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The Wizard of Oz has inspired generations of moviegoers and influenced broad swaths of popular culture for decades. While the movie flopped upon its initial 1939 release, it gradually made inroads with new audiences on television, which rejuvenated its appeal on the big screen – and ultimately catalyzed an expanding universe that continues to gain prominence today. The latest iteration of Oz, Wicked: For Good, exhibits the confidence of a universe with almost as much staying power as our own.
Long before Wicked there was The Wiz and Return to Oz, two of the more prominent efforts to revisit and revise the story of a lost child in a candy-colored fantasyland from a new perspective that expanded its mythological reach. Oz has been reappropriated by audiences in unofficial ways as well. Generations of dorm rooms have hosted “Dark Side of the Rainbow” viewing sessions that sync Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon to the original movie (wait for the Lion’s roar!).
Countless storytellers have absorbed its influence in unexpected ways. “There is not a day that goes by when I don’t think of The Wizard Oz,” David Lynch once said, inspiring an entire documentary in 2022 devoted to his obsession with the movie. During the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, Steven Spielberg recorded a video recommending The Wizard of Oz because “at this moment in our history, what better message is there than, ‘There’s no place like home’?”
Wicked is not the only commercial manifestation of Oz on contemporary display. The original movie was reborn earlier this year on the 360-degree screen of the Sphere in Las Vegas, with AI-enhanced imagery to round out the frame. Despite some controversy around the project, it has grossed over $130 million in sales in recent months. Wicked: For Good, the second half of the two-part adaptation of the Broadway show, continues a winning streak that has made the Land of Oz into the oldest fictional universe with global appeal. Sorry, Mickey.
The impact of Oz has played a pivotal role in society coming to grips with itself throughout the past century. Entire fields of Oz-based scholarship obsess over the various signifiers strewn throughout L Frank Baum’s turn-of-the-century novel (the yellow brick road as an allegory for the demonization of silver, anyone?). In the 1950s and 60s, gay men often referred to themselves as “friends of Dorothy” to discreetly reference their sexuality. In the late 1980s, The Wizard of Oz was screened in the USSR, as a kind of cinematic emissary to improve relationships with the U.S.
Now comes Wicked: For Good, which in a way marks the apotheosis of the Oz journey. Following the setup of the initial entry, it transforms the canvas of Oz into a template for contemporary anxieties and the radical forces necessary to facilitate change. At its core, these movies invert the equation of good and evil to an eye-opening degree, transforming the Wicked Witch of the West into an underground revolutionary action hero not unlike the ones populating Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. It’s a gateway drug to activism – with music!
The opening sequence of the new movie is its most staggering one, a fast-paced CGI showdown that wouldn’t look out of place in a Marvel movie: Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) soars down from the skies to attack a team of Wizard henchmen building the fabled Yellow Brick Road, a gleaming symbol of opportunity built by the charlatan known as the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). If you’re there for the music, Wicked: For Good won’t disappoint – but these songs, and the uplifting journey that surrounds them, only tell half the story. Tyranny lurks behind even the catchiest showtune.
Dorothy is a non-entity in Wicked, a sort of phantom character who hovers on the edges of the narrative but never quite gains full definition. If you have zero familiarity with the Oz legacy, that might be cause for confusion. But what viewer has zero familiarity with the Oz legacy? The most ubiquitous pop culture narrative in film history has earned the confidence to play off a collective memory.
In any case, Wicked belongs to Elphaba and Glinda (Arianna Grande), whose relationship creates a constant sense of intrigue. As the anointed spokesperson of Oz, Glinda finds herself in a moral conundrum that largely turns on the uncertainties of Grande’s face. As a pop star who leverages her ethereal appearance toward deeper themes, Grande’s performance here suggests serious potential down the line.
Yet the ultimate centerpiece of Wicked: For Good is Erivo’s Elphaba, who finds herself at a pivotal moment in the third act standing on a vast desert vista lifted from the Lawrence of Arabia playbook as she contemplates an uncertain future.
It’s a striking image not only for its modern implications, but for what it says about the ongoing appeal of the world she occupies. After 125 years, the legacy of Oz continues. At this rate, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t resonate another 125 years down the line.