Beyond the Yellow Brick Road
By: Cassie Carey
Tags: Film, Musicals, Opinion, The Wizard Of Oz, American History

Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

America is complex, and the land of Oz depicts that perfectly.

Oz represents a deep look inside the history of America and it’s ever-changing mentality. This isn’t to say the creators of these particular interpretations made storytelling decisions based solely off the country’s trials and tribulations, but it isn’t that hard to see them (at the very least) as an inspiration.

Seeing a World Through Ruby-Colored Glasses

Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became a monumental hit in 1937, Louis B. Mayer was utterly confident that a film adaption of L. Frank Baum’s beloved book series would turn a profit. The yellow brick road to success, however, would not turn out to be as straightforward as most would assume. MGM went through three completely different directors and styles before eventually landing on Victor Fleming to finish the darn thing. The Wizard of Oz ended up unprofitable as expenses totalled about three million dollars. Plus, with the much anticipated release of Gone With the Wind around the corner…it didn’t exactly help the film’s publicity. The Wizard of Oz was lost within the ether for more than a decade until a little-known device called television turned it into the classic we know and love today. Ironically, this wouldn’t be the first time TV saved an Oz-related work from falling into permanent obscurity.

Because the film debuted only six years after the Great Depression and two years before the country joined World War II, it was ultimately about escapism and feeling gratitude for what you have. This wasn’t considered unusual for the time. Many works embodied this same trope with the stand out being any film starring the mighty Shirley Temple. A dad or mom dying never stopped her characters from charming old coots and reminding audiences everywhere what was truly important in life. As Franklin D. Roosevelt once put it;

As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we would be all right.

It isn’t surprising that MGM initially had their hearts set on the dimpled starlet headlining their risky endeavour. By then, Shirley Temple had been mastering goody-two-shoes characters since she was 6-years-old. Yet, “Over the Rainbow” was what secured Judy Garland, not Shirley Temple, in the seminal role of Dorothy Gale.

Power to the Ozians

Photo: Universal Pictures

A DJ by the name of Ken Harper came up with the curious concept to have an all-black cast lead a Motown re-imagining of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The idea proved to be intriguing in theory, but difficult to produce. Each city The Wiz made a stop in, the odds of succeeding looked less and less promising. Fox, nevertheless, continued to support Ken’s vision in exchange for dibs on the film rights; a rare move today, but a miracle back in 1974. As a last resort, Ken Harper convinced Fox to spend quite a pretty penny on TV ads to promote the show. The Wiz became an overnight smash hit just after experiencing a rocky opening night on Broadway. Sadly, the same could not be said for the film adaption, which ended up losing over ten million dollars at the box office.

The Wiz has some fascinating themes unlike any other Oz story seen thus far. It was the first iteration that didn’t hesitate to look past the rainbow facade and delve deep into Oz’s class issues. This can be interpreted as how the rest of the world views America versus how racial injustice lies just beneath the country’s “land of the free” disguise. It was almost as if this particular story was not told from Dorothy the impressionable little girl, but Dorothy the wise and world-weary woman.

Besides heavy “black power” symbolism hinted at throughout, the Watergate scandal may also have played a huge role in this particular adaption’s surreal shape. Mainly in how the big baddies are depicted. Evermean and Evillene represent classic dictators in charge of corrupt systems (specifically, a government and a sweatshop.) Sure, they’re still cartoonishly evil, but these two depictions feel just a tad bit more realistic than MGM’s green-skinned versions. It isn’t hard to imagine the joyous feeling whenever the original Broadway cast performed “Everybody Rejoice / A Brand New Day” once Richard Nixon resigned and the Vietnam War officially ended.

A Wicked Government Is Far Worse Than a Wicked Witch

Photo: Joan Marcus

What The Wiz proved is that the land of Oz was no longer seen as a symbol for childhood, but could be an allegory for adulthood. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West just took it a step further. Stephen Schwartz first read Gregory Maguire’s novel while vacationing in Hawaii. Upon returning, he immediately called up his lawyer to discuss securing the rights for a stage adaption. After powering through a series of workshops and readings, the musical finally hit the Broadway stage the same year America entered into what would be an eight year war with Iraq. It was met with standing ovations and a large chunk of harsh critics. The baffling skepticism reviewers brought to the table were made even clearer when Avenue Q took home “Best Musical” at the 2004 Tony Awards. Not Wicked. It is now one of only three Broadway musicals to earn more than one billion dollars in total revenue.

Wicked is full of political undertones and it isn’t hard to see why. Two years into the Iraq War, an ABC News poll discovered only forty-five percent of Americans believed it was still a fight worth fighting on. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their cabinet tried desperately to represent a patriotic image that believed in good, old-fashioned American values. Similarly, the Wizard represents an image of fatherly omnipotence as the all-powerful Wizard of Oz who can do no harm nor wrong. All this while manipulating the public behind the emerald curtain (a tactic the U.S. government wasn’t unfamiliar with.)

Most American citizens no longer bought that image by the time George W. Bush left office in 2009. They even bestowed upon him an abysmal thirty-four percent approval rating. Unfortunately, Oz wasn’t as lucky for they never knew the horrid atrocities the Wizard committed before Glinda gave him and Madame Morrible the boot. A decision I’m sure much of America wished had happened earlier to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

I highly recommend watching all of these versions again and perhaps catching Wicked the next time a national tour rolls into your hometown. You may come to find your own meanings and interpretations hiding in plain sight. It is, of course, what makes the land of Oz endlessly new and exciting.