Just want to mention: Brandi Chavonne Massey Saycon Sengbloh Dan’yelle Williamson Alexia Khadime All are Black women that portrayed Elphaba on Broadway before Cynthia Erivo did (no shade to her ability). They all have sound bite clips on TH-cam. I mention them here because these women deserve the recognition Broadway wouldn’t give them.
Brandi, Saycon, and Dan'yelle especially don't get enough credit because they were understudies, while Alexia was a full-time! I've even seen articles saying Erivo is the "second" Black woman to play Elphaba -_-
@@annmariebusu9924 that's probably from the expectation to uphold Idina's original pitch and tone! Meanwhile, Cynthia Erivo was given the space to make Elphaba entirely her own & find her sound
When elphaba felt like she had to explain her “green-ness” I felt that as a black women. Bc yes I take bath, no I can’t wash the blackness off, yes I wash my hair, no I don’t redo my braids everyday…etc.
Speaking as a white person, I think Glinda's visible conflict serves a purpose for the white audience. Her words, actions, and endorsement remain a crucial part of the wizard's propaganda machine, and she remains complacent in it for her own benefit and protection. She stays on the side she picked, and her impact reflects that. But as the audience, we are shown that this is _not_ an unadulterated good for her either-- that her betrayal of Elphaba has given her power and influence, but it still leaves her beholden to a cruel machine that does not care about her happiness or wellbeing. It acknowledges both the real material benefits of being a class traitor as well as undercutting any arguments that Glinda made the "right" choice in any capacity. A real life person would not have that kind of regret and remorse, would not ever show any doubt they might experience, but Glinda-the-character _must_ show that disquiet so that the white audience _feels_ the negative consequences of sucking up to power for personal gain. It's also worth noting Glinda's most transparent scenes of doubt (at least as far as I recall) exclusively occur when Elphaba is not present. Elphaba's experience of Glinda does not include Glinda's doubt. Glinda never apologizes to Elphaba or expresses remorse or regret. Glinda's unhappiness and doubt are a private thing she never admits to anyone, and refuses to act on.
Agree absolutely that the conflict on her face is def mostly for expressing the theme to the audience-at the end of the day characters are written to tell a story, not to show how most people would “realistically” behave. However, I do think a real life person (obviously not everyone, but some people) could feel some level of regret and conflict about it tho. With all that happens in Act 2 (seeing the full extent of what Morrible and the Wizard will do, which was literally only like 10 minutes ago for Glinda in “No One Mourns the Wicked”), I don’t think she can possibly get out of there without having some kind of thoughts and remorse about how she handled it all. But beyond that, even interpreting Glinda as a purely selfish person, one of her biggest drives is that she still wants to ~feel~ like a good person. We see her mostly satisfying this by soaking in the validation from people who tell her she is one-and she gets a lot more of that by sticking with the Wizard. But at the same time, Glinda fully believes that Elphaba, who at one point was her best friend, ~is~ a ~genuinely~ good person (evident by Defying Gravity and For Good). People might still be telling Glinda she’s the “good witch,” but she knows she stood against the one person she felt was truly “good,” and had helped the people who took her down (as far as they know). So even if you’re still viewing Glinda as a purely selfish person, she’s at least feeling conflict from the knowledge that no matter how many people are telling her she’s good, she no longer ~feels~ like she is. Ofc actions speak louder than words, and much louder than inner conflict you don’t express as words, but I honestly think even a shitty person might feel inner conflict about their actions-they just shove it down enough to justify it out loud.
I disagree, on one thing the whole final song "Because I Knew you" was both Elphaba and Glenda apologizing to each other and making amends That was the point of the song, their closure before parting ways...
@laurenl9364 I've always wondered why some people seem to have it all but is seemingly so unhappy, I think it's because of what is mentioned here, not being truthful themselves and other because they are afraid of what they can possibly lose...not aware of what they can gain, innerpace❤
@@laurenl9364I think there’s a difference btwn ‘feeling like a good person’ and ‘looking like a good person’ and I think Glenda’s motivation is being thought of as good over actually being good or feeling like she’s good. Glinda is an example of the ytness imperative to be seen as good without having the difficult work of taking a moral stand
@@lanasartlife Fair for sure, I definitely think there’s a difference between “being” vs “feeling” vs “looking” good. I’d argue that most people who want to “look” good also eventually want to “feel” good too (again not everyone, plenty of people are fantastic at self-delusion and perfectly fine with staying that way), but whether or not that’s Glinda is ofc up to interpretation. It could also be that she originally only cares about “looking” good, but through her character development (more in Act 2 than Act 1 imo), she starts to care more about “feeling” like she’s good instead of just looking like it. And the purpose of that development in the story is pretty much what the original commenter described, I was just arguing it’s not an unrealistic development for a real person to experience too.
One of your Jewish listeners here. I loved the time put aside to address that the notions of witchcraft in America include the remnants of antisemitic tropes. Medieval and early modern stories also commonly included Jewish women in the role of a seductress, tempting the pious Christian character away from their duties and to a life of sin and witchcraft. Just as commonly as them being rebuked was them being "fixed" by the christian protagonist, usually by accepting Jesus and rejecting their Jewish identity. See Ivanhoe and the Merchant of Venice.
I accepted the Holy Trinity as my God. I’m incredibly thankful for my Jewish ancestors from 2,000+ years ago. I love that Christians and Jews get along so well these days.
Didn't want to be "that guy" but Nick Fury was interpreted as a black man in the Ultimate Spider-Man series which began publishing in 2000. It's an alternate universe and the Nick Fury in that series was clearly inspired by Samuel L Jackson so his casting had precedence within the comics.
It's funny, I was LITERALLY thinking about that like an hour ago because of the Disney Spider-Man cartoon series race swapping Norman Osborne and how that works imo because of him canonically having the best waves in comics 🤣
@@nathanaellazaro3347 no actually he said in an interview that he saw the picture and he was like yo that's me and he had never been asked to use his likeness. Because it wasn't really him it was just you know it looked like him. You can hear what he says don't take my word for it.
As someone who hyperfixates on special interest, over-analyzing is definitely my first language. English is my second, Gullah is my third. Yes in that order 😂
I live in Salem and you wouldn’t (but for real probably would) believe how many people come here for the kitsch without realizing one of the main accused was Tituba, a slave woman who confessed to practicing witchcraft after being beaten during questioning. That doesn’t sell felt witch hats tho so it doesn’t get as much airplay as Hocus Pocus around here.
Thank you so much for sharing! I'm from Western Mass and I've never been to Salem myself because that whole "daughter's of the witches you couldn't burn" song and dance never sat well with me.
*enslaved person. This is the preferred term that historians use when referring to enslaved people, since “slave” makes it sound like this just default. Also The Salem Witch Trials are often framed historically as an issue of men violating women, and as you pointed out, there’s often and underemphasis of the racism that was very important to this historic event. Basically a white girl who was the daughter of a pastor, was accused of being possessed, blamed Tituba, a black woman enslaved by her family, for her possession, which led to her being murdered. Very dark and sad history.
@@osimiri7111 I agree, but I have to point out that Tituba survived the Salem witch panic. Her confession and cooperation as a witness, although brutally forced, probably ended up saving her life. Honestly, I think she quickly realized that was her only option in order to survive. She knew full well that she didn't live in a just society. She knew the extreme prejudice against her as a Native, enslaved woman meant she was declared guilty the moment the accusation was made. The other accused likely thought that they'd be okay if only they told the truth. Tituba knew better.
I'm about halfway through this but there's a video I saw earlier where the creator was saying the reason Glinda wasn't as shocked and taken aback by the discovery of the wizard was that it made sense to her "Did they have brains or knowledge? [...] they were popular!" It wasn't a huge stretch in her mind that he was just a charismatic opportunist
“When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features, I remind them on their own behalf to think of celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators. Did have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh! They were popular. Please, it’s all about popular. It’s not about aptitude; it’s the way you’re viewed so it’s very shrewd to be very, very popular…like me.”
Pulling that out was such an efficient way to state her bonafides cuz you know if she's on that she's also on the Tumblr fan sites and doing the sing-alongs and all the other much less demanding types of stuff
SO REAL. AMV makers make whole arguments, essays, and actual whole spinoffs of what they’re making amvs of sometimes it’s crazy. And sometimes it’s just light fun but it’s always a banger.
@@Mighty_Atheismo oh yeah no, cuz its never anywhere OTHER than the gyat dayum AMV comment sections and tumblr fanpages where i see people discussing every goddamn Legend of Korra character like the characters are running for fucking office weaker versions of me shat on that sure... but that kind of love could power california
Funnily enough, years before this movie I read a Wicked fanfic where when Elphaba gets transported to Kansas, her appearance outside the magic of Oz is that of a black woman.
One of the most important lines in the entire movie, to me, comes at the end when Elphaba sings (of wanting to be with the Wizard): "I don't want it. No, I CAN'T want it, anymore"...that "Can't" was everything to me.
I’ve literally been thinking about this line all day. She can’t want her own happiness now that she knows it’s only at the expense of others. Elphaba takes community solidarity SERIOUS
I just want to add to the conversation that Elphaba in the original book was written to be a commentary on antisemitism (since the whole concept of a “wicked witch” is steeped in antisemitism) and so having Jewish actresses play her it’s important and why Jewish actresses tend to be cast in the role on broadway. That said, as a Jewish person myself, I am thrilled to see her being portrayed as visibly black in the movie as she as a symbol has always meant so much to so many minority groups, including and especially black people. One of my best friends is over the moon to have an elphaba that speaks to her, and Cynthia Erivo killed it in this role, and I really hope this opens up casting directors eyes and this leads to more diverse casting going forward on broadway!
I really appreciated you guys taking some time to discuss the centuries of violent antisemitism that underlie the “witch” archetype. Like Princess Weekes said, this is something that is overlooked nearly 100% of the time in modern discourse (at least, modern American discourse) on witches in popular media, including with Wicked. It’s important for people to know this history, not only so we can be an educated and compassionate society with an understanding of the oppression faced by minority groups, but *also* because that foundation is needed so we can fully understand how the movie is using “the Witch” as a symbol of anti-Black racism. Without that background we can’t get a full picture of what the symbol means - a symbol of the oppression faced by minority groups in countless forms across countless cultures and time periods, a history of (primarily) societally disadvantaged women being targeted and persecuted.
This feels extremely similar to the origins of Cyberpunk that the majority of cyberpunk fans dont understand as a metaphor for anti-japanese xenophobia because for a tiny brief window in the 70s-80s Japan looked on track to surpass the US in market output and so authors of the time imaged dirty cities filled with asian people that looked like a fucked up version of Tokyo combined with people's fears of inner city life. Blade Runner only looks the way it does because people didnt want to live in "squalid cramped cities with colored people" like "The japanese" Blade runner only needed to be more on the nose by making all the CEOs asian, but hollywood of that time was still ultra-racist and didnt employee many asian people outside of hilariously out of date chinese stereotypes.
Maybe I interpreted this love triangle differently but I don't view Elphaba and Glinda as "fighting for attention from a white man". I think that in all honesty with Fiyero being white and into Elphaba (on his own accord mind you) that adds more layers in different ways compared to if Fiyero weren't white. Here me out but I think that when we get to the part of the movie where Fiyero (essentially) falls for Elphaba, Glinda turns into the textbook white woman who can't believe that a white man that she's doting on, falls head over heels for someone who doesn't fit the beauty standard and therefore doesn't deserve to be fawned over (Elphaba) by someone who does (Fiyero). I mean Glinda literally is either in denial about Fiyero being into Elphaba or can't see or come to the conclusion that he is. Not to mention, I never got the impression that Fiyero was actually INTO Glinda but rather the popular kids/celebrties dating clout and image that Glinda can provide for him. One final thing is that Elphaba can't really fight for someone when she doesn't believe that she deserves that someone in the first place. Literally her "I'm Not That Girl" song is pretty much JUST about that and after the song Elphaba subsequently puts a pin in chasing what desire she has for Fiyero down. Pretty much all of this subtext that again, I personally interpreted but could have been seen through many different lenses, don't scream fighting over a white man. It really (again to me) reads as another layer of white femininity that doesn't get explored much? Basically the reactions that dark skin Black women get when they are desired by folks who fit the status quo (for better or for worse), particularly the reactions that they receive from white women who are so used to being the white supremacy It Girls (if you will). Regardless I really appreciated y'all's analysis on this ESPECIALLY as a Black femme, I look forward to both of y'all's future videos in general! : )
Yes, this nuance was missed in order to dunk on the swirlers. This happened to FKA Twiggs when she was dating Robert Pattinson, and she’s half white herself.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing. I think Fiyero being white adds a layer we don’t expect, because why would we right? People can be exceptionally cruel when a very attractive public figure or popular person is with someone who would be considered the opposite. It reminds me of Robert Patterson and FKA Twigs who were in a relationship, but because he still in the glow of Twilight and a hot commodity- Twigs got hella racist backlash for being with him. Especially from white girls and women. I truly believe her song Cellophane was about this, especially the last few lines.
The library scene illustrated how it could have been literally anyone and he accepted the one who pushed herself at him and suited the image he projected
See, I take this in a different direction: Fiyero's character is a lil bit Glinda and a lil bit Elphaba, so by wanting him, they can each want the other. The triangle isn't just an angle, that third side - the side between Elphaba and Glinda themselves - is the operative line. I mean, Pink goes good with Green...but the play was written before queer romance like this could be full on text rather than subtext so you need something that's kind of pink and kind of green (and appropriately hetero) to bridge the two.
@@BabaCorva There are tons of ways to interpret a love triangle like this. I was thinking yesterday that Fiyero is almost like a stand-in for the Ozian public at large in that he's vapid and disengaged on the surface but has the potential to be more than that in the right circumstances. The transformation he undergoes with Elphaba is like a little microcosm of revolution/building revolutionary consciousness itself, while Glinda represents the opposite, counterrevolutionary trajectory. I don't think any of these interpretations are mutually exclusive: they all work depending on where you focus (the Glinda/Elphaba line you mentioned, Elphaba as a fulcrum for what I described here, Fiyero as a fulcrum for some of the discussion earlier in this thread). I actually think love triangles can be really powerful narrative devices /thematically/ for exactly this reason - they can be so many things at once in a story - but because they're instantly dismissed as an annoying trope, a lot of the effective ones like Wicked's are just overlooked or underanalyzed. Drives me crazy the way people talked about the love triangle in The Hunger Games when it's clear as day that the two boys were standing in for different kinds of resistance and different social futures and Katniss's indecision between them was also her political uncertainty.
I know people said they saw the Wizard as Trump, but I see him as an ineffectual liberal politician who promises you good things but really presides over an evil system.
Honestly I only really works as right wingers in the book since they are way more obvious with their bigotry in the book. The musical and movie have them constantly try to hide the way their society is bigoted, only to make up excuses for it when caught like liberal politicians do
Honestly to me at least it only really works as right wingers if youre talking the book since they are way more obvious with their bigotry in the book. The musical and movie have them constantly try to hide the way their society is bigoted, only to make up excuses for it when caught like liberal politicians do. I know this video isn’t about the book but yeah
@@Lucifersfursona To a degree I think both are true because the Wizard was originally conceptualized in the musical as a critique of George W. Bush, who represented both “kind hearted” liberalism and conservative politics, while also lying the American public into the Iraq War.
I’m having a hard time believing that medieval European Christians could ever be remotely subtle with their antisemitism. It’s not as though they had any social sanction against hating Jews - quite the opposite, they were all for it!
@@Nortarachanges Dwarves obsessing over gold at least tied back to older mythologies that had no anti-Semitic tropes because the tellers and listeners both probably didn't know what Jews were or why they should care. But that just makes it even more bizarre/sus that Rowling turned the big-nosed money-grubbing race in her books into goblins. By that point, (fantasy) dwarves had been given mainstream dignity through Tolkien and D&D and such. Goblins are still universally viewed as sub-human monsters. Keep the stereotype by moving the goalposts.
@@andrewklang809 It's interesting how many evil/negative fairy tale and fantasy tropes can be traced back to medieval stereotypes of Jews. Goblin tropes drew from those stereotypes well before JKR, but she certainly helped to popularize the association for a new generation.
I'm still watching, but regarding the Animals -- maybe because I am NDN, but knowing that the original author of the Wizard of Oz books was intensely anti-Native, wanted our extinction and the completion of Manifest Destiny.... I have always interpreted their inclusion in Wicked as being about us. Here first, but even if educated, still not respected, and ultimately the goal is to force us out of sight.
Baum was definitely very racist in a lot of his writing. I didn't know he was THAT level of racist but I believe it. There's someone in the comments who made a good argument about it being seen as an indigenous allegory as well. I don't know if it fits perfectly, I personally see more of a Jewish allegory because of how heavy the fascism themes are. But you can definitely make a compelling argument for the way the Wizard came in as a colonizer and became subjugating, scapegoating and "dehumanizing" for lack of a better word, the Animals
Maybe its because i grew up during Trumps presidency, but i interpreted the Animals as an allegory for the scapegoating of immigrants. But its interesting to see how this could apply to so many groups of people.
@@TheseVioletDelites Concentration and death camps were inspired by the reservation system, so the two interpretations are strongly interlinked and reasonable in my eyes.
Great point. Also at least the part of the world I am, pretty much all the Tribes have stories about when animals used to talk, and some have stories about how they lost that. So there is a lot of connection there I think.
to add my two cents to this conversation, I saw "Wicked" live while the whole "Don't Say Gay" thing was happening where I live, so I sort of made the connection between the animals and how queer people are targeted in the educational field (not to mention Morrible claiming that Elphaba "mutilated the innocent monkeys!"). but as everyone is saying here, they can be read as an allegory for any marginalized group, and there's certainly intersectional factors at play that illustrate various forms of discrimination.
Wicked has, as far as I understand it, always been a story that asks “who’s wicked?”, concluding that it’s actually Glinda who’s wicked for choosing not to act - choosing to uphold the status quo despite the horrible things happening. She chooses to keep the curtains up and that’s her moral downfall. This is especially evident in the opening number, no-one mourns the wicked, where Glinda is singing not only about Elphaba but herself. “Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” This is the two of them. Elphaba was deemed wicked since birth but Glinda grew into it through her choices. She’s 100% meant to be someone performing goodness without being truly for good.
I don't necessarily agree that the text of the play concludes that Glinda is Wicked. Definitely in the book (along with several other characters). But in the play the conclusion leans more towards Glinda being in the right. She evicts the Wizard and imprisons Madame Morrible at the end of the play. It is also implied that she will be the one to (or at least try to) fix Animal relations and bring them back as they were before. I do believe that Glinda does view herself as wicked by the end of the play. But I am not sure that the play itself does.
There's a wonderful absurdism to how deeply you have to fry the footage to avoid getting got. Watching Elphaba's head bob in the green void as you're making a fantastic point bout killed me
The downside to the movie & the musical is you lose soooo much of the info from the source material- the actual book, like Elphaba shows up to college having already been radicalized by witnessing the treatment of the Quadlings in Quadling country- the death of Dr.Dillamond (the Goat) is what drives her to leave school to join a faction of revolutionary resistors. Glinda is even worse in the book, she's a "thoughts & prayers" kinda person, she doesn't care about sh*t except marrying a rich husband & wearing gorgeous dresses.
That's what gets me about the book is that it deals *so* much heavier with themes of racial and class discrimination, and the deliberate othering of marginalized groups to create a "perfect" fantasy world through the Wizard, who carries pretty heavy colonizer vibes throughout the whole thing. Glinda's arc in particular is so fascinating to me because she represents the white bystander trope who's elevated to saint status due to her MINIMAL, but good intentioned actions. She's the perfect foil for elphaba in the book. I can't say if it's good or not, just that those are the themes lol; I read this book back in high-school during my peak theater kid phase and remember being shell shocked at how different it was. I'd definitely need a reread.
Yes I truly hope more and more people read it, and the rest in the series. Yes there’s a series! There is so much more time and attention spent on the racial dynamics, not to mention class, religion, nationalism, inter species power dynamics just for a little spice
The book was a little messy for sure, but packed so full. It would be hard for me to re-read mainly because I didn't realize it was part of a series and I got upset by how many unresolved concepts there were! But it's absolutely a deep dive and I hope if they make more movies, we see more of the depth of that source.
@ haha I totally understand, there is a lot of stuff that drags on throughout books and, within the story, decades, and there are a lot of things that never get resolved as far as I can tell. It goes way past Elphaba’s life and really follows her descendants trying to navigate and survive the world she left behind. Fun fact, Maguire actually has a book coming out this month specifically detailing Elphaba’s childhood! So that will be the first time he has gone back to her life in decades, I’m really excited
I saw this story in real time. When i was young i had the most beautiful babysitter with a phenomenal voice. We stayed in rhode island, and she was the only blk girl in theater. She wanted to be Dorothy and honestly nobody could compete with her. But they friggin made her "the bad witch". She still out performed everyone else. I never forgot that because it impacted me, i hope somewhere she saw this movie. I hope she is been seen for the talented and gifted woman she is.
EDIT: The tattoos are diamond *shaped*, not actual diamonds in his skin! In the books, Fierro has brown skin and blue tattoos and blue gems embedded into his skin! Look up book accurate fan art when you can - seeing everyone's interpretations is really cool
19:44 Thank you for this comment, I was about to say the same thing. It’s interesting too because in the book, Glinda is so clearly racist, she states that she couldn’t have had a romantic relationship with Fiyero because he has “sh*t colored skin”. For commentary on Wicked, it would definitely be worthwhile for them to read the book.
@@ninthereporter6525I just read that part in the book. Although Glinda doesn’t say the shit part there, I can’t remember who says it but it happens while in college, then like 20 years later she comments that she couldn’t have an affair with a “dark-skinned” man
@ Sorry, you’re right. Avaric, another character that went to school with the gang in the book said, referring to Fiyero,“I wouldn't want to have skin the color of shit.” (Wicked, pg 144)
Yeah Fierro is super native-coded, maybe not any specific tribe on turtle island but a mix of several Native tribes and the Picts who were the native people of Scotland in terms of the blue paint, who a lot of us so called US natives can also claim descent from for uh, Reasons. Would've been a great opportunity for casting one of our great up and coming native men like D'Pharoah Woon A Tai or (rip) Coco Brings Plenty.
She really showed up FD in the section on black-coding Elpheba. Princess brings up a huge body of "El and witches in general are extremely jewish-coded and that would kinda be cultural appropriation." And FD doesn't really respond except "Zionism bad" and "black witches make pp hard.". Not that I disagree on either of those points.
Wicked pissed me the fuck off tbh. After someone wrote some racist shit on the Goat professor’s board I sat through the rest of the movie stewing and ruminating cuz they just straight hoed him. Someone better spin back for my boy expeditiously
In the book he gets it SO MUCH WORSE. The racist saying was actually a SLAM POEM that Madam Morrable performs in front of the class, and Our GOAT gets UNALIVED in his Laboratory in an explosion. The GALinda name change happens AT HIS FUNERAL. An early version of the play has the funeral scene with a reprise of “Dear old Shiz” before they changed it up.
Regarding Elphaba's greenness, I wanna point out that green skin is a historically common canard for depicting Jews. Jews are often assosciated with reptiles and accused of being non-human, which often resulted in Jews with green skin in antisemitic art. As a result, Elphaba's green skin works as a strong allusion to that history. (Although since it was pulled straight from Wizard of Oz, I imagine it was originally played straight, the way a lot of antisemitism is.)
7:00 PLEASEEEEE goth and alt cultures are EXTREMELY gatekept to lighter skintones, especially amongst fems (this is speaking as a black masc leaning enby, take with GOS i wear cargo pants for gender not a skirt) i hate that i align with goth/alt culture sometimes because it is so white sometimes istg
I just saw a reel the other day celebrating Black goths and decrying the gatekeeping by white goths. The number of comments saying "no one is say Black people can't be goth" was outrageous. Where have you all been? It's been there the whole time. The gothest person in my real life is Hispanic and he gets a lot of flack for being goth and having a darker skin tone
As a white alt-nerd... it always surprises me when folks i see as part of my "in-group" say or do racist shit. It happens all the time and I'm still like, "nonono... The dominant culture is racist... so you CANNOT be counter culture and not be challenging your own racism."
@@seanrshivers Lots of “counterculture” people seem to think racism is over and “wokeness” is the norm and thus racism is counterculture. I guess because mainstream news and movies have black people in them now, and some people on the internet post about hating white people? It’s very surface level.
I remember going to see Wicked at 16 and thinking Elphaba was basically black. And I remember when they had a black Glinda, once, and I was so excited because I wanted to see how the dynamic shifted. I never got to see that show, unfortunately, but I really wish I had. Fieyro being South Asian coded in the books makes their connection in the show make so much more sense now. I wish they'd done that in the film. As a non-US person, it's interesting to see how people are perceiving this film through the lens of the electoral race. Thanks for having the thoughts :)
Thank you!!! I never hear anyone talk about Judaism in respect to the witch trials and the "invisible" antisemitism that exist in everyday society. And during Hannukah it's so deeply appreciated Thank you Princess Weekes
There's a kinda spicy fiction novel called The Witch Of Cologne by Tobsha Learner that delves into this. It's not a fluffy ending one and gets pretty violently graphic in parts but the protagonist is a Jewish midwife iirc, in the 1600s. It was years ago that I read it so I'm forgetting a lot of the plot but here's the synopsis "The story of Ruth bas Elazar Saul, a Jewish midwife who returns to her home, outside Cologne. Imbued with the radical ideas of Spinoza and with ancient Hebrew Kabbalism, her methods of dealing with illness lead to accusation of witchcraft and imprisonment. From the author of Quiver, this is a love story of the 17th century."
My own impression is that Fiyero in the film is culturally different from the rest of Oz's residents as a Winkie (yes, Gregory Maguire book people, it's not a racial slur within the film canon). He may be high status and therefore respected by everyone else but as someone from another country he lacks any knowledge of the prejudices people in the rest of Oz share and therefore isn't bound by them even if his privilege benefits him. Also his high status means he doesn't have to care about social conventions or hierarchies because everyone respects him anyway. The scene that spells it out is when he first meets Elphaba and is confused by why she keeps having to explain herself.
That’s something that i miss in the film: how politically charged the book is. It establishes from the beginning how beaten down the Munchkinlanders and the Vinkus (“Winkies” if you hate them) are. How little their lands and people matter to the Emerald City. It establishes the baseline of the loathing some people have for talking animals. The film was amazing, but i to feel it needs more time. I hope they do flashbacks in part 2. We need to see the Clock of the Time Dragon!
@@Salamander_fallsI was really hoping with the inflated length of the movie compared to the show and the promise that they were going to use more of the book that we were going to see more of the racism from the books. At most we got a few jokes about Boq being short and a Munchkin. But because of the way the musical decided that Fieryo was a bad boy, we couldn't use the racism against his people at all
@Salamander_falls the time dragons clock shows up in a scene at the end of Popular. i missed it and only know about it after Wicked-Tok pointed it out haha.
@@Salamander_falls When Elphaba first gets to Shiz and sends everything flying, a carving of the Wizard is shattered and when it falls there's a painting of an animal in robes revealed behind it (I would guess a former ruler or maybe head/founder of the school). They took care to make that a specific, clear shot, so I would expect that's something that's going to be called back to and developed.
One thing I think is important about Glinda's character is that I see her as a lesbian. I think a lot of her relationship with Fiyero is pretty superficial "I'm perfect, you're perfect, so we're perfect together." They don't actually like each other - they like the *idea* of each other. Elphaba is the first person to actually see Glinda as a person, so that's who she winds up falling for. She really does consider throwing it all away and going with Elphaba, and that's when she truly seems happiest. But she can't bring herself to do that, by not going with Elphaba she returns to the closet. In Act 2 (spoilers) - Glinda marries Fiyero and is a respected sorceror, she has everything she wanted, she should be happy. But she isn't. She's miserable bc she's a closeted lesbian. I think that misery and regret in not being able to go with Elphaba comes from her denying her own happiness to be able to pursue what she *should* want and what's expected of her. Good video!
@@adorabell4253this comment misspoke. They don’t get married. Rather they are in a relationship that is essentially a sham because Fiyero doesn’t agree with how Elphaba is demonized and he spends all his time trying to find her. At most, he is ambushed into fiancé status he does not agree with and then rebels against it.
11:30 It wasn't just because she was choosing fear and the status quo over solidarity with Elphaba, but that she was also betraying the woman she loved. The book - and then later the author himself - makes it clear that there's more than friendship between them, and that Glinda was in the process of getting dragged into being a better person because of that relationship. (I'm going out on a limb here because my primary experience/engagement with Wicked has been through gay women like myself seeing the Shiz years as a tragic, almost romance that failed due to societal pressure and Glinda's ethical shortcomings)
I rmb watching the movie and when they started singing the opening lines for how they felt when they loathed each other i was like wait wait wait bc it sounded like when u get a crush *What is this feeling* *So sudden and new?* *I felt the moment* *I laid eyes on you* *My pulse is rushing* *My head is reeling* *Yeah, well, my face is flushing* *What is this feeling?* *Fervid as a flame* *Does it have a name?* Like it’s such a classic trope where the character feels something unfamiliar and it’s a attraction, and it’s also often paired with them mistaking it for hatred. I get them as completely platonic and i still love it, but also I was disappointed when it wasn’t blatantly romantic. Knowing this makes me feel so much better as a bi girl
15:56 "Kamala maps to Glinda" THANK YOU. I am very political and it kills me that people think she is some kind of revolutionary. She isnt! Harris is the personification of pulling up the ladder behind you.
I think the queer lens of Alfaba and Glinda also fits so well. Alfaba has intersectional politics and understands that queerness while important is secondary to the plight of the animals and herself. White queer women are often not willing to give up their privilege or align themselves with the POC community / specifically the POC queer community outside of the one they love.
Casting Cynthia Erivo and Marissa Bode did two interesting things. Firstly, it recontextualized Elphaba's secret that she tells Glinda. In case you don't know, when Mrs. Thropp got pregnant with Nessa, Governor Thropp feared having another green (code for dark skinned) child, so he forced the mother to eat MILKFLOWERS the whole pregnancy hoping Nessa would be fair skinned. Nessa ended up a premature baby, and Mrs. Thropp was comatose. This storyline also adds to Princess's point on colorism and white supremacy. Secondly, it referenced a racial fear that a light skinned woman and a white man could have a dark skinned child. I didn't realize this existed until Megan Markle was asked if Archie would be dark skinned, which is crazy because she's a light skinned biracial and Harry is white. I'm not saying that can never happen, I'm just saying I've never seen it. While I think this was an unintentional and accidental reference, it also supports the greater examples of anti Blackness.
11:20 I mean, I partially disagree on this part in regards to the people who think it's a reach. I don't think it's stupidity in their case; I think it's dishonesty. It doesn't matter how obvious and on the nose you make something, they'll _always_ claim it's a reach when anyone points it out because they're just completely against ever analysing media in any meaningful way. They're the type of people who will die on the hill of "Art is just entertainment" while ignoring the long history of art being made as an overt statement.
The book way more interesting, with a lot more to think over. It has many more examples of the emperors tyranny, and it has a lot more to say about the morals of religion, class, race (Quadlings, Munchkins, Winkies, etc.) I highly recommend, despite some odd additions in the book. In the book, the wizard is more trumpian, as he ethnically cleanses minority groups for resources and the purpose of scapegoating. Elphaba is less black-and-white in the book, she is not innately magical and the portrayal of her life is more realistic. The book explores the aspects of how the wizard is a colonizer and is shaping Oz to more align with America.
It was REALLY important to Maguire to show how the Wizard's use of populism and propaganda quietly and quickly lead to fascism! With the way the world is, I wish they'd leaned into that with the film, despite the fact the musical just didn't
@TheseVioletDelites right, the musical softens a lot of story beats. Also, I'd never seen it before, but I loved the music and the books. So I didn't realize they don't kill Dillamond in the musical, and I'm curious as to if Elphaba tries to assassinate Morrible still in the second act?
Yessssss perfect teamup! About the history: A lot of trials for witchcraft and/or heresy were also just explicitly the Inquisition looking for Jews and Muslims in territories they had been expelled and banned from.
Technically untrue. The Inquisition looked into the affairs of Moriscos and Conversos, people from Jewish or Muslim families who had converted to Catholicism and were thought to have relapsed to their old faith. The Inquisition only had jurisdiction over Catholics. It didn't go after Jews or Muslims because they weren't members of the Church. Very few people (men and women - it was mostly men in Eastern Europe and Russia) were condemned to death for witchcraft in Catholic countries. That mostly occurred in Protestant areas of Europe and the English colonies
@@WhiteChocolate74 It was not mostly Eastern Europe, for one because they weren't Catholic for the most part. The witch trials were much smaller there. One of the worst places for them was actually Scotland, a Catholic country. The German countries were also pretty bad.
@adorabell4253 sorry, my wording on the witch trials was imprecise. I didn't mean to say that most witch trials in Europe occurred in Eastern Europe and involved men. What I meant to say was that of the witch trials that occurred in Eastern Europe and Russia, most of those prosecuted were men. Catholicism used to have a much more easterly extent than it does now, but yes, I'm aware most of Eastern Europe is Orthodox.
When I saw wicked there was a group of white women sitting in front of us who started applauding when Glinda changed her name which my sibling who was with me and I talked afterward about how that moment was such an obvious joke about performative allyship that we couldn’t believe anyone missed that but hey gotta love the Midwest
As someone who has been obsessed with this show on and off since middle school, I always believed in my heart that Elphaba should be played by a black woman. I believe because I was a black girl in a lot of majority white spaces, the politics of the show were glaring for me. I couldn’t help thinking, imagine if you had a black woman out here belting, “No wizard that there is or was is ever going to bring me down!” Watching it on screen was a very emotional experience for me. She’s done making herself small. She’s done submitting. Even if she’s by herself, at least she’s free.
“It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed”. Glinda knows EXACTLY what’s up. She sees herself in Oz. Defeating someone like Oz would force her to come to terms with her own mediocrity in the face of Elpheba’s real power and talent.
I would argue that Glinda never was an ally to Elphaba. Every decision Glinda made up to the end was to her own advantage. Which is also an add to the racial dynamics in the movie. White allyship is often to their own vanity, which I feel like Glinda is a perfect portrayal of!
I believe I heard somewhere that Stephen Schwartz said Wicked was about a Jewish girl going to a boarding school, which feels pretty 1-to-1 with what you're getting at for a man of his generation. Given that Jews are a lot more assimilated now than in his generation, the shift to more predominantly Black Elphabas feels very appropriate. It's like that scene where Idina "hands-off" the role to Cynthia, which I read as recognition that there's now going to be an "official" Elphaba for a new generation of fans.
18:48 I appreciate you acknowledging the origins of the swirl romance stories in the fantasy space because a lot of them do come from a deep, unhealed place.
I love how overt the movie was with glinda's white feminist failures. when I went to the theater with my best friend, every misguided glinda quote had us looking over to each other. every liberal arts college student class memory hit us like a ton of bricks
I just finished the book. One of the characters poked fun at Fiyero stating "Who would want skin the color of shit" so I do believe his skin is brown. However, he does have blue diamonds attached to his skin.
@TheseVioletDelites Correct. But yeah one of the kids in college made the comment about his skin. So I was just saying his skin wasn't blue. There was a typo in my OG comment
So like this could just be me being white and overly naive, but when you said the only unrealistic part to you was Glinda's regret, I personally had a different take. I don't think she regrets it from a political perspective, because politically her betrayal of Elphaba has done nothing but benefit her. But you gotta remember that more than just political actors/allies, these two were also best friends. And it's implied that Elphaba is a far more genuine friend to Glinda than most because she doesn't just like Glinda because she's popular and pretty, instead liking her for who she really is. So imo that is where the regret is coming from, not because she betrayed her political ally to cop to fascism, but because she turned on her only real friend.
Came over from Nebula just to say that I'm SO excited to see FD Signifier and Princess Weekes collaborating and I really really hope to see them work together again 😍😍😍
2:34 things that irk book fans about the musical is that there was a TON of racism in the books, but it could not be touched on in the musical format, there just wasnt space. The most the musical showed was absolutely the prejudice against Elphaba and some against Munchkins. In the book, Elphabe and her sister were both the product of affairs; Elphaba was green because of a green elixir used to r@pe her mother, Nessarose was pink skinned because HER father (from a race where different skin colors were normal) was pink. Fieryo was one of the only characters who's skin was mentioned to be dark or "ochre" colored (with diamonds painted on his body) and he was seen as coming from a more savage and primitive people. All of that was scrubbed to simplify the story and focus just on the prejudice against Elphaba and the Animals I dont really have a larger point to make here but i find a big irony in the racism displayed by the public when Erivo was cast, and how the music plays with a sort of alluded to racism or prejudice agains Elphaba vs how the book absolutely deals with racism.
two of my faves together! i’m not black, but a non black poc. it’s so different when elphaba is played by a black woman. i watched the musical 3 different times, and every time, it was almost an entirely white cast, with all the named parts played by white people. and i just couldn’t connect with it as much since it seemed so weird to have a musical with themes about racial minorities and othering, but then no poc. it was kinda like yeah yeah, i know that’s a white woman in there and it’s kinda feeling like when white peoples invent fantastical creatures or situations so they can act out the experiences of racism 🙄. so this movie was the first time i really connected to it, and it was mainly cause of cynthia’s performance. i’m not saying i connect to it on the same level as black people, but i am saying that this adaptation and cynthia’s performance is way above any white person playing elphaba for me.
@@kevinwillems8720 they really watered down and changed the Professor's role in the musical and therefore the movie. He wasn't doing anything in this iteration what WOULD get him murdered. He's a history teacher rather than a biologist and researcher. I think it wouldn't have worked to assassinate him in the movie even if they did in the book, and the musical fans would have been SO mad
"Fiyero is boring" Well, in terms of looking at the movie with race in mind, maybe...? But he is a depressed and opressed privileged person, masking how he hates the opression around him with flamboyance. His story is about finding Elphaba and how she inspires him to start acting against the system.
Weirdly enough I argued the same thing on Princess' discord, but I think there is a bit of complexity to Glinda. When we first meet her in the movie, she doesn't immediately ostracize Elphaba, she condescendingly offers to cure Elphaba's greeness; and though this is something Elphaba does want as seen in "The Wizard and I" she clocks the condesencion and calls out Galinda for her shallowness and reads her in front of everyone. This is a large reason why Galinda loathes Elphaba, not because of her skin but because she doesn't immediately fawn over Galinda and see her as perfection and she hates it (we do get more of this shallow help in "Popular" but there is some sense that she genuinely wants to help Elphaba and sees her as beautiful). Galinda has a pathological need to be liked and when Elphaba doesn't stroke her ego, she lashes out at her. Then we get to the Ozdust ballroom where Galinda gets her wand and sorcery lessons from Ms. Morrible, because of Elphaba. Galinda sees Elphaba did something truly nice and though she risks looking foolish and her friends tell her not to, she dances with Elphaba. She puts aside her ego and need to be liked to stand with someone who she hurt and show kindness to someone, even though it is socially taboo. She's given this choice again in "Defying Gravity" and while she loves and cares for Elphaba, she still has yet to fully get over her need to be liked. Elphaba can handle being a pariah, because she already was one, but Galinda can't handle that isolation. She passed the midterm at Ozdust, but failed in the final Exam at "Defying Gravity" . She isn't perfect and very bad at allyship, but she is capable of it. Also, one thing Princess did get wrong is that Fiyero in the book, isn't blue. He has ochre or amber skin and has blue diamonds painted onto his skin. He and the winkies are very indigineoud coded (now which indigenous group they could be applied to, is vague, given that they are in tribes and they have chiefs. But some are stationary like the Arjikis which is Fiyero's tribe and others are nomadic). There is an argument for them being indigineous Americans given Winkie country is this large Western country the Wizard and other political entities seek to control.
I love many creators who contribute to Nebula, but YOU are the creator who pushes me more than any of them to go utilize my subscription. They owe you big time!
There's a lot of bad, ahistorical sort of pop-feminism takes on women and Jewish people in the discourse and history of witches. I wish you luck! 🫡 I believe Abby Cox touches on Jewish associations in her video on the history of the witch hat
The reading where Elphie is a racialized other is definitely the strongest. In the stage musical I also found parallels in the disabled experience (specifically from an autistic perspective). I think the two are very compatible - that Elphie can be both, and the response to her is both highly racialized and also inflected by ableism, as so often is the case. Both things are strongly reflected in the relationship between her and Nessa Rose - in addition to what you expressed, where Nessa Rose is the light-skinned sister with a looser curl pattern, she's also visibly disabled in a recognizable way and treated with patronizing pity by those around her, which is a very double-edged sword as we see later; with Elphie, there's much more pronounced emotional neglect, and while the people around her can see that Something Is Wrong With Her, they don't see her as disabled and therefore easily classified and pitiable, they see her as... ugly, weird, and obnoxious. (This is a both/and thing - undiagnosed neurodivergence in racially marginalized women is even more likely to be interpreted this way than in white women.) A lot of what Elphie goes through at Shiz is very classic Autistic Childhood Trauma.
So Fiyero in the books is described as Ochre, which was likely meant to mean his skin was yellow because Winkie country is associated with yellow. Kind of like how Turtleheart was red because he came from Quadling country. But Ochre the mineral has a shade range of yellow to a rich medium earthy brown, meaning he could literally be a whole range of POC due to that ambiguity but he was for certain at least coded to be one regardless. His skin was only decorated in painted on blue diamonds at aesthetic choice.
He's also described as "dark". Like you said ochre is also a reddish-brown color so I think that is the direction the author went rather than the yellow color
I’ve loved Cynthia Erivo ever since I saw her in Bad Times at the El Royale in 2018. When she was cast as Elphaba, I was so excited, and she didn’t disappoint one bit. Cynthia brining Elphaba to life on the big screen really resonated deeply with me. Even though the only part of identity Cynthia and I share is queerness, casting a queer black woman to play Elphaba makes so many marginalized people feel seen. She’s an inspirational character, played perfectly by an astounding actor.
I love the changes they made for the movie with a black lead. I really love this video and appreciate someone breaking the musical down and really emphasizing how powerful this story is with Cynthia.
I really appreciate the way you took time in this video to talk about the significance of Elphaba's Jewish coding! It's frequently overlooked in these discussions.
As somebody that grew up as a kid with the ultimate universe comics, Nick Fury has been black since like 2003 and his look was heavily inspired by Sam Jackson. Which, according to rumor, made it easier for him to get the part. Like, there's literally a panel in the comic where he says Samuel Jackson should play him in a movie. The character ended up moving over into the main universe at the same time Miles Morales did
God I love Princess as a commentator, my whole face lit up when she popped into this video. I really appreciated her points around the sort of deeper character backstory of Wicked and I'm also feeling cautiously optimistic about the part II. I'm particularly interested to see how they handle disability - the stage musical dealt with race mostly in subtext and metaphor but Nessa's character arc was explicitly about disability and also deeply ableist. The film already added some dialogue and conflict around the ableism Nessa as a character experienced, so I'm hopeful that the film will do a lot better on that front.
I had a mild fight with my husband because I said I didn't see how Elphaba could remain so friendly with Glinda after Glinda showed herself to be a willing fascist collaborator at the end of the film. He tried to argue that Glinda doesn't know what's going on, so it's not fair to call her a fascist, but I think her naivete is the point of the criticism the story makes against her.
I just found out about the books too. Apparently the green skin actually comes from a roofie that her mom was sliped that led to the pregnancy. Apparently she also had sharp shark like teeth.
They didn't is the thing. And when SLJ found out he basically used that as leverage to be casted for every MCU movie. That's why he gets a speaking role in every single one of those movies since Iron Man
The 'Barbara Howard' jokes are killing me. I love that you can figure it out and edit the video to make it appear to the viewers that you know what you're talking about but you rather turn it into a Baraba Howard joke.
18:50 i just got in a fight with a crappy content creator tryna go to bat for the story of James Cameron's avatar and this hit me hard. Dude would NOT confront the white savior colonizer parts of that story and just decided to insult me in the comments lol absolutely wild that this touched on that
Jack Saint put out a video FIVE YEARS AGO talking about how Avatar is white savorism, comparing it to Dances With Wolves. He's not the only one to do so, obviously, but he's the largest creator I know of who has. Its so difficult to argue with people who refuse to see it
@TheseVioletDelites it is truly wild. The creator is "the barking years" and his whole defense of avatar could be summed up as "I liked it and everything is derivative so it's actually good." I wasn't even mean in my original comments but he's so thinned skin he completely broke down over it and just started yelling insults. Sad stuff. Edit: he even had a few good points but his attitude is dog sh11t and he can't even take a compliment 😂
@@strayiggytv I love Avatar and Avatar 2. But how do you not acknowledge it is using the white savior trope haha? Like --- acknowledging that isn't saying that Jake is a bad person in the story, it's just understanding the tropes underlying the narrative at play. Thats such a wild hill to die on.
@SamIAm-p5r thing is there nothing wrong with liking those movies. I think the stories are bland and tropey but I will not deny they have had a pretty big impact to visual media. I just don't think that anyone can argue that the story is the strong point of avatar. Like yeah a lot of people criticise the movies in a dumb way but there's a ton of valid criticism surrounding them too and just going "nah you guys are all wrong it's a great movie" without addressing those criticism struck me as disingenuous. Plus he called me a "redditor" for disagreeing with him and calling it space Pocahontas so there's that 😆
@strayiggytv IMO that's where *a lot* of pushback comes from when there is any critique of media. I realized a while ago I have the same gut reaction as I suspect that guy and others have where it's almost this sense that "woah if I agree with this criticism of the thing I like, I am not allowed to enjoy the thing I like and all my memories of it are stolen from me forever." And that really hurts good discourse. It took me a long time to get over that automatic reaction or even realize I had it --- I remember falling in love with the Hamilton play and refusing to watch FD's video on it for probably a year purely over the title. And then watching the video and going "oh. This is really good media analysis. And my gut reaction was totally irrational and nobody's trying to reach into my brain and wipe away memories of media I've enjoyed." Definitely agree on the story bit, I thoroughly enjoyed the narratives but the highpoint of the films are 100% the visuals.
Just want to mention:
Brandi Chavonne Massey
Saycon Sengbloh
Dan’yelle Williamson
Alexia Khadime
All are Black women that portrayed Elphaba on Broadway before Cynthia Erivo did (no shade to her ability). They all have sound bite clips on TH-cam. I mention them here because these women deserve the recognition Broadway wouldn’t give them.
Brandi, Saycon, and Dan'yelle especially don't get enough credit because they were understudies, while Alexia was a full-time! I've even seen articles saying Erivo is the "second" Black woman to play Elphaba -_-
This!!
I feel like this needs more attention
I like Cynthia the best, the Broadway versions all have this screechy voice.
@@annmariebusu9924 that's probably from the expectation to uphold Idina's original pitch and tone! Meanwhile, Cynthia Erivo was given the space to make Elphaba entirely her own & find her sound
Galinda changing her name to "Glinda" in the most performative manner possible was the most Nancy Pelosi wearing kente cloth thing ever.
When elphaba felt like she had to explain her “green-ness” I felt that as a black women. Bc yes I take bath, no I can’t wash the blackness off, yes I wash my hair, no I don’t redo my braids everyday…etc.
i need to know who asked you if you could wash it off 😭😭
Yes, I had to explain the whole hair washing thing when I was in the field in the military. Super annoying.
@@TrixieMattel3.1415I should point you to South Korean soap commercials.
if you had to do your braids every day i don't think you'd have time left to sleep lmao
@@adey126 And pretty much all of Asia :/
Speaking as a white person, I think Glinda's visible conflict serves a purpose for the white audience. Her words, actions, and endorsement remain a crucial part of the wizard's propaganda machine, and she remains complacent in it for her own benefit and protection. She stays on the side she picked, and her impact reflects that. But as the audience, we are shown that this is _not_ an unadulterated good for her either-- that her betrayal of Elphaba has given her power and influence, but it still leaves her beholden to a cruel machine that does not care about her happiness or wellbeing. It acknowledges both the real material benefits of being a class traitor as well as undercutting any arguments that Glinda made the "right" choice in any capacity. A real life person would not have that kind of regret and remorse, would not ever show any doubt they might experience, but Glinda-the-character _must_ show that disquiet so that the white audience _feels_ the negative consequences of sucking up to power for personal gain.
It's also worth noting Glinda's most transparent scenes of doubt (at least as far as I recall) exclusively occur when Elphaba is not present. Elphaba's experience of Glinda does not include Glinda's doubt. Glinda never apologizes to Elphaba or expresses remorse or regret. Glinda's unhappiness and doubt are a private thing she never admits to anyone, and refuses to act on.
Agree absolutely that the conflict on her face is def mostly for expressing the theme to the audience-at the end of the day characters are written to tell a story, not to show how most people would “realistically” behave.
However, I do think a real life person (obviously not everyone, but some people) could feel some level of regret and conflict about it tho. With all that happens in Act 2 (seeing the full extent of what Morrible and the Wizard will do, which was literally only like 10 minutes ago for Glinda in “No One Mourns the Wicked”), I don’t think she can possibly get out of there without having some kind of thoughts and remorse about how she handled it all.
But beyond that, even interpreting Glinda as a purely selfish person, one of her biggest drives is that she still wants to ~feel~ like a good person. We see her mostly satisfying this by soaking in the validation from people who tell her she is one-and she gets a lot more of that by sticking with the Wizard. But at the same time, Glinda fully believes that Elphaba, who at one point was her best friend, ~is~ a ~genuinely~ good person (evident by Defying Gravity and For Good). People might still be telling Glinda she’s the “good witch,” but she knows she stood against the one person she felt was truly “good,” and had helped the people who took her down (as far as they know). So even if you’re still viewing Glinda as a purely selfish person, she’s at least feeling conflict from the knowledge that no matter how many people are telling her she’s good, she no longer ~feels~ like she is.
Ofc actions speak louder than words, and much louder than inner conflict you don’t express as words, but I honestly think even a shitty person might feel inner conflict about their actions-they just shove it down enough to justify it out loud.
I disagree, on one thing
the whole final song "Because I Knew you" was both Elphaba and Glenda apologizing to each other and making amends
That was the point of the song, their closure before parting ways...
@laurenl9364 I've always wondered why some people seem to have it all but is seemingly so unhappy, I think it's because of what is mentioned here, not being truthful themselves and other because they are afraid of what they can possibly lose...not aware of what they can gain, innerpace❤
@@laurenl9364I think there’s a difference btwn ‘feeling like a good person’ and ‘looking like a good person’ and I think Glenda’s motivation is being thought of as good over actually being good or feeling like she’s good. Glinda is an example of the ytness imperative to be seen as good without having the difficult work of taking a moral stand
@@lanasartlife Fair for sure, I definitely think there’s a difference between “being” vs “feeling” vs “looking” good. I’d argue that most people who want to “look” good also eventually want to “feel” good too (again not everyone, plenty of people are fantastic at self-delusion and perfectly fine with staying that way), but whether or not that’s Glinda is ofc up to interpretation. It could also be that she originally only cares about “looking” good, but through her character development (more in Act 2 than Act 1 imo), she starts to care more about “feeling” like she’s good instead of just looking like it. And the purpose of that development in the story is pretty much what the original commenter described, I was just arguing it’s not an unrealistic development for a real person to experience too.
ooohawwwwwww lol,
thank you for having me on xxx Black witchy vibes 5ever .
Queen
immediate sub. youre awesome
Thank you for your Black witchy vibes and your stellar contributions to this video
my goat
RELEASE THE AMVS!!!! pretty please xp
One of your Jewish listeners here. I loved the time put aside to address that the notions of witchcraft in America include the remnants of antisemitic tropes.
Medieval and early modern stories also commonly included Jewish women in the role of a seductress, tempting the pious Christian character away from their duties and to a life of sin and witchcraft.
Just as commonly as them being rebuked was them being "fixed" by the christian protagonist, usually by accepting Jesus and rejecting their Jewish identity. See Ivanhoe and the Merchant of Venice.
I accepted the Holy Trinity as my God. I’m incredibly thankful for my Jewish ancestors from 2,000+ years ago. I love that Christians and Jews get along so well these days.
Interesting
Also Jewish and never knew this
@@maritimeus Christians seem to get along with Zionists, not Jews :/
Didn't want to be "that guy" but Nick Fury was interpreted as a black man in the Ultimate Spider-Man series which began publishing in 2000. It's an alternate universe and the Nick Fury in that series was clearly inspired by Samuel L Jackson so his casting had precedence within the comics.
IIRC, I think they asked Samuel L Jackson for permission to use his likeness and he agreed as long as he got to play him in live action.
Beat me to it. I was about to go full 'that guy' 😂
It's funny, I was LITERALLY thinking about that like an hour ago because of the Disney Spider-Man cartoon series race swapping Norman Osborne and how that works imo because of him canonically having the best waves in comics 🤣
Forreal. On top of that the 616 black nick fury is the son of the original nick fury, aka nick fury jr.
@@nathanaellazaro3347 no actually he said in an interview that he saw the picture and he was like yo that's me and he had never been asked to use his likeness. Because it wasn't really him it was just you know it looked like him. You can hear what he says don't take my word for it.
"Let's over-analyze some shit"
Love it when you speak my love language 😂
someone needs to put that on a hoodie please
I clicked on it just cus I love FD but frankly I wasn’t pumped about it until this line
That had such Lance Reddick on the Eric Andre show energy 😂😂😂
As someone who hyperfixates on special interest, over-analyzing is definitely my first language. English is my second, Gullah is my third. Yes in that order 😂
I had this video on the background and when I heard that I had to lock in😂
I live in Salem and you wouldn’t (but for real probably would) believe how many people come here for the kitsch without realizing one of the main accused was Tituba, a slave woman who confessed to practicing witchcraft after being beaten during questioning. That doesn’t sell felt witch hats tho so it doesn’t get as much airplay as Hocus Pocus around here.
Thank you so much for sharing! I'm from Western Mass and I've never been to Salem myself because that whole "daughter's of the witches you couldn't burn" song and dance never sat well with me.
*enslaved person. This is the preferred term that historians use when referring to enslaved people, since “slave” makes it sound like this just default.
Also The Salem Witch Trials are often framed historically as an issue of men violating women, and as you pointed out, there’s often and underemphasis of the racism that was very important to this historic event. Basically a white girl who was the daughter of a pastor, was accused of being possessed, blamed Tituba, a black woman enslaved by her family, for her possession, which led to her being murdered. Very dark and sad history.
@@osimiri7111 I agree, but I have to point out that Tituba survived the Salem witch panic. Her confession and cooperation as a witness, although brutally forced, probably ended up saving her life. Honestly, I think she quickly realized that was her only option in order to survive. She knew full well that she didn't live in a just society. She knew the extreme prejudice against her as a Native, enslaved woman meant she was declared guilty the moment the accusation was made. The other accused likely thought that they'd be okay if only they told the truth. Tituba knew better.
@@jfm14 I wish this deep analysis was understood by more people instead of the quirky aesthetic it tends to fall into.
I'm about halfway through this but there's a video I saw earlier where the creator was saying the reason Glinda wasn't as shocked and taken aback by the discovery of the wizard was that it made sense to her "Did they have brains or knowledge? [...] they were popular!" It wasn't a huge stretch in her mind that he was just a charismatic opportunist
Ooh that's a really interesting take!
“When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features, I remind them on their own behalf to think of celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators. Did have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh! They were popular. Please, it’s all about popular. It’s not about aptitude; it’s the way you’re viewed so it’s very shrewd to be very, very popular…like me.”
when you start listening to the lyrics as dialogue it all falls into place 🙌🏼
unc is wise pulling in any fandom's most dedicated thinkers, the AMV makers
Pulling that out was such an efficient way to state her bonafides cuz you know if she's on that she's also on the Tumblr fan sites and doing the sing-alongs and all the other much less demanding types of stuff
SO REAL. AMV makers make whole arguments, essays, and actual whole spinoffs of what they’re making amvs of sometimes it’s crazy. And sometimes it’s just light fun but it’s always a banger.
@@Mighty_Atheismo oh yeah no, cuz its never anywhere OTHER than the gyat dayum AMV comment sections and tumblr fanpages where i see people discussing every goddamn Legend of Korra character like the characters are running for fucking office
weaker versions of me shat on that sure... but that kind of love could power california
Truly the backbone of fandom art
U hell
Lol "overly tanned history"
😂😂😂😂
i screamed
But also becoming more white coded for this role. She’s an interesting human lol
Funnily enough, years before this movie I read a Wicked fanfic where when Elphaba gets transported to Kansas, her appearance outside the magic of Oz is that of a black woman.
Why am I getting déjà-vu
@ It’s called The Coven of Oz, if you wish to peruse it yourself
@@MadcapredcapI was about to ask for the title thank you!
Thank you for the title.
Is it set in modern day or early 20th century kansas like in the books?
One of the most important lines in the entire movie, to me, comes at the end when Elphaba sings (of wanting to be with the Wizard): "I don't want it. No, I CAN'T want it, anymore"...that "Can't" was everything to me.
I’ve literally been thinking about this line all day. She can’t want her own happiness now that she knows it’s only at the expense of others. Elphaba takes community solidarity SERIOUS
Interesting point.
Yes FD, more black witchy girls. I- I mean, WE need more black goth girls. For the culture, type shi
I have seen like two in real life and both were fucking gorgeous.
FD wants his sons to have opportunities he was denied as a young man.
@NoodleMcGee what a rubbish thing to say
untowardly, of course. but also towardly
for me too please
I just want to add to the conversation that Elphaba in the original book was written to be a commentary on antisemitism (since the whole concept of a “wicked witch” is steeped in antisemitism) and so having Jewish actresses play her it’s important and why Jewish actresses tend to be cast in the role on broadway. That said, as a Jewish person myself, I am thrilled to see her being portrayed as visibly black in the movie as she as a symbol has always meant so much to so many minority groups, including and especially black people. One of my best friends is over the moon to have an elphaba that speaks to her, and Cynthia Erivo killed it in this role, and I really hope this opens up casting directors eyes and this leads to more diverse casting going forward on broadway!
With the shows other casting issues with Fiyero and Glinda I think it’s more than that
I really appreciated you guys taking some time to discuss the centuries of violent antisemitism that underlie the “witch” archetype. Like Princess Weekes said, this is something that is overlooked nearly 100% of the time in modern discourse (at least, modern American discourse) on witches in popular media, including with Wicked. It’s important for people to know this history, not only so we can be an educated and compassionate society with an understanding of the oppression faced by minority groups, but *also* because that foundation is needed so we can fully understand how the movie is using “the Witch” as a symbol of anti-Black racism. Without that background we can’t get a full picture of what the symbol means - a symbol of the oppression faced by minority groups in countless forms across countless cultures and time periods, a history of (primarily) societally disadvantaged women being targeted and persecuted.
This feels extremely similar to the origins of Cyberpunk that the majority of cyberpunk fans dont understand as a metaphor for anti-japanese xenophobia because for a tiny brief window in the 70s-80s Japan looked on track to surpass the US in market output and so authors of the time imaged dirty cities filled with asian people that looked like a fucked up version of Tokyo combined with people's fears of inner city life. Blade Runner only looks the way it does because people didnt want to live in "squalid cramped cities with colored people" like "The japanese" Blade runner only needed to be more on the nose by making all the CEOs asian, but hollywood of that time was still ultra-racist and didnt employee many asian people outside of hilariously out of date chinese stereotypes.
Maybe I interpreted this love triangle differently but I don't view Elphaba and Glinda as "fighting for attention from a white man". I think that in all honesty with Fiyero being white and into Elphaba (on his own accord mind you) that adds more layers in different ways compared to if Fiyero weren't white. Here me out but I think that when we get to the part of the movie where Fiyero (essentially) falls for Elphaba, Glinda turns into the textbook white woman who can't believe that a white man that she's doting on, falls head over heels for someone who doesn't fit the beauty standard and therefore doesn't deserve to be fawned over (Elphaba) by someone who does (Fiyero).
I mean Glinda literally is either in denial about Fiyero being into Elphaba or can't see or come to the conclusion that he is. Not to mention, I never got the impression that Fiyero was actually INTO Glinda but rather the popular kids/celebrties dating clout and image that Glinda can provide for him. One final thing is that Elphaba can't really fight for someone when she doesn't believe that she deserves that someone in the first place. Literally her "I'm Not That Girl" song is pretty much JUST about that and after the song Elphaba subsequently puts a pin in chasing what desire she has for Fiyero down.
Pretty much all of this subtext that again, I personally interpreted but could have been seen through many different lenses, don't scream fighting over a white man. It really (again to me) reads as another layer of white femininity that doesn't get explored much? Basically the reactions that dark skin Black women get when they are desired by folks who fit the status quo (for better or for worse), particularly the reactions that they receive from white women who are so used to being the white supremacy It Girls (if you will). Regardless I really appreciated y'all's analysis on this ESPECIALLY as a Black femme, I look forward to both of y'all's future videos in general! : )
Yes, this nuance was missed in order to dunk on the swirlers. This happened to FKA Twiggs when she was dating Robert Pattinson, and she’s half white herself.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing.
I think Fiyero being white adds a layer we don’t expect, because why would we right?
People can be exceptionally cruel when a very attractive public figure or popular person is with someone who would be considered the opposite.
It reminds me of Robert Patterson and FKA Twigs who were in a relationship, but because he still in the glow of Twilight and a hot commodity- Twigs got hella racist backlash for being with him. Especially from white girls and women.
I truly believe her song Cellophane was about this, especially the last few lines.
The library scene illustrated how it could have been literally anyone and he accepted the one who pushed herself at him and suited the image he projected
See, I take this in a different direction: Fiyero's character is a lil bit Glinda and a lil bit Elphaba, so by wanting him, they can each want the other. The triangle isn't just an angle, that third side - the side between Elphaba and Glinda themselves - is the operative line. I mean, Pink goes good with Green...but the play was written before queer romance like this could be full on text rather than subtext so you need something that's kind of pink and kind of green (and appropriately hetero) to bridge the two.
@@BabaCorva There are tons of ways to interpret a love triangle like this. I was thinking yesterday that Fiyero is almost like a stand-in for the Ozian public at large in that he's vapid and disengaged on the surface but has the potential to be more than that in the right circumstances. The transformation he undergoes with Elphaba is like a little microcosm of revolution/building revolutionary consciousness itself, while Glinda represents the opposite, counterrevolutionary trajectory. I don't think any of these interpretations are mutually exclusive: they all work depending on where you focus (the Glinda/Elphaba line you mentioned, Elphaba as a fulcrum for what I described here, Fiyero as a fulcrum for some of the discussion earlier in this thread).
I actually think love triangles can be really powerful narrative devices /thematically/ for exactly this reason - they can be so many things at once in a story - but because they're instantly dismissed as an annoying trope, a lot of the effective ones like Wicked's are just overlooked or underanalyzed. Drives me crazy the way people talked about the love triangle in The Hunger Games when it's clear as day that the two boys were standing in for different kinds of resistance and different social futures and Katniss's indecision between them was also her political uncertainty.
I know people said they saw the Wizard as Trump, but I see him as an ineffectual liberal politician who promises you good things but really presides over an evil system.
Honestly I only really works as right wingers in the book since they are way more obvious with their bigotry in the book. The musical and movie have them constantly try to hide the way their society is bigoted, only to make up excuses for it when caught like liberal politicians do
Honestly to me at least it only really works as right wingers if youre talking the book since they are way more obvious with their bigotry in the book. The musical and movie have them constantly try to hide the way their society is bigoted, only to make up excuses for it when caught like liberal politicians do. I know this video isn’t about the book but yeah
Yeah you get it
Also, consider: both are true
Pay no attention to the man behind the blue curtain!
@@Lucifersfursona To a degree I think both are true because the Wizard was originally conceptualized in the musical as a critique of George W. Bush, who represented both “kind hearted” liberalism and conservative politics, while also lying the American public into the Iraq War.
Bro I NEVER REALIZED WITCHES HAVING BIG NOSES WAS A DOG WHISTLE
I’m having a hard time believing that medieval European Christians could ever be remotely subtle with their antisemitism. It’s not as though they had any social sanction against hating Jews - quite the opposite, they were all for it!
Yup. Goblins, dwarves, and trolls too
@@Nortarachanges Dwarves obsessing over gold at least tied back to older mythologies that had no anti-Semitic tropes because the tellers and listeners both probably didn't know what Jews were or why they should care. But that just makes it even more bizarre/sus that Rowling turned the big-nosed money-grubbing race in her books into goblins. By that point, (fantasy) dwarves had been given mainstream dignity through Tolkien and D&D and such. Goblins are still universally viewed as sub-human monsters. Keep the stereotype by moving the goalposts.
Right?!
@@andrewklang809 It's interesting how many evil/negative fairy tale and fantasy tropes can be traced back to medieval stereotypes of Jews. Goblin tropes drew from those stereotypes well before JKR, but she certainly helped to popularize the association for a new generation.
I'm still watching, but regarding the Animals -- maybe because I am NDN, but knowing that the original author of the Wizard of Oz books was intensely anti-Native, wanted our extinction and the completion of Manifest Destiny.... I have always interpreted their inclusion in Wicked as being about us. Here first, but even if educated, still not respected, and ultimately the goal is to force us out of sight.
Baum was definitely very racist in a lot of his writing. I didn't know he was THAT level of racist but I believe it. There's someone in the comments who made a good argument about it being seen as an indigenous allegory as well. I don't know if it fits perfectly, I personally see more of a Jewish allegory because of how heavy the fascism themes are. But you can definitely make a compelling argument for the way the Wizard came in as a colonizer and became subjugating, scapegoating and "dehumanizing" for lack of a better word, the Animals
Maybe its because i grew up during Trumps presidency, but i interpreted the Animals as an allegory for the scapegoating of immigrants. But its interesting to see how this could apply to so many groups of people.
@@TheseVioletDelites Concentration and death camps were inspired by the reservation system, so the two interpretations are strongly interlinked and reasonable in my eyes.
Great point. Also at least the part of the world I am, pretty much all the Tribes have stories about when animals used to talk, and some have stories about how they lost that. So there is a lot of connection there I think.
to add my two cents to this conversation, I saw "Wicked" live while the whole "Don't Say Gay" thing was happening where I live, so I sort of made the connection between the animals and how queer people are targeted in the educational field (not to mention Morrible claiming that Elphaba "mutilated the innocent monkeys!"). but as everyone is saying here, they can be read as an allegory for any marginalized group, and there's certainly intersectional factors at play that illustrate various forms of discrimination.
Wicked has, as far as I understand it, always been a story that asks “who’s wicked?”, concluding that it’s actually Glinda who’s wicked for choosing not to act - choosing to uphold the status quo despite the horrible things happening. She chooses to keep the curtains up and that’s her moral downfall. This is especially evident in the opening number, no-one mourns the wicked, where Glinda is singing not only about Elphaba but herself. “Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” This is the two of them. Elphaba was deemed wicked since birth but Glinda grew into it through her choices. She’s 100% meant to be someone performing goodness without being truly for good.
I don't necessarily agree that the text of the play concludes that Glinda is Wicked. Definitely in the book (along with several other characters). But in the play the conclusion leans more towards Glinda being in the right. She evicts the Wizard and imprisons Madame Morrible at the end of the play. It is also implied that she will be the one to (or at least try to) fix Animal relations and bring them back as they were before.
I do believe that Glinda does view herself as wicked by the end of the play. But I am not sure that the play itself does.
There's a wonderful absurdism to how deeply you have to fry the footage to avoid getting got. Watching Elphaba's head bob in the green void as you're making a fantastic point bout killed me
The downside to the movie & the musical is you lose soooo much of the info from the source material- the actual book, like Elphaba shows up to college having already been radicalized by witnessing the treatment of the Quadlings in Quadling country- the death of Dr.Dillamond (the Goat) is what drives her to leave school to join a faction of revolutionary resistors. Glinda is even worse in the book, she's a "thoughts & prayers" kinda person, she doesn't care about sh*t except marrying a rich husband & wearing gorgeous dresses.
That's what gets me about the book is that it deals *so* much heavier with themes of racial and class discrimination, and the deliberate othering of marginalized groups to create a "perfect" fantasy world through the Wizard, who carries pretty heavy colonizer vibes throughout the whole thing. Glinda's arc in particular is so fascinating to me because she represents the white bystander trope who's elevated to saint status due to her MINIMAL, but good intentioned actions. She's the perfect foil for elphaba in the book.
I can't say if it's good or not, just that those are the themes lol; I read this book back in high-school during my peak theater kid phase and remember being shell shocked at how different it was. I'd definitely need a reread.
Yes I truly hope more and more people read it, and the rest in the series. Yes there’s a series! There is so much more time and attention spent on the racial dynamics, not to mention class, religion, nationalism, inter species power dynamics just for a little spice
The book was a little messy for sure, but packed so full. It would be hard for me to re-read mainly because I didn't realize it was part of a series and I got upset by how many unresolved concepts there were! But it's absolutely a deep dive and I hope if they make more movies, we see more of the depth of that source.
@ haha I totally understand, there is a lot of stuff that drags on throughout books and, within the story, decades, and there are a lot of things that never get resolved as far as I can tell. It goes way past Elphaba’s life and really follows her descendants trying to navigate and survive the world she left behind. Fun fact, Maguire actually has a book coming out this month specifically detailing Elphaba’s childhood! So that will be the first time he has gone back to her life in decades, I’m really excited
@@twilightorchid12I didn't know he was putting out another book!
seeing ariana a few years back versus now is such a violent difference lmao
Please! She went from Blackfishing to East-Asianfishing to whatever she is doing now! Is she ok?!
I saw that clip and said "see, this is why all those racists thought she was cosplaying a white girl" 😂
Violent difference is probably the most accurate description I’ve seen on Ariana’s… transition 😅
4:05 "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards"
I saw this story in real time.
When i was young i had the most beautiful babysitter with a phenomenal voice. We stayed in rhode island, and she was the only blk girl in theater. She wanted to be Dorothy and honestly nobody could compete with her. But they friggin made her "the bad witch". She still out performed everyone else. I never forgot that because it impacted me, i hope somewhere she saw this movie. I hope she is been seen for the talented and gifted woman she is.
Damn now I want you to find her!
EDIT: The tattoos are diamond *shaped*, not actual diamonds in his skin!
In the books, Fierro has brown skin and blue tattoos and blue gems embedded into his skin! Look up book accurate fan art when you can - seeing everyone's interpretations is really cool
19:44 Thank you for this comment, I was about to say the same thing. It’s interesting too because in the book, Glinda is so clearly racist, she states that she couldn’t have had a romantic relationship with Fiyero because he has “sh*t colored skin”. For commentary on Wicked, it would definitely be worthwhile for them to read the book.
@@ninthereporter6525I just read that part in the book. Although Glinda doesn’t say the shit part there, I can’t remember who says it but it happens while in college, then like 20 years later she comments that she couldn’t have an affair with a “dark-skinned” man
@ Sorry, you’re right. Avaric, another character that went to school with the gang in the book said, referring to Fiyero,“I wouldn't want to have skin the color of shit.” (Wicked, pg 144)
We could've had a cool fiyero?
Yeah Fierro is super native-coded, maybe not any specific tribe on turtle island but a mix of several Native tribes and the Picts who were the native people of Scotland in terms of the blue paint, who a lot of us so called US natives can also claim descent from for uh, Reasons. Would've been a great opportunity for casting one of our great up and coming native men like D'Pharoah Woon A Tai or (rip) Coco Brings Plenty.
Litterally clicked as soon as a saw Feat. Princess Weekes. Two of my faves collaborating is always a good time.
No really. Clicked so damn fast.
Right? Merry xmas to us indeed!
🍿
Same. Best X’mas present 😊
She really showed up FD in the section on black-coding Elpheba. Princess brings up a huge body of "El and witches in general are extremely jewish-coded and that would kinda be cultural appropriation." And FD doesn't really respond except "Zionism bad" and "black witches make pp hard.". Not that I disagree on either of those points.
Wicked pissed me the fuck off tbh. After someone wrote some racist shit on the Goat professor’s board I sat through the rest of the movie stewing and ruminating cuz they just straight hoed him. Someone better spin back for my boy expeditiously
😢
In the book he gets it SO MUCH WORSE. The racist saying was actually a SLAM POEM that Madam Morrable performs in front of the class, and Our GOAT gets UNALIVED in his Laboratory in an explosion. The GALinda name change happens AT HIS FUNERAL. An early version of the play has the funeral scene with a reprise of “Dear old Shiz” before they changed it up.
@@DOAFProductionsHELP WHAT I KNOW THE BOOK GOES OFF BUT I DIDNT THINK IT WENT OFF ON THE POOR GOAT
@@TrixieMattel3.1415 sorry I should have had a spoiler warning. >_>
If it helps Elphaba’s Nanny lives? 🥲
@@DOAFProductionsno queen ur good
Regarding Elphaba's greenness, I wanna point out that green skin is a historically common canard for depicting Jews. Jews are often assosciated with reptiles and accused of being non-human, which often resulted in Jews with green skin in antisemitic art. As a result, Elphaba's green skin works as a strong allusion to that history. (Although since it was pulled straight from Wizard of Oz, I imagine it was originally played straight, the way a lot of antisemitism is.)
Love learning that Princess Weekes made AMV’s for Wicked
7:00 PLEASEEEEE goth and alt cultures are EXTREMELY gatekept to lighter skintones, especially amongst fems (this is speaking as a black masc leaning enby, take with GOS i wear cargo pants for gender not a skirt)
i hate that i align with goth/alt culture sometimes because it is so white sometimes istg
I just saw a reel the other day celebrating Black goths and decrying the gatekeeping by white goths. The number of comments saying "no one is say Black people can't be goth" was outrageous. Where have you all been? It's been there the whole time. The gothest person in my real life is Hispanic and he gets a lot of flack for being goth and having a darker skin tone
As a white alt-nerd... it always surprises me when folks i see as part of my "in-group" say or do racist shit. It happens all the time and I'm still like, "nonono... The dominant culture is racist... so you CANNOT be counter culture and not be challenging your own racism."
Honestly, there are so many black goth girls in my opinion? But maybe it's just my city
@@seanrshivers Lots of “counterculture” people seem to think racism is over and “wokeness” is the norm and thus racism is counterculture. I guess because mainstream news and movies have black people in them now, and some people on the internet post about hating white people? It’s very surface level.
idk i feel like they’re so gatekeepy bcs of racism and also jealousy bcs they know we look better doing “their” aesthetic than they do effortlessly 😂
I remember going to see Wicked at 16 and thinking Elphaba was basically black. And I remember when they had a black Glinda, once, and I was so excited because I wanted to see how the dynamic shifted. I never got to see that show, unfortunately, but I really wish I had.
Fieyro being South Asian coded in the books makes their connection in the show make so much more sense now. I wish they'd done that in the film.
As a non-US person, it's interesting to see how people are perceiving this film through the lens of the electoral race. Thanks for having the thoughts :)
Brittney Johnson was the Black woman who played Glinda. I've seen a few clips of her run floating around here on TH-cam lately
@TheseVioletDelites I think she's a Broadway Glinda. I'm talking about the West End one :)
Thank you for bringing up the connection to Jewish people. I appreciate that.
I'm all for more black goth girls
Thank you!!! I never hear anyone talk about Judaism in respect to the witch trials and the "invisible" antisemitism that exist in everyday society. And during Hannukah it's so deeply appreciated Thank you Princess Weekes
There's a kinda spicy fiction novel called The Witch Of Cologne by Tobsha Learner that delves into this. It's not a fluffy ending one and gets pretty violently graphic in parts but the protagonist is a Jewish midwife iirc, in the 1600s. It was years ago that I read it so I'm forgetting a lot of the plot but here's the synopsis "The story of Ruth bas Elazar Saul, a Jewish midwife who returns to her home, outside Cologne. Imbued with the radical ideas of Spinoza and with ancient Hebrew Kabbalism, her methods of dealing with illness lead to accusation of witchcraft and imprisonment. From the author of Quiver, this is a love story of the 17th century."
Princess weekes is fantastic she has such an encyclopedic knowledge of European medieval history and English literature!
"don't google that" * *proceeds to show some heinous shit anyways* *
My own impression is that Fiyero in the film is culturally different from the rest of Oz's residents as a Winkie (yes, Gregory Maguire book people, it's not a racial slur within the film canon). He may be high status and therefore respected by everyone else but as someone from another country he lacks any knowledge of the prejudices people in the rest of Oz share and therefore isn't bound by them even if his privilege benefits him. Also his high status means he doesn't have to care about social conventions or hierarchies because everyone respects him anyway. The scene that spells it out is when he first meets Elphaba and is confused by why she keeps having to explain herself.
That’s something that i miss in the film: how politically charged the book is. It establishes from the beginning how beaten down the Munchkinlanders and the Vinkus (“Winkies” if you hate them) are. How little their lands and people matter to the Emerald City. It establishes the baseline of the loathing some people have for talking animals. The film was amazing, but i to feel it needs more time. I hope they do flashbacks in part 2. We need to see the Clock of the Time Dragon!
@@Salamander_fallsI was really hoping with the inflated length of the movie compared to the show and the promise that they were going to use more of the book that we were going to see more of the racism from the books. At most we got a few jokes about Boq being short and a Munchkin. But because of the way the musical decided that Fieryo was a bad boy, we couldn't use the racism against his people at all
@Salamander_falls the time dragons clock shows up in a scene at the end of Popular. i missed it and only know about it after Wicked-Tok pointed it out haha.
@ i thought i saw it in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot at the very beginning. I didn’t see it during popular. I’ll have to look into that
@@Salamander_falls When Elphaba first gets to Shiz and sends everything flying, a carving of the Wizard is shattered and when it falls there's a painting of an animal in robes revealed behind it (I would guess a former ruler or maybe head/founder of the school). They took care to make that a specific, clear shot, so I would expect that's something that's going to be called back to and developed.
One thing I think is important about Glinda's character is that I see her as a lesbian. I think a lot of her relationship with Fiyero is pretty superficial "I'm perfect, you're perfect, so we're perfect together." They don't actually like each other - they like the *idea* of each other. Elphaba is the first person to actually see Glinda as a person, so that's who she winds up falling for. She really does consider throwing it all away and going with Elphaba, and that's when she truly seems happiest. But she can't bring herself to do that, by not going with Elphaba she returns to the closet. In Act 2 (spoilers) - Glinda marries Fiyero and is a respected sorceror, she has everything she wanted, she should be happy. But she isn't. She's miserable bc she's a closeted lesbian. I think that misery and regret in not being able to go with Elphaba comes from her denying her own happiness to be able to pursue what she *should* want and what's expected of her.
Good video!
Lesbian Glinda at least has way more merit in the book! As intended
Wait, in the musical Glinda marries Fiyero?!? WTF?
Glinda having big comphet fr
@@adorabell4253this comment misspoke. They don’t get married. Rather they are in a relationship that is essentially a sham because Fiyero doesn’t agree with how Elphaba is demonized and he spends all his time trying to find her. At most, he is ambushed into fiancé status he does not agree with and then rebels against it.
Came here for the thoughts, stayed for the good looking uncle.
Same but instead of the uncle, it’s the auntie for me
I'm glad someone else said it!!
"I know that's right."
Oh shit! Watch out bro!
😂😂😂
Didn't make it for Christmas but still got it in time for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and an FD video with Princess Weekes is a perfect holiday treat
Early Christmas gift for Eastern Orthodox 😂
11:30 It wasn't just because she was choosing fear and the status quo over solidarity with Elphaba, but that she was also betraying the woman she loved. The book - and then later the author himself - makes it clear that there's more than friendship between them, and that Glinda was in the process of getting dragged into being a better person because of that relationship.
(I'm going out on a limb here because my primary experience/engagement with Wicked has been through gay women like myself seeing the Shiz years as a tragic, almost romance that failed due to societal pressure and Glinda's ethical shortcomings)
I rmb watching the movie and when they started singing the opening lines for how they felt when they loathed each other i was like wait wait wait bc it sounded like when u get a crush
*What is this feeling*
*So sudden and new?*
*I felt the moment*
*I laid eyes on you*
*My pulse is rushing*
*My head is reeling*
*Yeah, well, my face is flushing*
*What is this feeling?*
*Fervid as a flame*
*Does it have a name?*
Like it’s such a classic trope where the character feels something unfamiliar and it’s a attraction, and it’s also often paired with them mistaking it for hatred. I get them as completely platonic and i still love it, but also I was disappointed when it wasn’t blatantly romantic. Knowing this makes me feel so much better as a bi girl
15:56 "Kamala maps to Glinda" THANK YOU.
I am very political and it kills me that people think she is some kind of revolutionary. She isnt! Harris is the personification of pulling up the ladder behind you.
"Im looking forward to more black goth girls" I feel you cuz. I feel you.
Brah indeed 😮💨
I think the queer lens of Alfaba and Glinda also fits so well.
Alfaba has intersectional politics and understands that queerness while important is secondary to the plight of the animals and herself.
White queer women are often not willing to give up their privilege or align themselves with the POC community / specifically the POC queer community outside of the one they love.
the queer undertones were actually fully intended! the author of the original book has spoken on it many times.
I wanted them to go off live together SO BAD. Such a heartbreaking scene 💔 I have seen it three times and I always cry
*Elphaba 💚
5:42 John Travolta concentrating so much on saying wicked and then collapsing on the actual name is *chef's kiss* 💀💀💀
Black Goth girls are here, just spread out. I’m also glad to see more Black people embracing indigenous African beliefs
I love the commentary about Galindas character. I described her as the “white moderate” who wants to be seen as nice but is not good.
Casting Cynthia Erivo and Marissa Bode did two interesting things. Firstly, it recontextualized Elphaba's secret that she tells Glinda. In case you don't know, when Mrs. Thropp got pregnant with Nessa, Governor Thropp feared having another green (code for dark skinned) child, so he forced the mother to eat MILKFLOWERS the whole pregnancy hoping Nessa would be fair skinned. Nessa ended up a premature baby, and Mrs. Thropp was comatose. This storyline also adds to Princess's point on colorism and white supremacy.
Secondly, it referenced a racial fear that a light skinned woman and a white man could have a dark skinned child. I didn't realize this existed until Megan Markle was asked if Archie would be dark skinned, which is crazy because she's a light skinned biracial and Harry is white. I'm not saying that can never happen, I'm just saying I've never seen it. While I think this was an unintentional and accidental reference, it also supports the greater examples of anti Blackness.
Not sure if that is her real dad since the mom cheated
11:20 I mean, I partially disagree on this part in regards to the people who think it's a reach. I don't think it's stupidity in their case; I think it's dishonesty. It doesn't matter how obvious and on the nose you make something, they'll _always_ claim it's a reach when anyone points it out because they're just completely against ever analysing media in any meaningful way. They're the type of people who will die on the hill of "Art is just entertainment" while ignoring the long history of art being made as an overt statement.
The book way more interesting, with a lot more to think over. It has many more examples of the emperors tyranny, and it has a lot more to say about the morals of religion, class, race (Quadlings, Munchkins, Winkies, etc.) I highly recommend, despite some odd additions in the book.
In the book, the wizard is more trumpian, as he ethnically cleanses minority groups for resources and the purpose of scapegoating. Elphaba is less black-and-white in the book, she is not innately magical and the portrayal of her life is more realistic. The book explores the aspects of how the wizard is a colonizer and is shaping Oz to more align with America.
It was REALLY important to Maguire to show how the Wizard's use of populism and propaganda quietly and quickly lead to fascism! With the way the world is, I wish they'd leaned into that with the film, despite the fact the musical just didn't
@TheseVioletDelites right, the musical softens a lot of story beats. Also, I'd never seen it before, but I loved the music and the books. So I didn't realize they don't kill Dillamond in the musical, and I'm curious as to if Elphaba tries to assassinate Morrible still in the second act?
You mean Hitlerian, not Trumpian.
@DanialTarki same difference at this point
Yessssss perfect teamup!
About the history: A lot of trials for witchcraft and/or heresy were also just explicitly the Inquisition looking for Jews and Muslims in territories they had been expelled and banned from.
Technically untrue. The Inquisition looked into the affairs of Moriscos and Conversos, people from Jewish or Muslim families who had converted to Catholicism and were thought to have relapsed to their old faith. The Inquisition only had jurisdiction over Catholics. It didn't go after Jews or Muslims because they weren't members of the Church.
Very few people (men and women - it was mostly men in Eastern Europe and Russia) were condemned to death for witchcraft in Catholic countries. That mostly occurred in Protestant areas of Europe and the English colonies
@@WhiteChocolate74, how many is “very few” to you? Because we have evidence of something like 2,000 people executed in Spain alone
@@WhiteChocolate74 It was not mostly Eastern Europe, for one because they weren't Catholic for the most part. The witch trials were much smaller there. One of the worst places for them was actually Scotland, a Catholic country. The German countries were also pretty bad.
@adorabell4253 sorry, my wording on the witch trials was imprecise. I didn't mean to say that most witch trials in Europe occurred in Eastern Europe and involved men.
What I meant to say was that of the witch trials that occurred in Eastern Europe and Russia, most of those prosecuted were men. Catholicism used to have a much more easterly extent than it does now, but yes, I'm aware most of Eastern Europe is Orthodox.
@@adorabell4253 Scotland was not a Catholic country it has a Catholic minorty but the anti-Witch Laws were put in place by James VI a Protestant King.
When I saw wicked there was a group of white women sitting in front of us who started applauding when Glinda changed her name which my sibling who was with me and I talked afterward about how that moment was such an obvious joke about performative allyship that we couldn’t believe anyone missed that but hey gotta love the Midwest
As someone who has been obsessed with this show on and off since middle school, I always believed in my heart that Elphaba should be played by a black woman. I believe because I was a black girl in a lot of majority white spaces, the politics of the show were glaring for me. I couldn’t help thinking, imagine if you had a black woman out here belting, “No wizard that there is or was is ever going to bring me down!” Watching it on screen was a very emotional experience for me. She’s done making herself small. She’s done submitting. Even if she’s by herself, at least she’s free.
More videos need to employ the editing strategy of "host literally throws up their hands and summons guest-expert to save them", it's perfect.
We got the FD+Princess Weekes crossover before the new year we’re so winning
Right!!! Love this for us😊
A feast for the holidays!
YESS more Black goths! More Black witches! More alternative Black leads in films/TV!
“It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed”. Glinda knows EXACTLY what’s up. She sees herself in Oz. Defeating someone like Oz would force her to come to terms with her own mediocrity in the face of Elpheba’s real power and talent.
I would argue that Glinda never was an ally to Elphaba. Every decision Glinda made up to the end was to her own advantage. Which is also an add to the racial dynamics in the movie. White allyship is often to their own vanity, which I feel like Glinda is a perfect portrayal of!
I believe I heard somewhere that Stephen Schwartz said Wicked was about a Jewish girl going to a boarding school, which feels pretty 1-to-1 with what you're getting at for a man of his generation. Given that Jews are a lot more assimilated now than in his generation, the shift to more predominantly Black Elphabas feels very appropriate. It's like that scene where Idina "hands-off" the role to Cynthia, which I read as recognition that there's now going to be an "official" Elphaba for a new generation of fans.
18:48 I appreciate you acknowledging the origins of the swirl romance stories in the fantasy space because a lot of them do come from a deep, unhealed place.
I love how overt the movie was with glinda's white feminist failures. when I went to the theater with my best friend, every misguided glinda quote had us looking over to each other. every liberal arts college student class memory hit us like a ton of bricks
this is off-topic but your profile picture is so cute c:
I just finished the book. One of the characters poked fun at Fiyero stating "Who would want skin the color of shit" so I do believe his skin is brown. However, he does have blue diamonds attached to his skin.
He's described as "ochre" (red/brown) and "dark", so definitely not blue. The blue is the diamond paint for sure
@TheseVioletDelites Correct. But yeah one of the kids in college made the comment about his skin. So I was just saying his skin wasn't blue. There was a typo in my OG comment
I hope Princess Weekes makes more guest appearances on the channel, she brings a great perspective
So like this could just be me being white and overly naive, but when you said the only unrealistic part to you was Glinda's regret, I personally had a different take. I don't think she regrets it from a political perspective, because politically her betrayal of Elphaba has done nothing but benefit her. But you gotta remember that more than just political actors/allies, these two were also best friends. And it's implied that Elphaba is a far more genuine friend to Glinda than most because she doesn't just like Glinda because she's popular and pretty, instead liking her for who she really is. So imo that is where the regret is coming from, not because she betrayed her political ally to cop to fascism, but because she turned on her only real friend.
Agree
Came over from Nebula just to say that I'm SO excited to see FD Signifier and Princess Weekes collaborating and I really really hope to see them work together again 😍😍😍
2:34 things that irk book fans about the musical is that there was a TON of racism in the books, but it could not be touched on in the musical format, there just wasnt space. The most the musical showed was absolutely the prejudice against Elphaba and some against Munchkins. In the book, Elphabe and her sister were both the product of affairs; Elphaba was green because of a green elixir used to r@pe her mother, Nessarose was pink skinned because HER father (from a race where different skin colors were normal) was pink. Fieryo was one of the only characters who's skin was mentioned to be dark or "ochre" colored (with diamonds painted on his body) and he was seen as coming from a more savage and primitive people. All of that was scrubbed to simplify the story and focus just on the prejudice against Elphaba and the Animals
I dont really have a larger point to make here but i find a big irony in the racism displayed by the public when Erivo was cast, and how the music plays with a sort of alluded to racism or prejudice agains Elphaba vs how the book absolutely deals with racism.
Wasnt Elfaba's mother consensually cheating? Green elixir is an intoxicant in this universe, not a roofie.
two of my faves together!
i’m not black, but a non black poc. it’s so different when elphaba is played by a black woman. i watched the musical 3 different times, and every time, it was almost an entirely white cast, with all the named parts played by white people. and i just couldn’t connect with it as much since it seemed so weird to have a musical with themes about racial minorities and othering, but then no poc. it was kinda like yeah yeah, i know that’s a white woman in there and it’s kinda feeling like when white peoples invent fantastical creatures or situations so they can act out the experiences of racism 🙄. so this movie was the first time i really connected to it, and it was mainly cause of cynthia’s performance. i’m not saying i connect to it on the same level as black people, but i am saying that this adaptation and cynthia’s performance is way above any white person playing elphaba for me.
There will be better takes on this but more black girls in goth have been looooong over due since the craft and Aaliyah in the Queen of the damned imo
Princess Weekes is always a welcome addition to a video
Two of my faves !!
anyone else get empathy panic/pain from the monkeys growing wings scene? i felt so bad, also when the GOAT professor gets arrested
I did, but I do wonder if they were like “this is badass” after they got them.
Oh they only arrest him? In the book he's assassinated. Was kinda hoping they'd push that part a little bit.
@@kevinwillems8720 they really watered down and changed the Professor's role in the musical and therefore the movie. He wasn't doing anything in this iteration what WOULD get him murdered. He's a history teacher rather than a biologist and researcher. I think it wouldn't have worked to assassinate him in the movie even if they did in the book, and the musical fans would have been SO mad
@TheseVioletDelites I know. It's just a personal thing lol
@@kevinwillems8720 he might be in the second part, we really don't know that yet
"Fiyero is boring"
Well, in terms of looking at the movie with race in mind, maybe...? But he is a depressed and opressed privileged person, masking how he hates the opression around him with flamboyance. His story is about finding Elphaba and how she inspires him to start acting against the system.
Weirdly enough I argued the same thing on Princess' discord, but I think there is a bit of complexity to Glinda. When we first meet her in the movie, she doesn't immediately ostracize Elphaba, she condescendingly offers to cure Elphaba's greeness; and though this is something Elphaba does want as seen in "The Wizard and I" she clocks the condesencion and calls out Galinda for her shallowness and reads her in front of everyone. This is a large reason why Galinda loathes Elphaba, not because of her skin but because she doesn't immediately fawn over Galinda and see her as perfection and she hates it (we do get more of this shallow help in "Popular" but there is some sense that she genuinely wants to help Elphaba and sees her as beautiful).
Galinda has a pathological need to be liked and when Elphaba doesn't stroke her ego, she lashes out at her. Then we get to the Ozdust ballroom where Galinda gets her wand and sorcery lessons from Ms. Morrible, because of Elphaba. Galinda sees Elphaba did something truly nice and though she risks looking foolish and her friends tell her not to, she dances with Elphaba. She puts aside her ego and need to be liked to stand with someone who she hurt and show kindness to someone, even though it is socially taboo.
She's given this choice again in "Defying Gravity" and while she loves and cares for Elphaba, she still has yet to fully get over her need to be liked. Elphaba can handle being a pariah, because she already was one, but Galinda can't handle that isolation. She passed the midterm at Ozdust, but failed in the final Exam at "Defying Gravity" . She isn't perfect and very bad at allyship, but she is capable of it.
Also, one thing Princess did get wrong is that Fiyero in the book, isn't blue. He has ochre or amber skin and has blue diamonds painted onto his skin. He and the winkies are very indigineoud coded (now which indigenous group they could be applied to, is vague, given that they are in tribes and they have chiefs. But some are stationary like the Arjikis which is Fiyero's tribe and others are nomadic). There is an argument for them being indigineous Americans given Winkie country is this large Western country the Wizard and other political entities seek to control.
I gotchu, bro. Been wearing almost exclusively black and grey since late November 👍🏾
~ Ours is the magic, ours is the power 🧙🏾❤🖤💚
I love many creators who contribute to Nebula, but YOU are the creator who pushes me more than any of them to go utilize my subscription. They owe you big time!
Jewish ashkenazi here, I actually learned a lot about how the our opression ties to the mythes of witches. Got some homework to do 😅
There's a lot of bad, ahistorical sort of pop-feminism takes on women and Jewish people in the discourse and history of witches. I wish you luck! 🫡 I believe Abby Cox touches on Jewish associations in her video on the history of the witch hat
The reading where Elphie is a racialized other is definitely the strongest. In the stage musical I also found parallels in the disabled experience (specifically from an autistic perspective).
I think the two are very compatible - that Elphie can be both, and the response to her is both highly racialized and also inflected by ableism, as so often is the case. Both things are strongly reflected in the relationship between her and Nessa Rose - in addition to what you expressed, where Nessa Rose is the light-skinned sister with a looser curl pattern, she's also visibly disabled in a recognizable way and treated with patronizing pity by those around her, which is a very double-edged sword as we see later; with Elphie, there's much more pronounced emotional neglect, and while the people around her can see that Something Is Wrong With Her, they don't see her as disabled and therefore easily classified and pitiable, they see her as... ugly, weird, and obnoxious. (This is a both/and thing - undiagnosed neurodivergence in racially marginalized women is even more likely to be interpreted this way than in white women.) A lot of what Elphie goes through at Shiz is very classic Autistic Childhood Trauma.
So Fiyero in the books is described as Ochre, which was likely meant to mean his skin was yellow because Winkie country is associated with yellow. Kind of like how Turtleheart was red because he came from Quadling country. But Ochre the mineral has a shade range of yellow to a rich medium earthy brown, meaning he could literally be a whole range of POC due to that ambiguity but he was for certain at least coded to be one regardless.
His skin was only decorated in painted on blue diamonds at aesthetic choice.
He's also described as "dark". Like you said ochre is also a reddish-brown color so I think that is the direction the author went rather than the yellow color
He is implied to be native american
Weekes appearing out of nowhere is the Power Rangers meeting the Ninja Turtles
I’ve loved Cynthia Erivo ever since I saw her in Bad Times at the El Royale in 2018. When she was cast as Elphaba, I was so excited, and she didn’t disappoint one bit.
Cynthia brining Elphaba to life on the big screen really resonated deeply with me. Even though the only part of identity Cynthia and I share is queerness, casting a queer black woman to play Elphaba makes so many marginalized people feel seen. She’s an inspirational character, played perfectly by an astounding actor.
0:30 its definitely "inspired" by the book rather than being an adaptation, just for clarity and transparency. Very different beasts
I love the changes they made for the movie with a black lead. I really love this video and appreciate someone breaking the musical down and really emphasizing how powerful this story is with Cynthia.
More black gothic women
We need that for sure
My casting for Fiyero from just the book is Dev Patel.
Omg he would be 😍 in that role
I really appreciate the way you took time in this video to talk about the significance of Elphaba's Jewish coding! It's frequently overlooked in these discussions.
As somebody that grew up as a kid with the ultimate universe comics, Nick Fury has been black since like 2003 and his look was heavily inspired by Sam Jackson. Which, according to rumor, made it easier for him to get the part. Like, there's literally a panel in the comic where he says Samuel Jackson should play him in a movie. The character ended up moving over into the main universe at the same time Miles Morales did
God I love Princess as a commentator, my whole face lit up when she popped into this video. I really appreciated her points around the sort of deeper character backstory of Wicked and I'm also feeling cautiously optimistic about the part II. I'm particularly interested to see how they handle disability - the stage musical dealt with race mostly in subtext and metaphor but Nessa's character arc was explicitly about disability and also deeply ableist. The film already added some dialogue and conflict around the ableism Nessa as a character experienced, so I'm hopeful that the film will do a lot better on that front.
I had a mild fight with my husband because I said I didn't see how Elphaba could remain so friendly with Glinda after Glinda showed herself to be a willing fascist collaborator at the end of the film. He tried to argue that Glinda doesn't know what's going on, so it's not fair to call her a fascist, but I think her naivete is the point of the criticism the story makes against her.
1:40 is my brain the entire time I'm enduring small talk
Thank you for this lol I was looking for this part again
Strong start.
I just found out about the books too. Apparently the green skin actually comes from a roofie that her mom was sliped that led to the pregnancy. Apparently she also had sharp shark like teeth.
Mrs signifier 7:08 🤔🤔🤔
He's right though
I’ve never seen Mrs signifier
@ he’s had her on a video before and he talks about her often
@@Pastelbluesox oh ok I knew he’s married but wasn’t sure if she was an alt girlie
Princess homegirl said "I made AMVs" she was really out in the trenches with that. Haven't heard "AMV" in a hotttt minute
Nick fury was redesigned to look like SLJ in the ultimate spinoff comics before the MCU, I think they even got his permission.
They didn't is the thing. And when SLJ found out he basically used that as leverage to be casted for every MCU movie. That's why he gets a speaking role in every single one of those movies since Iron Man
The 'Barbara Howard' jokes are killing me. I love that you can figure it out and edit the video to make it appear to the viewers that you know what you're talking about but you rather turn it into a Baraba Howard joke.
18:50 i just got in a fight with a crappy content creator tryna go to bat for the story of James Cameron's avatar and this hit me hard. Dude would NOT confront the white savior colonizer parts of that story and just decided to insult me in the comments lol absolutely wild that this touched on that
Jack Saint put out a video FIVE YEARS AGO talking about how Avatar is white savorism, comparing it to Dances With Wolves. He's not the only one to do so, obviously, but he's the largest creator I know of who has. Its so difficult to argue with people who refuse to see it
@TheseVioletDelites it is truly wild. The creator is "the barking years" and his whole defense of avatar could be summed up as "I liked it and everything is derivative so it's actually good." I wasn't even mean in my original comments but he's so thinned skin he completely broke down over it and just started yelling insults. Sad stuff.
Edit: he even had a few good points but his attitude is dog sh11t and he can't even take a compliment 😂
@@strayiggytv I love Avatar and Avatar 2. But how do you not acknowledge it is using the white savior trope haha?
Like --- acknowledging that isn't saying that Jake is a bad person in the story, it's just understanding the tropes underlying the narrative at play. Thats such a wild hill to die on.
@SamIAm-p5r thing is there nothing wrong with liking those movies. I think the stories are bland and tropey but I will not deny they have had a pretty big impact to visual media. I just don't think that anyone can argue that the story is the strong point of avatar. Like yeah a lot of people criticise the movies in a dumb way but there's a ton of valid criticism surrounding them too and just going "nah you guys are all wrong it's a great movie" without addressing those criticism struck me as disingenuous.
Plus he called me a "redditor" for disagreeing with him and calling it space Pocahontas so there's that 😆
@strayiggytv IMO that's where *a lot* of pushback comes from when there is any critique of media. I realized a while ago I have the same gut reaction as I suspect that guy and others have where it's almost this sense that "woah if I agree with this criticism of the thing I like, I am not allowed to enjoy the thing I like and all my memories of it are stolen from me forever."
And that really hurts good discourse. It took me a long time to get over that automatic reaction or even realize I had it --- I remember falling in love with the Hamilton play and refusing to watch FD's video on it for probably a year purely over the title. And then watching the video and going "oh. This is really good media analysis. And my gut reaction was totally irrational and nobody's trying to reach into my brain and wipe away memories of media I've enjoyed."
Definitely agree on the story bit, I thoroughly enjoyed the narratives but the highpoint of the films are 100% the visuals.
"Overly tanned history" LMAOOOOO
Seeing this on my birthday today. Thank you for the content as the gift that keeps on giving!
I very much appreciate that subtle Abbott Elementary reference unc. Love that show