Defying More Than Gravity: Race, Politics & Power in Wicked
- theghoulsnextdoor
- Jun 4
- 12 min read
The Ghouls explore the revolutionary impact of Wicked in 2025. We dissect how Cynthia Erivo's Black Elphaba transforms the green-skinned witch's journey into a searing commentary on race, while simultaneously exposing the musical's chilling political prophecies. From "Defying Gravity" as a representation anthem to the Wizard's propaganda machine mirroring today's politics, we reveal why this story hits differently in 2025. When Animals lose their voice in Oz, marginalized communities recognize the playbook. When Elphaba is labeled "wicked" for speaking truth, activists see their reflection. Discover how one musical manages to challenge both Hollywood's casting traditions and America's political reality in a single, defiant gesture.
Prepare to see "Wicked" through new eyes—where fantasy and reality collide in perfect, uncomfortable harmony.
Sources in this Episode:
Why Wicked’s politics feel so bizarrely timely A Black Woman’s Analysis of ‘Wicked’ The Musical: Examining Elphaba’s Story 20 Years Later | Arts | The Harvard Crimson
Other Reading:
Media from this week's episode:
Wicked (2024)
Elphaba, a young woman ridiculed for her green skin, and Galinda, a popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. After an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads.
Director: Jon M. Chu
Propaganda, Power & Prejudice: Wicked is Social Justice
by gabe castro
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
Synopsis
Wicked is a fantasy musical film that explores the nature of good and evil, the cost of power and ambition, and the power of propaganda. The film is adapted from the Broadway musical which is based on the novel, Wicked by Gregory MacGuire, which was inspired by the film and novel, The Wizard of Oz.
We begin the story at the end, during the jubilant aftermath of Dorothy's arrival in Oz, with citizens celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda the Good Witch arrives in her bubble and when questioned about her connection to the wicked witch, begins to recount their complex history.
Through flashback, we meet Elphaba as she arrives at the prestigious Shiz University with her sister Nessarose. Elphaba has spent her life caring for Nessarose while enduring ridicule and prejudice due to her green skin. At Shiz, Elphaba immediately clashes with the privileged, popularity-obsessed Galinda.
After seeing the power Elphaba naturally possesses, Madame Morrible decides to take her under her wing in hopes of carving her out into a magical pupil who can later support the great wizard. Elphaba is forced to share a room with the positively pink, Galinda. The two worlds collide as they slowly learn to accept each other's eccentricities. After a disastrous dance where Elphaba is mocked, Glinda takes pity on her and begins to teach her about popularity.
During Dr. Dillamond's, a talking Goat professor, class, Elphaba learns about the growing discrimination against talking Animals in Oz, who are being silenced and stripped of their positions. When Dr. Dillamond is forcibly removed from the university, Elphaba's outrage draws the attention of Madame Morrible, who recognizes her magical potential and arranges for her to meet the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City. Glinda, not wanting to be left behind, accompanies her.
Elphaba and Glinda are dazzled by the spectacular metropolis. Upon meeting the Wizard, Elphaba is initially thrilled to be recognized for her abilities rather than rejected for her appearance. The Wizard asks her to demonstrate her powers by using an ancient spell book called the Grimmerie to make his monkey servant fly.
However, Elphaba is horrified by the power and learns the Wizard is behind the oppression of the Animals, using them as literal scapegoats to unify the citizens of Oz through fear. The Wizard and Madame Morrible try to convince Elphaba to use her powers to help them control Oz, but she refuses and flees. In the emotional climax, Elphaba embraces her new identity as a rebel against the corrupt regime, determined to fight for justice despite being labeled wicked.
Elphaba magically enchants a broomstick and rises into the air, declaring her independence from societal expectations while inviting Glinda to join her. Glinda ultimately chooses to stay behind as Elphaba soars above the city, while the Wizard's forces spread propaganda painting her as the "Wicked Witch of the West."
At its core, Wicked examines how public perception often differs dramatically from truth. Elphaba is branded "wicked" despite her good intentions, while the supposedly "wonderful" Wizard is revealed to be corrupt and manipulative. Further, it cleverly explores how history is written by the victors, with the Wizard and Madame Morrible controlling the narrative to maintain their power. The film invites viewers to question official accounts and consider alternative perspectives on familiar stories. The story has always been about otherness and the battle against our oppressors. But this film version is further elevated with the casting of the phenomenally talented, Cynthia Erivo.
Green is the new Black
What happens when a Black woman steps into the emerald skin of Oz's most misunderstood witch? Magic, it turns out.
Even before its Broadway inception, Wicked has always been about the outsider—the green-skinned girl deemed different from birth. But there's something magical about watching Erivo embody this alienation. The abstract metaphor of green skin becomes all the more real when worn by someone whose actual skin color has been grounds for discrimination in our world.
Every side-eye Elphaba receives at Shiz University, every whisper about her appearance, every assumption about her character lands differently when performed by a Black woman. The audience can no longer comfortably distance themselves from the prejudice on display. We're not in a fantasy land anymore, we’re back in Kansas, Toto.
The showstopper "Defying Gravity" has been interpreted as a feminist anthem about refusing to be limited by others' expectations. But when Erivo belts "everyone deserves the chance to fly," it takes on a new meaning. It becomes a rallying cry about representation, about who gets to occupy center stage, and about whose stories deserve to be told.
The film also explores tokenism when Elphaba's magical talents are immediately commodified by Madame Morrible. When Morrible discovers Elphaba's powers, she doesn't see a young woman with dreams and agency—she sees a useful tool for advancement.
This dynamic painfully mirrors how institutions often treat exceptional Black women: as tokens whose value lies in what they can produce rather than in their humanity. The Wizard and Morrible don't care about Elphaba's well-being or desires, they care about how her abilities can serve their agenda.
The most powerful message that seems to hit exceptionally close to home at the time of the film’s premiere was how Elphaba was systematically villainized when she refused to comply with unjust systems. The Wizard's propaganda machine transforms her into the Wicked Witch not because she's evil, but because her resistance threatens power structures. This is what happens to those who make good trouble.
The true wickedness in Oz was never Elphaba's green skin. It was the machinery of oppression that punished her for refusing to shrink herself to fit others' comfort. And in that truth lies a story that, like Elphaba herself, refuses to be brought down.
No One Mourns the Wicked
In a world where we constantly debate "fake news," surveillance overreach, media literacy, and the ethics of activism, Wicked confronts these themes giving us a clear and universal villain (and it's not the Wicked Witch of the West.)
Kat’s going to talk about this more in their section but it’s an important aspect of why Elphaba becomes this anti-hero. With her intimate knowledge of being othered, she can see the red flags and hear the sirens long before the privileged youth of Shiz can. Dr. Dillamund doesn't disappear from Shiz University because of budget cuts. His removal represents the systematic exclusion of an entire group – talking Animals – from positions of influence and respect. Demonstrating the gradual normalization of discrimination.
First, the Animals lose their positions. Then, they lose their ability to speak (actively silenced and reduced to creatures.) All while average citizens of Oz barely notice, or comfort themselves with the thought that surely there must be a good reason for it all. Mirroring the real-world patterns of convincing the public who the enemy is, and allowing people to reason away harm and oppression. Replace "Animals" with any number of real-world minorities, and the allegory reveals its teeth.
Elphaba’s quick fall from grace, from the lauded and talented pupil to public enemy number one reminds me of environmental activist, Greta Thunberg. In her youth, Thunberg was celebrated for being so bright and, reasonably, angry at the condition of our planet. However, once she started making the connections from the environmental crisis to the oppression of vulnerable peoples and the danger of unchecked capitalism, she stopped being reported on. She’d disappeared, no longer the star-child of the movement but now a villain like her fellow activists. Elphaba's journey reminds us how quickly power structures can reframe moral righteousness as dangerous radicalism when it threatens their control.
The Wizard’s performative power and leadership, one without substance, feels all too real amid the most unqualified administration in America’s history. The Wizard maintains power not through competence or moral authority but through carefully managed appearances and emotional manipulation. Ultimately, he is no wonderful wizard of Oz, he’s instead a sad, powerless man pulling levers behind a curtain. He certainly appears as the kind of man people would “love to have a beer with.” But we’ve seen just how useless such appeal is when confronted with their actual abilities to work.
Further, the film shows us the different paths for combating these destructive and harmful powers that be. Glinda chooses to “good cop” it and attempts to change the system from the inside. She conforms to their needs and works within the existing system for her benefit, to avoid discomfort or the same weighty label as Elphaba’s wickedness (cough white women shit cough.) While Elphaba refuses to conform and support a system that isn’t broken at all but instead, working precisely as designed. In doing so, she becomes a new scapegoat for the powers.
This tension – whether to work within flawed systems or stand against them entirely – remains at the heart of every progressive movement. Should one accept the position at the table, even when the feast is tainted? Or refuse the invitation and work to tear down the house? Wicked doesn't provide an easy answer, understanding that this dilemma has no perfect solution.
Wicked as Political Warning: Propaganda, Power & Historical Erasure
by Kat Kushin
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
Scapegoating Communities
Wicked feels especially timely with the current Republican administration choosing their own scapegoats in the form of Immigrants, BIPOC, Trans, and Disabled humans, as well as women. Although the scapegoating of those populations is nothing new or creative, the impact is especially damaging as we hear of the horror stories. In Wicked, the scapegoat is the animal population of Oz, who face the erasure of their history, their voices, rights, and their autonomy. It sounds familiar, because it is, both throughout American and European History, among others. In this instance, however, in thinking of how Wicked can relate to the experiences of today, there are many parallels to what is happening in the current Trump-led, Republican administration. As a content warning for my section, I will be talking about some of the things that have been done, and they are very upsetting.
Thinking of the erasure of DEI, mass firings, attempts to remove and rewrite historical records in museums, in schools, and more. The damage is actively being done. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which provides grants to libraries and museums nationwide, has been effectively shuttered and its staff placed on administrative leave according to USA Today. We have already had a woman be arrested for a miscarriage, although luckily in the case recently in Georgia, those charged were dropped, in part likely to the national outrage it sparked in her defense. Whether we are speaking about the countless illegal deportations that have already taken place, in that individuals were not granted due process, or in some cases were incorrectly deported, with a specific example found in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month- or of the attacks on Trans human rights, thinking of the Trans woman who was recently arrested in Florida for using the bathroom according to the New York Times, the issue is the same, that entire communities have been unjustly scapegoated as the enemy to spread fear and hatred. As gabe stated, as a tool of manipulation.
Although the Republican administration has deported fewer people than the Democratic administration under Biden according to Reuters, arrests by ICE are higher than they had been in 7 years according to the Guardian. Some things that they have done sound so evil that it’s hard to even fathom their validity, like the 10 year old recovering from Brain Cancer who is a United States Citizen that was deported to Mexico with her undocumented parents while they were literally on the way to the hospital according to PBS and NBC. These are just a few examples of many. I share these examples to highlight the similarities to Oz.
As gabe unpacks, the treatment of Dr. Dillamond and his colleagues showcases an administration’s attempt to kidnap and erase animalkind. This erasure is just like what is happening right now. The Wizard, like our current administration, wants us to be in cages and not speak, and they especially want the students to be ignorant of the experiences of the oppressed, hiding them away from view. The republican administration and Trump, like the professor who brings in the cub in a cage, relishes in their damage, using ai to create images of innocent humans being arrested and erased. Additionally, by attempting to dismantle the Department of Education, they aim to impact the next generation and prevent them from learning to read and speak out against what is being enacted.
Wicked calls this out, in the Omahaian Wizard of Oz, a performer and fraud, who chooses Animals as the scapegoated enemy from within do flee personal accountability. In an interview with Winnie Holzman at the Denver Center, they speak on the musical and also Gregory Maguire’s novel. Q&A with Wicked Book Writer Winnie Holzman
“There is a lot of political content in Gregory Maguire’s novel. Did you include it in the musical?
WH: Politics is very much embedded in the story. The whole story is about a political leader who is unmasked as a fraud. Just like in our world, there is prejudice, there is darkness, there are the forces of evil. I don’t want to dictate what people should take away from it, but there is the whole idea of scapegoating people because they are different or because their message is unpopular, because they are saying what people don’t want to hear. The idea of making that person into an evil figure is so relevant to our lives.”
Rewriting of History: A Lesson in Historiography
Definitions to steer the conversation:
Historiography: The study of how history is written and the writing of history.
Media Analysis and Media Literacy: Critically examining media by questioning:
Authorship: Who created this? Who was included or excluded in its creation? When was it made?
Purpose: Why was this made? What action does it want from me? Who is the target audience?
Economics: Who funded this? Who profits from it?
Wicked demonstrates the importance of media literacy and historiography by retelling The Wizard of Oz from the villain's perspective. It reveals how governments manipulate historical records and exploit fear to oppress groups. In the original story, the Wicked Witch is purely evil while the Wizard is wonderful - a narrative written by the victors without offering empathy for the antagonist. It doesn’t account for the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, and doesn’t offer her a name or a history.
In Wicked, we discover Elphaba's humanity and learn she isn't wicked at all, but has experienced and witnessed deep injustices that shapes her worldview. The musical illustrates how corrupt administrations sway public opinion through meticulous control of education and history. They are the writers, and the rewriters of what is taught and pedestaled. Most students at Shiz University accept the pitched falsehoods, so easily being manipulated, with privileged individuals willing to sacrifice all animals for their own self-preservation. By the end of Act 1, Elphaba emerges as heroic, only said to be villainous because the system's moral framework is fundamentally flawed.
History is typically recorded by victors, making it ethical to question our heroes. Many historical figures we are taught to admire had morally questionable actions - from founding fathers who owned slaves to Christopher Columbus, who played a significant role in the genocide of Native peoples, to kings like Henry VIII who reshaped religion for personal gain. We should question narratives presented as heroic, especially those missing perspectives from vilified groups. Consider who wrote these accounts and what they gained from their portrayal. Consider whose perspectives and voices are missing.
Governments manipulate historical records to control public perception, defining laws and moral standards. The more one learns, the more one questions authority and develops empathy - which explains why some political and religious leaders condemn empathy itself. Those lacking empathy and knowledge are easier to manipulate, particularly through religion which governs beliefs about afterlife. Labeling something as "sin" effectively instills fear. In Oz, the Wizard deifies himself, manipulating Ozian religion and prophecy for personal advantage.