers picked on her for having green skin, and she also had the added pressure of being responsible for her sister since she is in a wheelchair. Elphaba’s tough exterior comes across as rude and evil, but the truth is that she was hurt so much in her life that she built a tough outer shell to protect herself. Even when Elphaba arrives at Shiz University as an adult, her classmates gasp when they see her. If every time you went anywhere someone acted shocked because of your skin color, this would take a toll on you too. The fact that Elphaba has incredible powers that no one ever taught her to control adds another layer to her complexity, leading to more fear.
This doesn't mean we should excuse her or anyone else's bad behavior just because they had a tough upbringing, but I believe we have a responsibility to understand that people are the way they are because of their personal and often difficult life experiences. But despite ending up with the Wicked Witch label, Elphaba does a lot of good throughout the film. Since she was raised by animals, she has a deep love and compassion for them. She's disturbed when she learns animals in Oz are being stripped of their rights and ability to speak, and she makes it her mission to save them. However, Wicked is about more than how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch. It's not about good vs evil as much as it's about where we draw the line between good and evil, and is there a line to draw to begin with, or is everyone made up of both good and evil qualities? For example, Glinda may be known as the Good Witch as her peers celebrate her every move as if she’s a saint, but she has her fair share of wicked moments too.
Glinda is self-centered and mean from the moment we meet her. She only thinks of herself and isn’t so much concerned with being good but with making sure people perceive her as good. Glinda mocks Elphaba and her own teacher because he isn’t capable of pronouncing her name. She also belittles Boq, even calling him by the wrong name regularly, and is seemingly only after Fiyero because he’s a handsome prince who will further improve her status in Oz. Boq has some questionable morals too, as he only asks out Nessa because Glinda tells him to, and he’s desperate to impress her. However, Fiyero, despite disguising himself as self-centered and arrogant, is actually good at his core. But even he has parts of himself that aren't squeaky clean. Fiyero is with Glinda because that's what makes sense, but he can't help but feel drawn to Elphaba.
It's not often discussed in Wicked discourse, but being in a relationship with someone while secretly having feelings for their best friend is quite cruel. His goodness is displayed mostly in how he's the only one Elphaba knows who also wants to help the animals. I love how the movie reworked the classroom scene when Fiyero and Elphaba free the baby lion. The use of the poppies to make everyone fall asleep was a beautiful call back to The Wizard of Oz, but I was more interested in how Fiyero was the only one unaffected by Elphaba’s spell. I’ve always questioned if this was because Elphaba likes him, so her spell didn’t affect him, or if his good-heartedness made him immune. I like to believe it's the latter. Glinda, on the other hand, mainly acts from goodness when she knows she’ll get something out of it. In fact, I even think part of her motivation for dancing with Elphaba at the Ozdust Ballroom was that Elphaba did something good for her first.
When Nessa is excited about Boq asking her out, she tells Elphaba it was Glinda’s idea. Because Elphaba loves her sister so much, and because Glinda gifts her the hat, she decides to repay her. Elphaba gets Madame Morrible to include Glinda in their sorcery sessions as a thank-you. It's this that makes Glinda feel bad about setting Elphaba up for embarrassment. Had that not happened, I’m not sure Glinda would have felt as guilty about embarrassing her roommate. Later, during “Popular,” Glinda prides herself on how good she is at helping others and giving makeovers. It’s less about actually helping Elphaba and more of another way for Glinda to pat herself on the back about how good she is. She has similar motives when she announces to her classmates that she's changing her name from Galinda to Glinda in honor of Dr. Dillamond. The thing is, Glinda doesn't care about Dr. Dillamond, but she knows Fiyero and Elphaba do, and she wants to relate to her boyfriend the way Elphaba does.
The worst of it comes at the end of the film when Morrible turns Oz against Elphaba. Still desperately seeking validation, Glinda stands by Morrible's side, knowing she just told all of Oz that Elphaba is their enemy. This scene was made more vicious in the film because we got the close-up scene of Glinda's hands tightening on Morrible's back after she pulled Glinda into a hug. But as evil as Glinda comes across, she isn't all bad either, and I do think she has genuine moments of kindness. Her main issue is that she has a distorted definition of what goodness is. To Elphaba, standing up for what she believes in is good. For Glinda, listening to authority and following the rules is good, even if the authority figures are corrupt and the rules are damaging. Based on the stage musical, we will likely see more of Glinda’s true goodness come out in the second film.
The “Wonderful” Wizard Of Oz
There’s a heavy emphasis on the word wonderful here because it’s what everyone in Oz believes the wizard to be. He is idolized, worshipped, and viewed as a larger-than-life figure with tremendous powers. As a child, Elphaba reads about the wizard to Nessa, speaking of him with such enthusiasm. It’s obvious it’s been a dream of hers to meet him for a long time. Even though most of the world casts Elphaba out, she seems to believe the wizard would see the good in her. Unfortunately, when Elphaba does get to meet the wizard, we learn the truth. He has no real powers, that's why he and Morrible need Elphaba's. What Elphaba wants more than anything is to help the animals get their rights and their voices back, so when she learns the Wizard is behind the oppression of the animals, it’s agonizing. Finding out someone isn't what you thought they were is a universally upsetting feeling, but Elphaba spent her whole life believing in this man; it's part of what she sings about in "The Wizard and I."
When the truth comes out, she takes it hard. It's around here that the Wizard says what I would consider the most powerful line in Wicked. He admits that during the great drought, when the people were scared and hungry, he turned them against the animals to unite them. As he says: “the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.” This line gives me chills every time because of how much truth it holds. From the people we hate at work to public figures in pop culture or politics, seeing someone else as the enemy unites people. I've seen people united over their common hatred of someone, and I've also been united over common hatred. However, it also reminds me of how, throughout history, we've seen society turn on specific groups of people during trying times. I specifically think of when I was at a museum in Salem looking at a wall that compared all the different “witch trials” throughout history.
Dr Dillamond: “Food grew scarce, and when people are hungry, angry, well then they begin to look for–”
Elphaba: “Someone to blame.”
From the Salem witch trials in 1692 to McCarthyism in the 50s, and even the Aids epidemic in the 80s and 90s, when people are in fear, the easiest way to handle it is to convince them there is a common enemy that needs to be defeated. In Wicked, Elphaba’s teacher, Dr. Dillamond, is a goat, which is a very clear metaphor for how Dr. Dillamond and the other animals are being used as scapegoats. We are constantly told that a certain person or a certain group of people are dangerous, and if we want to save ourselves, we must defeat them. But this attitude is where the true danger lies. It's also the lazy way out. If people in positions of power can scapegoat others and unite the world over common hatred, then they don't actually have to do their jobs. I admire Elphaba for being the one to see through the Wizard's plan. Even if it leads to her becoming the scapegoat, Elphaba stands up for what she believes in because, to her, that's what it truly means to be good. As many have come to find, sometimes it is better to die wicked than to live as a coward.
A Wicked Soundtrack
Because it's Wicked, I wanted to do something I've never done with a musical I've covered, which is discussing every song performed in the film because Wicked means so much to me, and the music plays such a large role in the topics I discussed in this week's newsletter. Wicked opens with “No One Mourns The Wicked,” a song that celebrates Elphaba’s death but also delves into the complexities of good and evil. There is so much truth in the song’s title. We’re often led to believe it’s sad anytime that anyone dies, and you should never wish anyone dead or feel joy upon their passing. But if the entire society is convinced that someone is evil, then how could they not celebrate their death?
To them, Elphaba’s death means justice and freedom from living in fear. However, the song also addresses the sad lives that “wicked” people often live. I love the contrast of the lyrics “when you’re wicked you reap only what you sow” and “when you’re wicked you’re left only on your own.” While the Ozians are singing about the consequences of being evil, Glinda seems like she's trying to reason with them. She sings, “Goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely, goodness knows the wicked cry alone.” Glinda is urging Ozians and listeners to have compassion for the wicked, but the Ozians are too preoccupied with their celebration to notice.
There’s not much to say about the song Elphaba’s mother sings with the “secret” man she has an affair with or about “Dear Old Shiz,” other than Glinda uses it as another opportunity to attract attention. “The Wizard And I” comes next, and the movie rendition really did blow me away. I was enjoying Wicked up to this point, but this song was the selling point. When Elphaba runs out in the open field all the way to the end of a cliff to hold the high note at the end, I knew I was in for a good film. I also loved the added details of Elphaba walking around campus and the faint rainbow with the bluebirds flying over it as a nod to the Wizard of Oz lyric, “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.”
This is Elphaba’s “I Want Song,” and it also brilliantly foreshadows what’s to come for her. “What Is This Feeling” gives a deeper perspective of Glinda and Elphaba’s complicated dynamic. There were also incredible new scenes and choreography added in for the film. However, what we also see in this song is how Glinda’s hatred for Elphaba is validated by those around her who also “loath” Elphaba. Meanwhile, no one seems to understand what Elphaba could possibly have against Glinda except for the audience. “Something Bad” is another shorter song where it’s hard to give much of an analysis. I do, however, like the way the scene was changed for the movie to be a conversation between the animals about the threats against animals in Oz.
On the other hand, the next song, “Dancing Through Life,” holds great meaning and is one of my favorites. I always felt it was a little underrated until Jonathan Bailey’s version became so popular. Basically, Fiyero is talking about how life is one big party, and everyone needs to stop stressing and taking everything so seriously. Yes, Fiyero is a wealthy prince who doesn’t have to worry about the same things the average person has to worry about. However, there is so much truth in what he’s singing. “Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters, it’s just life so keep dancing through” is something I always keep in mind when I feel like I’m stressing over things that don’t actually matter. I also love the lyric that the song ends with: “And the strange thing, your life can end up changing when you’re dancing through.”
I always interpreted this to mean that when you’re just having fun instead of taking everything so seriously, that’s when your life starts to get better. The best changes come from an attitude of freedom and joy, not pressure and anxiety. After “Dancing Through Life,” we move pretty quickly into “Popular.” It's Glinda’s solo song, where we learn the most about her–she’s self-serving and sees herself as a hero for improving other people’s lives. Maybe we did already know this about Glinda, but this is where we see that she really isn’t very aware of how self-absorbed she is, and she really does believe she is helping others. However, even if she may have ulterior motives, I think sometimes her heart is in a good place. She also is helping her friend whether Elphaba wants to admit it or not.
My favorite part is the close-up of the two in the mirror, where, for the first time in her life, Elphaba sees her own beauty. The song is also a lot of fun, and I love what Ariana Grande brought to the performance. I’ve heard a few people admit they’re not the biggest fans of “I’m Not That Girl,” but to me, this song is crucial to the story. Elphaba likes Fiyero, and even though it’s obvious that he likes her too, she can’t see past what she’s always known. She sees herself as the outcast, the one who is never chosen because she’s simply “not that girl.” Glinda, on the other hand, is that girl. She’s the one with the “gold hair with a gentle curl.” She’s the type of girl Fiyero would choose. I also love that this song is the first time we see Elphaba let her walls down and be vulnerable. She might act tough, but she’s actually a human being with deep, complex feelings.
“Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature, this distortion, this repulsion, this wicked witch,”-Madame Morrible, Wicked.
“One Short Day” is bittersweet as we know things are not going to go as planned, and Elphaba is not going to get her heart’s desire. However, I feel the excitement as Elphaba and Glinda wander around the Emerald City, taking in its beauty really believing that the day is going to change their lives. It’s another defining moment in their friendship because they’re not only experiencing the Emerald City for the first time, but they’re experiencing it together. As they say, “Just two friends, two good friends, two best friends, sharing one wonderful one short day.” I also love the line “It’s all grand, and it’s all green,” because it’s the first time Elphaba has been somewhere where she fits in. And, of course, the Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, and Stephen Schwartz cameos make the scene even more special.
“A Sentimental Man” sets us up for the final song of the film (or the end of Act 1 in the stage production). It’s here where the Wizard is still playing nice, and he sings the line “I think everyone deserves the chance to fly.” Elphaba parallels this in the closing song "Defying Gravity" when she sings, "As someone told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to fly." This will always be my favorite Wicked song, as it's a song about defying the limits put upon us and proving those who doubted us wrong. Cynthia Erivo really made it her own, and while she may have been singing in character as Elphaba, it was clear she was singing from her heart. I also love the extended scenes, like Elphaba seeing the reflection of her younger self, giving her the strength and confidence to fly up into the western sky.
There’s also the beautiful moment where, for just a little while, Glinda contemplates going with her best friend. It’s here where we learn where her true loyalties lie. However, Elphaba doesn’t seem angry with her anymore. Instead, they both wish the other happiness with what they’ve chosen, ending with a simple yet powerful “I hope you’re happy, my friend.” Cynthia's iconic battle cry makes for the perfect ending to the song as she declares the famous line, "Nobody in all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was is ever gonna bring me down."
The Wicked film has become such an important part of our culture that where I once was nervous, I now can’t imagine pop culture without it. I think it was much needed for Wicked to enter the mainstream as it opened our eyes to the nuance in this world and our proclivity for labeling and putting people in boxes. The truth is there is no good or evil, only the combination of both that lives inside everyone. I can’t wait to expand upon this when part 2 comes out later this year.
Great analysis! I loved this movie too.