Wicked unveils the tyranny of feminine niceness – and that’s why your daughters must see it

We are done with woke Hollywood revisions of the classics, right? The artistic obsession with ramming political messages down the throats of consumers, of spoiling a good story with a parable about tolerance, or acceptance, or diversity, or whatever? Apparently not.

Ariana Grande, as Galinda, and Cynthia Erivo, as Elphaba, in Wicked.Credit: Universal 

Call it a post-Trump lament, if you like, but Wicked – the blockbuster prequel to The Wizard of Oz, and which explains the back-story of Glinda and Elphaba, the witches of the North and the West, one good and one wicked – has captivated audiences and broken box-office records. It is already the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation ever, ahead of 1978’s Grease – a movie that did not trouble itself at all with political correctness.

Wicked is openly a political allegory. It tells the story of the green-skinned Elphaba, who is marked as different from birth. She is ostracised and demonised by those around her, including her own family. As an adult witch with extraordinary powers (which, as with Elsa from Frozen, she has not yet learnt to control), Elphaba is groomed as a useful tool by the state of Oz, and later persecuted when she refuses to do its bidding.

Oz, of course, is led by a strongman leader, the Wizard, played by a creepy Jeff Goldblum, who flirts with just enough neediness to make him perfectly Trumpian. Elphaba is the only one brave enough to stand up for the minority segment of society (animals), which the Wizard is blaming for all of Oz’s ills, and so she is hunted down by the state.

The story truly has something for everyone: it is a morality tale about racism, fascism, the power of propaganda, and the dangerous seduction of peer pressure and groupthink. Even animal rights activists have claimed Wicked as their own – it is animals who are increasingly marginalised in Oz, forced out of jobs and eventually banned from speaking, a repression-creep that borrows much from Germany in the 1930s.

I count myself as a narrative purist – I get tired of ideological messages which get in the way of good story-telling. But Wicked is not that. It’s never that – otherwise it wouldn’t be so beloved by adults and children alike.

The politics drive the story but never impinge on it. And at the story’s heart is the relationship between Elphaba and Galinda, the young wizardry student who will go on to become Glinda the Good Witch – Dorothy’s great benefactor.

For my money, the most complex political message in Wicked lies in its treatment of female friendship, and the unblinking gaze it casts on the opposing roles women are often channelled into. Most radically, it calculates, with mathematical precision, the cost of female niceness.

Galinda (who, halfway through the movie, drops the first “a” in her name in an act of performative virtue signalling) is styled as the idealised good girl/witch, princessy and pretty in pastel hoop skirts and dainty shoes. Her waist is tiny. Her hair is long, thick and blonde. She has perfected the art of swooshing it. She oozes privilege and perfection.

Galinda is the alpha female of the university she and Elphaba both attend. At their initial meeting, Galinda squeaks in disgust at Elphaba’s green skin. But then, remembering her personal brand is Goodness, with a capital G, she quickly rearranges her features in a mask of concern for Elphaba, the poor, poor thing. Elphaba refuses to accept Galinda’s pity and sees straight through her phoney benevolence.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair in Sydney last month.Credit: Kate Geraghty

We have our conflict: the story has begun.

The two clash, particularly as they have been thrown together in a dorm room which Galinda populates with her extensive wardrobe and girlish paraphernalia. But then the story does something more interesting than simply playing out a female rivalry (even though it nods to the traditional arc of such stories with a “makeover” scene and a love triangle between the two witches and a charismatically rogueish prince).

Galinda, played by pop star Ariana Grande, starts envying Elphaba. At first, she is jealous of Elphaba’s magic powers – which are far superior to Galinda’s own – and the attention those powers bring from the regal headmistress of the college.

But then, as she gets to know Elphaba – played magnificently by Cynthia Erivo – Galinda begins to envy her classmate’s self-possession and her freedom to be herself. Her green skin allows her to sidestep pretence. Galinda is all pretence, and by observing Elphaba, she starts to see how constricting it is.

Galinda is trapped in a prison of niceness, needing to publicly display her unending kindness and unfailing sweetness at every turn, lest she ruin her image. She is ruled by moral vanity. But she is not “nice” – she is envious and covetous, with a capacity for real malice. Which is to say, she is human.

When the class holds a party, Galinda gives Elphaba a hat to wear. She does so with treacly sweetness, knowing that Elphaba will be mocked when she wears it.

Galinda’s transformation comes when she allows herself to be more like Elphaba – non-conformist.

Apart from anything else, Galinda is very funny, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, and it’s not possible to be funny without some capacity for wickedness.

But as all women know, the need for niceness runs deep. It is hard to de-program oneself from people-pleasing, even though the mask often slips, revealing the resentment that lies under it. Galinda struggles with the conflict between doing the right thing and doing what is expected of her by the society of Oz.

The film is the first of two parts, so the conflict is not resolved. We have to wait for the sequel. But as Grande told a journalist during the extensive press tour for the movie – Wicked serves “to remind people that change is possible … we can choose to be good, and we can be wrong”.

It also serves to show everyone (but especially young girls), that we can reject the tyranny of niceness. We can choose to be green-skinned, sardonic, clever and wicked.

Apart from anything else, those things make for a more interesting story.

Jacqueline Maley is a senior writer and regular columnist.