I’m going to take a short break from the series I’m working on to say a few words about Wicked, Part I.
Anyone else like it?
It was so woke. And it was about democracy and fascism. (Or maybe if you spend enough time thinking about democracy and fascism, everything is about democracy and fascism. Or maybe everything is about democracy and fascism. 🤔)
I don’t think there are any spoilers, but if you didn’t see it, none of this will make sense.
One theme is that you can either be popular, or you can be good. It’s hard to be both popular and good, and most people opt for being popular.
Of course this has implications for democracy because the people who get elected are more likely to be popular than good, and democracy needs good people in charge. This was Plato’s concern: The masses are easily manipulated and are led by their emotions.
The Wizard (the man behind the curtain) has no real power. It’s all show. But if enough people think he has power, then he does have power.
Sort of like, art doesn’t actually imitate nature. Nature imitates art. The Wizard creates art, and the art that he creates leads people to think they are seeing something they are not, in fact, seeing. And if enough people think something is true, who can say that it isn’t?
Art can more easily create reality when popularity is what matters. Here’s where fascism comes in. Plato didn’t think most people were capable of the kind of thinking required in a democracy. He thought people could be too easily manipulated.
The Wizard and Madame Morrible understand how to manipulate the masses. Give them a show AND (this is important) give them an enemy. Stir them up with rage. Better yet, work them into a panic so they can’t think beyond the moment. It’s an age-old formula.
In Wicked, the designated enemy are the animals. (This plot choice also allows for some good lines, like, “Can you imagine a world in which animals are kept in cages and never learn to speak?” I can’t imagine it!! Can you?)
Wicked versus Good — where “good” = popular and remaining in line, and wicked =thinking for yourself — has an analogy in the distinction between a good person v. a good citizen. The two are not necessarily the same.
(I wrote about this in Part II of the series I’m working on: Antigone was a good person but not a good citizen.)
If a good citizen is a person who follows the laws, the abolitionists were also good people but bad citizens.
Elphaba makes the same decision as Antigone. (Uh, yes. I just compared Antigone to the Wicked Witch of the West.)
One more comment: Wicked is also about friendship between women, a theme not explored often enough in literature.
And that is what I have to say about Wicked.
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