My friend, Caroline Russell, accompanied me to a showing of the first installment of Wicked, as Joan doesn\u2019t like \u201cthat type\u201d of musical (she\u2019s more a Singing In The Rain kinda gal.) I was a complete \u201cWicked Virgin\u201d at that time, having never seen the musical or read the books, as most of America had.<\/p>\n
Caroline wasn\u2019t able to accompany me when the second installment dropped during the holidays, so I went on my own to a 4:30 show at the Atrium. I didn\u2019t know that my friend Alexis and her son were the only other two people in the house and she recognized me by my laughter. I have been told on numerous occasions that I have a distinctive laugh.<\/p>\n
Both films were shot back to back over a two year period from 2022 to 2024, giving the entire world a chance to marvel at the greatness of its stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. I must confess they were the big draw for me for the first film.<\/p>\n
As I watched Wicked: For Good, it seemed to me rather prescient. There is a subplot where all of the animals are subject to systematic discrimination and caging. Elphaba (a reduction of original author Frank L. Baum\u2019s name) sings to them:<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who would take it from you\/spout a lie, to tell yourself\/you go their way or go\/it\u2019s them who you\u2019ll be defeating\/if we keep on repeating\/there\u2019s no place like home\/ If we just keep on fighting for it\/we will win back and restore it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reason these lyrics hit me so hard, besides them being sung by a queer person of color, is that, lately, I have read disgustingly vile and overgeneralized comments about immigrants and it seems to me this song reflects that kind of feckless intolerance for anybody other than the ones commenting.<\/p>\n
The Wizard at one point says to Elphaba \u201cYou know, not all animals can be trusted.\u201d Looking straight at him, she replies \u201cI know.\u201d For me, this referenced a line from George Orwell\u2019s \u201cAnimal Farm\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u201cAll animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on in the story, the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) sings:<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce folks buy into your blarney\/it becomes the thing they hold onto\/once they\u2019ve swallowed sham and hokum\/facts and logic won\u2019t unchoke them\/they\u2019ll go on believing what they want to\/show them exactly what\u2019s the score\/they\u2019ll just believe it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
This struck me as the template for almost every political leader I\u2019ve ever known or read about. The Wizard is a showman, not necessarily a politician, but given his position in Oz, he becomes one. And Glinda is unfortunately dragged into the same performative position, told at one point to do what she does best: \u201cSmile, wave and shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d moment in this installment is the song \u201cFor Good,\u201d sung by the two leads when they realize there must be a parting of the ways. Sung with tearful sincerity (which I don\u2019t think was faked) by Ariana and Cynthia, it contains this stanza:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt well may be\/ that we may never meet agin\/ in this lifetime\/ so, let me say before we part\/ so much of me\/ is made of what I learned from you\/ who can say\/ if I\u2019ve been changed for the better\/ I do believe I have been changed for the better\/ because I knew you\/ I have been changed\/ for good.\u201d<\/p>\n
(I just heard every theater person on the Island singing along).<\/p>\n
Cue the waterworks. Which brings up an interesting point: are we always changed for the better by people we know, even if it means they show us how not to behave?<\/p>\n
A million years ago in another lifetime when I and several of my friends and loved ones owned a video company, we would go watch movies for clues on how to light, how to edit, how to structure a narrative. Sometimes, the movies were terrible, so we made notes and vowed never to do what we saw and heard. Other movies showed us exactly how to structure our quasi documentaries into a project that told a story in a compelling way. <\/p>\n
Wicked of course carries a bit more weight because of the personal lives and stories of its actors. There is the much looked upon relationship between Cynthia and Ariana, who had the words \u201cfor good\u201d tattooed on their hands and were publicly affectionate and supportive of each other throughout the entire process. There is Jonathan Bailey, who oozes magnetic charm. His love scenes with Cynthia are interesting because they are both openly gay. There\u2019s the director Jon M. Chu, who also directed Crazy Rich Asians and In The Heights (the first pre-Hamilton Lin Manuel Miranda musical). All this diversity is sure to make some people\u2019s heads spin, but it centers the point: that these stories are OUR stories, stories that can be shared by all of us. Spring boarding off of The Wizard Of Oz was a great decision by the original author Gregory Maguire, who wanted to tell a very familiar story through another set of eyes, much like the recent novel James (by author Percival Everett), which tells the story of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of his friend Jim, an enslaved man.<\/p>\n
When the stories told are universal, when they resonate with all of us, not just some of us, that is when a phenomenon occurs.<\/p>\n
Hold those magnificent grey heads high. Take in a movie!<\/p>\n
Comments may be submitted to \u201cTalk To The Old Guy\u201d on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My friend, Caroline Russell, accompanied me to a showing of the first installment of Wicked, as Joan doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-103359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}