I have succumbed to the Wicked obsession. I am enraptured with the movie version of the show of which critics raved, “a cultural phenomenon” and “Broadway’s biggest blockbuster.” Yes. That Wicked. And yes. I have been enamored since I first heard those magical opening notes playing on my CD Walkman the fall of my high school sophomore year.
I am that girl (nod if you get the reference). And I am that woman now, as a whole new level of fandom has swept across the nation, plucking me up in its pink and green path. The Wicked movie awakened a force inside me that I had almost forgotten. Something had changed within me (sorry, I just can’t help myself). I was suddenly awake to its symbolism and deeper messages. How did I miss all this? I wondered.
After my third viewing of the film in theatres, a handful of listens through the soundtrack, and hours of gushing about every hidden gem and darkest corner scattered throughout the now-Oscar-nominated movie, I decided it was time to put pen to paper. What have I learned from these decades of immersion in the land of Oz?
Of all the lessons (and there are many), one stands out from the rest: that defining evil may be elusive.
BEWARE: Spoilers lie ahead!
Brace yourselves, we’re flying in.
You may want to read a synopsis of the movie, for those of you who somehow haven’t managed to carve out three very quick hours of your time.
Most characters in Wicked name Elphaba the evil one, primarily because of her skin color: green. (Later in the movie, they all think she’s evil because she subverts the highest powers in the land and those powers disseminate propaganda to demonize her, but that’s the topic of another day’s blog).
I want to focus on a character that, at least in the land of Oz, starts as evil and takes her time toward redemption: Galinda (or, later named, Glinda — just watch the movie already!)
Glinda, better known as the “good” witch, begins the movie on her merry way to Shiz University, with a mountain of her belongings, all in pink boxes. She and Elphaba are thrown into sharing a room and chaos ensues. Glinda is widely revered, almost worshipped, for what we can only assume is her wealth and her apparent popularity.
She treats everyone with “niceness,” including Elphaba, who quickly sees through the veil to Glinda’s heart of selfishness and, well, a lack of empathy. Glinda paints herself as caring for and helping those “less fortunate than her” — but she can’t seem to understand those who experience life differently than she does. To her, and most of the characters, “difference” is evil.
And I think we all know how evil a lack of empathy and demonizing the “different” or the “other” can be.
G.M. Gilbert, a psychologist who interrogated Nazis that were being prosecuted in Nuremberg, said, “I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
Now, that got dark pretty quickly, and I’m certainly not comparing Glinda to a Nazi, but Glinda does show a lack of empathy early on in the movie that is worth noting. Glinda doesn’t want to be challenged beyond her own status quo; she doesn’t believe that someone different than her can exist. And such beliefs, as we know, are dangerous.
It’s easy to say that all of us here have loads of empathy, but Wicked challenges me to watch my empathy, especially when it starts to ebb. It also reminds me to be curious about my own status quo, challenging it in ways that allow more people at my table, rather than turning them away.
“Love has within it a redemptive power,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said. “And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.”
Not only can love and empathy transform others (and I urgently hope that it does and it will through our own loving actions), but love can and should also transform us. After all, we can only control our own words and actions.
Back in Oz, there’s good news (are these songs stuck in your head yet?) for Glinda — her heart sparks once she lets in a spot of love and empathy for Elphaba, and that’s when she begins to grow into a truly good witch.
One Response
Thank you for reminding us that these cultural moments of craziness over Wicked, and last year Barbie, have the ability to contain messages with profound meaning for how we all live in relationship with each other. The movie was an explosion of sight (amazing costuming) and sound that hangs on how we learn to empathize with others. I’m thinking the whole thing was planned as an extravagaza, but those are the subtle undertones of seeing Christ in all people for those of Reformed persuasion.