How did Elphaba become wicked? There’s a hidden message people keep missing.

Views: 788

Everyone wants to hold space for “ Defying Gravity ,” the powerhouse anthem from Wicked, the Broadway musical-turned-movie blockbuster. But behind the in-your-face themes of female rivalry and friendship , unrequited love , and the unfortunate circumstance of being green , there’s a deeper undercurrent: the alienation that comes when you stand behind what you believe in.

The story — a reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 The Wizard of Oz — explains how the notorious Wicked Witch of the West came to be. Like the musical, the movie takes place in the Land of Oz and follows Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), a kind but hardened young woman who has been ostracized her whole life for her green skin, as she enters Shiz University to cultivate her strong magical powers. It’s here where she meets, rooms with, and eventually befriends Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande), an aspiring sorcerer who’s been beloved and popular her whole life.

But what seems to get ignored is the root of Elphaba’s supposed wickedness: her horror at the mistreatment of animals and her determination to free them. In the Land of Oz, animals are regular members of society, living and working alongside other Ozians — until they’re silenced and forced out of the public eye.

Yes, Wicked is a fantasy tale, but if one focuses just a bit longer on Elphaba’s origin story, it’s hard not to see the parallels between the movie and the real-world state of animal welfare. The reality of animal oppression is not only stranger than the fiction in Wicked, but unfortunately much more cruel. And those who seek to expose this abuse and create change are ridiculed, jailed, and, much like Elphaba, ostracized for their stance and deemed wicked.

How the animal rights message in Wicked connects to real life

From the very beginning of her life, the movie shows that Elphaba has felt a connection to animals, at least partially because of the prejudice she’s faced in her own life. When Elphaba is born and it’s revealed she has green skin, her father rejects her. She’s raised mostly by Dulcibear, her nanny who happens to be a brown bear and who empathizes with Elphaba and sees the good in her, while her father berates and chastises her … Read More