The much-anticipated release of the film version of the musical Wicked last month has generated much online commentary, with a particular focus on its so-called political messages.
Wicked is a prequel of sorts to the familiar story of The Wizard Oz, which reimagines the Wicked Witch of the West of the 1939 film and 1900 novel as not an evil antagonist but as Elphaba (played here by Cynthia Erivo), the misunderstood outsider with much-mocked green skin.
One of the key subplots of the film, itself based on Gregory Maguire’s much darker 1995 novel, Wicked, revolves around the position of Animals in this magical world. Here, Animals talk, teach and contribute to society on par with humans. In Jon M. Chu’s film, we meet Elphaba’s nanny Dulcibear early on, later seeing her developing friendship with Dr Dillamond, the goat history teacher at Shiz University.
As those who have seen Wicked will know, the Wizard, in an attempt to maintain power, has launched a campaign against the Animals, hoping to unite Ozians in hatred against this group. Animals are removed from their positions, forced into exile and forbidden to speak. The ultimate goal is to cage newborn Animals in order to prevent them from ever learning to speak.
This subplot has typically been read in political terms. The musical, written by Stephen Schwartz, premiered on Broadway in 2003 with a New York Times review declaring it “a parable of fascism and freedom”.
Reviews of the 2024 film likewise note the political allegory being made: The Guardian made reference to “its all too timely themes of bullying, corrupt leaders and the demonisation of difference”, while the Irish Times critiqued its “jarring political relevancy,” suggesting that the Wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum, would readily be compared to the incoming US-president thanks to his desire to impose “totalitarian homogeneity across Oz.”
The film itself is explicit in pushing viewers towards this interpretation, with Goldblum declaring “the best way to bring folks together, is to give them a really good enemy.” Animals thus become a stand-in for the many groups demonised in our current moment.
Chu’s film, however, has, I think, a more subtle point to make about the human relationship to the environment. As we enter this film’s Oz, humans and Animals are on a par. There is no division between these two groups and crucially, no hierarchy. Dulcibear essentially raises Elphaba following her mother’s death, while Dr Dillamond is her favoured teacher. The Wizard, by contrast, wants humans to be the dominant force.
Recent environmental thought attempts to stress humans’ position in the ecosphere as interlinked with and dependant on other animals and species. For too long, humans, particularly in the Global North, have seen themselves at the top of the hierarchy, able to exploit and control their environments. This attitude has significantly contributed to the current climate crisis through which we are living.
Wicked however does away with such hierarchies in its heroine, Elphaba, who is seen as particularly attuned to the natural world. She is the most distressed of her fellow students when Dr Dillamond is arrested during a class and the replacement teacher exhibits a caged lion cub. To help the cub escape, she casts a sleeping spell with the bunch of poppies (in a nod to the 1939 film) she had brought for the professor.
Earlier in the film, Elphaba’s first song, “The Wizard and I”, sees her dancing through the Shiz campus proclaiming her excitement at potentially meeting the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Crucially, Chu has Erivo jumping across the pond’s stepping stones and twirling through flower-covered colonnades, the flora coming into bloom as she passes. The song ends with her running through a golden field of wheat – complete with a flash of a rainbow and bluebirds – singing her final note at on cliff edge that is nowhere to be seen in the original musical.
In this way, Chu gives the viewer natural scenes that can’t appear in the stage show, and by placing Elphaba in harmony with the natural environment, he subtly makes the case for its beauty. She may be born “unnaturally green,” but she is also, as green as the naturally “froggy, ferny, cabbage.”
Later, when she has unwittingly transformed the Wizard’s army of monkeys into the iconic flying monkeys of The Wizard of Oz, she is distraught both to have caused them pain and to have created something so unnatural. Animals (and by extension nature) should be respected, rather than repurposed for nefarious means.
We learn early on that Madame Morrible, the only other character that appears to possess true magic, can manipulate weather, using her power to prevent Elphaba from getting wet when it starts to rain.
Of course, one of the most powerful myths about the Wicked Witch is that water will melt her. The stage show – and presumably part two of the film – pulls the veil back on that myth, once again suggesting that Elphaba has playful and respectful interactions with her world.
Wicked is not a film about the environment, but Chu’s direction draws attention to the natural world in a way that the stage show cannot. As a result, it puts forward a message of reverence for nature through Elphaba’s interaction with her surroundings.
In a behind-the-scenes video, Chu and Goldblum discuss sustainability efforts on set, which suggests that the climate crisis was of concern to those involved in making the movie. (Even if the subsequent marketing campaign, which has seen the production of Elphaba and Glinda themed plastic cups, wands and so on, seems to counteract those concerns).
When we remember that a twister in Kansas set in motion the whole chain of events that lead to Wicked itself, the centrality of the natural world is brought further into focus. Elphaba, the reimagined heroine of Wicked, may then be “green” in more ways than one!
1. Brantley, Ben. ‘THEATER REVIEW; There’s Trouble In Emerald City’. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2003.
2. Ide, Wendy. ‘Wicked Review – Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande Make the Magic Happen’. The Guardian, 24 Nov. 2024.
3. Clarke, Donald. ‘Wicked Review: Yes, It’s a Nightmare in Digital Wax, but You’ll Leave the Cinema in Buoyant Mood’. The Irish Times, 19 Nov. 2024,
4. WICKED | Going Green Behind the Scenes: Sustainability on Wicked with Jon M. Chu and Jeff Goldblum - YouTube. Directed by Universal Studios, 2024.
