Review by Tim Robins

Misunderstood because of her green skin, a young woman named Elphaba forges an unlikely but profound friendship with Glinda, a student with an unflinching desire for popularity. Following an encounter with the Wizard of Oz, their relationship soon reaches a crossroad as their lives begin to take very different paths.

The Review: If you haven’t seen the film Wicked (2024), run, don’t walk to the cinema now. Even though I’ll admit to dragging my feet – after all, the last film I saw of a stage musical was Cats – I was quickly won over by the clever script and the outstanding vocal talents of leads, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.

Wicked is an adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s massively successful stage musical Wicked (2003), itself based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. The story is a prequel to MGM’s The Wizard of Oz (1939), and L Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy for children, The Wonderful Wizard of OZ. As such Wicked is an origin story of sorts telling how the Wicked Witch of The West, the one who didn’t get Dorothy’s house dropped on her, became wicked.   

The film showcases a powerful vocal performance by Erivo, as Elphaba, destined to become the Witch, and Grande as Glinda who, against all expectations, becomes Elphaba’s best friend. Both artistes give compelling renditions of the songs, leading to the climactic “Defying Gravity”, sung by Elphaba as she assumes the mantle of the witch to escape the forces of The Wizard and his army of flying monkeys.

The musical has been a staggering success in America and around the world. It is the second highest grossing Broadway musical after The Lion King. The original MGM film, on which it draws had a less spectacular start in life – eventually secured a place in viewers’ hearts only after repeated TV screenings at Christmas. At time of writing, one of four remaining pairs of ruby ‘slippers’, has sold at auction in America for just shy of 22 million pounds.  

It’s fair to say that Baum’s stories about the land of OZ don’t have quite the same appeal in the UK, compared to America. However, the film of Wicked escapes being a somewhat esoteric deep dive into the lore of the land of OZ. Instead, it plays with accessible, currently popular stories – think Barbie meets Harry Potter.  

Once we get to Shiz University, where Elphaba and Glinda first meet, the story becomes recognisable as one of those 1980s’ High School dramas about freshers trying to fit in with the prevailing cliques. Elphaba is something of a nerd – nervous, insecure and embarrassed as much by her latent magical powers and as her green skin – a constant reminder of her illegitimacy. In contrast, Glinda effortlessly dons the mantle of most popular girl in the school. 

Sitting on her travel bags as if they were a throne, Glinda is every bit the princess, with all the self-involvement that term can imply. Even her name becomes a talking and singing point. Is she Galinda or Glinda?  Grande totally embraces the role, hilariously posing, as if for a snap on Instagram or a Tik Tok short. Glinda and Elphaba become unlikely friends, but only after Glinda has embarrassed Elphaba by giving her a crooked, black witches hat to wear at a college dance.

Around Erivo and supporting actress Grande are a personable cast of characters. Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton) plays a himbo prince from the land of Winkie (no laughing at the back), apparently dancing through life without a care in the world. Michelle Yeoh conveys a poised sense of power as Madame Morrible, the Dean of Sorcery at Shiz University, with a hotline to the great and powerful Wizard of Oz in Emerald City. The Wizard is played by Jeff Goldblum, riffing on his role as The GrandMaster in Thor: Ragnarok (2017).

Of course, the film owes its heart to Broadway. It is every bit a musical and the music and singing are there from the start and are woven into the drama. I didn’t find them actual showstoppers, with the exception of the climactic “Defying Gravity”. 

(This actually did stop the stage musical, as it heralded intermission. Gosh, remember when films had intermissions? I still recall the one in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, back in 1968. The intermission came just as the car and passenger plummet off the White Cliffs of Dover – a definite cliffhanger and the perfect time for a Choc Ice).

The scene in which Elphaba is plucked from the crowd of freshers to be Morrible’s personal project for the semester, is pure wish fulfilment, not for Elphaba (who wants nothing to do with magic or Shiz) but for those in the audience who may hope that surely, someday, someone with power and influence will recognise their abilities and they too will become the ‘chosen one’. Although I do wonder if Morrible spotted something of the Carrie about Elphaba?

There is a more sinister side to Wicked. We learn that a new wave of intolerance towards the land’s intelligent, talking animals is sweeping across the land of OZ from The Emerald City. Animals shunned, caged and scapegoated – literally, in the case of professor of history, Dr Dillamond, a goat, voiced by Peter Dinklage. It is here that the film gets really on point – the more the animals are excluded, the more they lose the power of speech and the more they become what we define as animals (needless to say, losing one’s voice is a powerful metaphor in a musical). 

The process of stereotyping and stigmatization which is turning the magical ‘Animals’ into mere animals is also applied to Elphaba’s development as a witch. Being a witch is not one of the young girl’s dreams: witchery is forced upon her. Elphaba is given little choice to fulfil the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, and claim the stereotype of the evil witch as her own. 

That moment comes during the song, “Defying Gravity”. I know that some audience members see this only as a moment of freedom and empowerment for Elphaba. But the role she is embracing is the identity of a witch and an evil one at that. By embracing her role, she is also embracing her humiliating death – melting from a bucket of water, thrown by Dorothy.

The film has, of course, been the centre of controversy off screen. Talking about Wicked with people in my local cafe, an elderly gentleman was fretting about younger people not being able to ‘get’ the story’s parallels to The Holocaust. He then went on to say that casting a black woman as Elphaba was going too far because, you know, the Witch is green! Another example of casting “gone too far” was employing actual wheelchair users in the role of Nessarose, Elphaba’s sister. The character is a wheelchair user in Wicked, as are the actresses who play her, as a young girl (Cesily Collette Taylor) and an adult (Marissa Bode).

I rarely allow such comments to pass without opposition. People say these things because they think they can and think they should. In  contrast, here’s this from Kind-College-9118 on the subreddit r/wicked: 

“No real point to this except sharing my excitement! My four-year old is a wheelchair user, and was so excited to see little Cesily Collette Taylor when I showed him a photo!” And, “I took my oldest to see the movie and she was so excited whispering to me that she was an early baby like Artie and his little legs need help too!”

Kind-College-9118 continues: “It was just so heartwarming to see the real time effects of inclusivity in this day and age… I’m so glad that they used authentic actresses with real disabilities to play Nessarose, and this opportunity was given to someone with that same lived experience”.

Although (SPOILER ALERT), the poster concludes, “Of course I did not tell my sweet little boy that Nessarose grows up to be the worst.”

For my part, I simply pointed out to the man that The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character and any performer could play her! I did throw in the possibility that casting a black woman as Elphaba might be seen as a way of drawing parallels with the treatment of African Americans in American society. 

It brought home to me the fact that it is all too easy to jackboot over the diversity of humanity, because it is often hard to take the point of view of those marginalised or excluded in society. In this respect, for whatever reasons, Hollywood is helping us imagine what the world is like through others’ eyes – even the eyes of a Witch.

Ironically, one controversy has focussed on a fan who decided to photoshop the film’s poster and, in doing so, cast Erivo’s eyes into shadow. The actress was understandably annoyed saying, as The Hollywood Reporter noted, “The original poster is an illustration… I am a real-life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”

The fan initially deleted the post but has now reposted it, stating: “This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that!” 

Hold my hat, because the fan also painted the black actresses smiling lips red. While, again, mimicking the theatrical poster, the trope of red lips on a black performer – particularly in the context of American horror movies – has itself been seen as a remnant of the make up for minstrel stereotypes. So, let’s say the fan made an honest mistake, but it honestly was a mistake.

Not even wanting a Choc Ice during an intermission is innocent, because racist associations between black people and chocolate have been used to sell chocolate. In America at least, some ice Ccream vans still play an old English tune that was given racist lyrics in the 1920s.  The lyric references a particular negative minstrel type called a ‘zip coon’. This character parodied the free black man trying to fit into white urban high culture.

 You may not know any of this. I certainly didn’t. But audiences of a certain age will remember the tune’s lyrics – “O zip a duden, duden, duden zip a duden day,” re-worked for in Disney’s “Song of the South’s most famous and beloved song, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”. It’s not that we read too much into such things, it’s that we don’t read enough.

Musicals are done differently now. Wicked certainly is. Go see it!

Tim Robins

• Wicked is in cinemas now. Apply to Shiz University at shizuniversity.com

• The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz – A Commemorative Pop-Up
by  L. Frank Baum and Robert Sabuda

Follow the yellow brick road with the master of paper engineering, Robert Sabuda a book offering stunning pop-ups and elaborative interactive details,

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Robert Sabuda’s resplendent pop-up version features a shortened version of L. Frank Baum’s original text, and artwork in the style of W.W. Denslow.   

With a jaw-dropping number of pop-ups on every page, be blown away by the swirling tornado, marvel at the gleaming Emerald City, and soar into the sky on the wizard’s hot air balloon. Featuring sparkling touches of coloured foil and Emerald City eyeglasses, this classic tale is certain to find an honoured place on any family’s bookshelf.  

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Video Essaysist GoldFro wanted to explore an emerging trope in horror media and the… interesting history it stems from. Reference list here on Patreon

• About the Author
• Latest Posts

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.

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