Elephaba is Black? Our Wicked Review

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Have you ever wondered why some of us love to jump into a movie halfway while others insist on catching every single detail from the start? This episode of the Open Book Podcast invites listeners into the contrasting ways we experience films, sparking a lively discussion with my wife about our unique movie-watching habits. We dive into our recent theater visit to see "Wicked," sharing the excitement of being captivated by its storytelling despite sitting in the second row, and reflecting on the audience's infectious reactions that amplified our experience.

Join us as we explore the fresh and thought-provoking twist "Wicked" brings to the classic "Wizard of Oz" tale. Ariana Grande's performance as Glinda is a showstopper, with her incredible vocal prowess shining through, earning her comparisons to musical legends. The film's themes of discrimination and identity are brought to the forefront, as we discuss the powerful symbolism of the Wicked Witch's green skin and the societal challenges she faces. These conversations highlight the film's deeper messages of empathy and understanding in a world often divided by prejudice.

Throughout the episode, we unravel the film's intricate character dynamics, focusing on the evolution of relationships and the exploration of privilege and beauty. Our discussion touches on the manipulation of the Wizard and Elphaba's transformation into the iconic Wicked Witch of the West. With insights into character arcs and the intricate narrative elements, this episode is an engaging blend of nostalgia and thoughtful commentary, perfect for any movie enthusiast eager to gain a new perspective on a beloved story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00):
All right, ladies and gentlemen what's good a young
world, thank you Welcome, y'allWelcome.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to another episode of drumroll please.
The open book podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
What the what Open?
Open book podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome.
We'll be doing it.
We'll be doing our thing.
Yep, we'll be on here talking.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
We be doing our thing , yep.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We be on here talking .

Speaker 2 (00:26):
We be chopping it.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Then we be taking breaks too long.
We be going away from podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
We be living life, y'all.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, but you can't go away.
People be like forgetting whoyou are.
You right, we still got to dosome podcast shows, but today
we're coming again with anotherreview we reviewing the things,
man you know, let me just telly'all, there are certain movies
that my wife just loves and forsome reason we don't tend to see

(00:58):
those movies at the same time.
No, and man, she, just shecan't rest her soul, can't even
like settle until I done seenthese movies.
Like gladiator, we went ourwhole marriage it's so long.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I finally got him to watch it, like last week, week
before last, yes.
Yes, because we knew gladiator2 was coming out and I'm like
you have to watch the first onebecause it's so good.
Like Gladiator was my all timefavorite movie for a very, very
long time.
I even love the soundtrack,which is odd because there is no

(01:37):
music, it's just a score.
But I moved to Indiana Indiana,indianapolis more specifically
and I would listen to that scorelike the whole five hours it
took to drive from.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
You would drive listening to the score of the
Gladiator.
I did I loved.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I just loved that movie.
I loved Russell Crowe in thatmovie and I love the score.
I did I would listen to thatand I mean, after a while it was
like what are you doing?
It needs some music.
This is like a five and a halfhour drive, but yeah, so it was
super exciting for you to watchit.
And you're right, Honor and Iwent to go see this particular

(02:17):
movie last week in theater and Iwas just so excited.
I thought it was an excellentmovie.
And I've been talking about itall week and you know her soul
would settle.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
I saw it.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
I was listening to the soundtrack and watching
different TikToks and you knowreviews on YouTube and, I'm
happy to say, the hubs finallywatched it, the husband didn't
have to drag me kicking andscreaming like some other movies
.
And I, I do not give anythingaway in the movies, not one

(02:55):
thing I.
He will ask me a ton ofquestions and I will just look
blank faced, like I have no idea, cause I am not a spoiler.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Let me just clarify something, though.
Babe is not a spoiler.
But she's like the opposite.
It's like almost worse.
It's like she'd look at you allweird, like wait till he see
this part coming.
I wonder what he's gonna thinkabout no or like if something
goes by like real fast and youthink I missed it, you be like

(03:28):
here's what happened, here'swhat you missed.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
No, I will just rewind it back and I'll only do
it if it's a pivotal part.
I'm just checking to see if hegot that thing that's probably
going to come up later, that heprobably is going to be like oh,
I didn't see that and I'm goingto be like, gonna be like what?
Because you were on your phone.
So to avoid me saying that,I'll just say you know what?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
you gotta pay attention because something
about to come up and I'll justlet's cover everything, right,
because this is open book, wegot to give them the full
context, right?
Listen y'all?
I'm a little bit older than mywife, right?
Six years older than her.
I grew up in an era in the vcrera, in the cable era.
We watched a lot of movies andwe did not always see the whole

(04:13):
movie.
There's a lot of times you justflip in and you just hit hbo
and the movie's 15, 20 minutesin and you just absorb it, you
fill in in your mind the thingsyou miss and then the next time
you catch it or you see it inthe tv guys, you're like let me
catch that 15 minutes real quick.
So I'm not saying you supposedto watch that way, but I don't

(04:35):
be opposed to missing littletiny things and I don't watch it
that way if it's already on.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I ain't watching it if I, if I haven't seen it
before, I'm not watching it.
I'm not gonna get half of themovie back in the day, when you
was just scrolling through andthe movie was already on well, I
was never in the house, so itwas rare for me to be scrolling
through on the times where I Iwasn't um stuck in the I wasn't

(05:04):
in the house, so it was veryrare for me to.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
The answer is I wasn't a nerd like you husband.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
No, I was not watching TV halfway and
something pop up and it's like,ooh, this movie.
Okay, I didn't see it from thebeginning, so I'll catch it next
time.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
We was TV nerds in my family.
We watched a lot of TV.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
So this movie that we're speaking of, is.
Wicked.
Oh, we went and saw it.
It was very, very, very good.
I was.
I loved it.
I did not cry in a theater.
I did get a little misty eyedduring a certain part, but I did
not cry in the theater.
I was just kind of in awe,really, like the ending was just

(05:47):
like oh, and like everybodyclapped and it was like you know
, I like the theater that I wasat and like the moviegoers that
day were very tame and theyweren't like screaming at the
end.
Unfortunately, excuse me, honorand I were in the second row.
Yeah, unfortunately, honor andI were in the second row, so I
had to recline the seat back asfar as it would go, because my

(06:09):
eyes were like, why are youdoing this to me?
So, yeah, it was a bit of astruggle.
But, yeah, my theater was a bitquiet compared to most theaters
.
Honor and I we both dressed inpink and green.
I had on the green pink, so wehad like little matching jogging
suits.
So that was cute, um, but wedidn't see anybody with like

(06:32):
hats on or costumes or anythinglike that, um, so, yeah, it was,
um, we, we both thoroughlyenjoyed the movie.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
So um, let's get into it was excited to have you join
all right, so it's a book,right it's a book and multiple
plays.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I have not seen the play and I also have not read
the book, and I normally love toread the books before or even
see the plays before I would getinto you do the um the movie.
But I did not have that optionthis time around.
So, um, yeah, I've been pickingup little.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
I think we could play catch up with it though yeah, I
, I think so.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
There's been little snippets and tidbits that I've
seen of you know the second part.
So this is the wicked part onewhich is essentially the first
half of the play, and the secondpart, which comes out next year
, is the second part of the play.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Gotcha so wicked what is wicked.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
It's a fan adaptation of the actual book or the movie
the wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, or both.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
The book that became the movie, that became a
phenomenon, that became aphenomenon that brought us the
Oz, or the Oz the Wiz.
Judy Garland, yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know that whole thing, the Wiz, come on y'all.
The Wiz, and then we had thiscome out in the 90s, yeah, so I
remember when the book dropped Iwas working at this company and
a lot of people was reading andI was like working this help
desk job, so I had to go aroundto a lot of people's desks and I

(08:12):
remember this book being thetopic and I remember thinking
like, when somebody told me whatit was, they're like yo,
they're gonna really explain howthe wicked witch got to be
wicked because it's deep, and Iwas like like that's a dope
concept, because you know me,I'm always about the complex
characters.
I hate when it's just it's whyme and tyler perry tend to have

(08:34):
run-ins.
I hate when it's just black andwhite.
It's just one dimensional.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
This person's evil, no life is never like that it's
never like that.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
So if somebody is the damn wicked witch of the West,
something happened to her.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Oh, absolutely Something happened.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
How did?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
she get to be called that Like what's the backstory?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
So I loved it.
I thought it was a freakingmasterpiece visually.
I thought it was a masterpiecein the storytelling and I don't
think we need to go into amillion spoilers no, we're not
to do this just to do thisreview justice, I don't think we
need to go too deep okay I meanbecause the only spoiler would

(09:17):
be how did she get there?
How did this happen?
Right?

Speaker 2 (09:21):
okay, you, you think we need to do it.
We got to do it.
You know, let's just roll.
All right, let's do it, see howit goes.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
This open book, man Ain't no rules.
Well yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Ain't no rules, we got to be open book.
Okay, let's just see how itgoes.
The movie kicks in Bam, firstscene.
Let's just say that it couldpossibly have spoilers and then
that way, if you haven't seenthe movie, then you won't feel
some type of way that we aretalking about it.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, if you ain't seen it and you don't want to
spoil pause here.
Come back after you've seen it.
With that being said, moviestarts.
Ariana Grande plays Glinda.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Glinda.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Glinda, glinda.
The G is silent.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, at this point she's Glinda, Glinda, Glinda.
The G is silent At this pointshe's Glinda.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
She is Glinda At the start of the movie.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
She's Glinda.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
She's riding in her flying bubble that we all know
and love and she's talking tothe good people of Oz about the
fact that the Wicked Witch justdied.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
You know, ding dong, the witch is dead.
All of that good stuff right.
Right.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
So that's where we start.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
That's where we start .

Speaker 1 (10:30):
And the twist comes in obviously Glenda's the good
witch.
We all know that we grown upwith that.
We know this.
She's sparkling.
She's bedazzled Right whereshe's leaving.
They're like yo, didn't youknow?

Speaker 2 (10:45):
her wait, wait, wait, hold up, hold up and when y'all
?
Friends, what's up with that?
I mean, the girl was like Imean they burned the effigy of
the witch.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
They did they like we really hate this woman.
She been keeping us down allthese years and now she's
finally dead.
Like you know how it is in thewizard of Oz, it's time to
celebrate, celebrate, celebrate,which I do believe all these
years, and now she's finallydead.
You know how it is in.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
The Wizard of Oz.
It's time to celebrate,celebrate, celebrate.
I do believe it's the payinghomage to the witch in the play
the big witch at the verybeginning that they burn I do
believe they're paying homage tothe witch in the play.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Which came out in the 2000s.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
So the book was in the 90s and the play was in
2000s.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
the book was in the 90s and the play was in 2000s.
So yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
So we gotta get into the story and it's, I thought,
interesting is that you see hercome in this big bubble right
and um, flying bubble, theflying bubble so she's obviously
magical right okay, sure yougotta press buttons and do all
of these things to get thebubble to work.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
So the foot pedal.
I thought that was dope.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
They got like a little foot and remember she had
to pop the bubble each time shecouldn't hear.
She had to make sure the bubblewas popped.
I also thought it interesting.
First off, I knew that ArianaGrande, so, um, I knew she was a
phenomenal singer, but I had noidea that she could sing like
that.
Um, she, she was hitting somereally, really high notes in

(12:13):
this first scene and, honestly,I didn't know what she was
saying the first time it waslike what is she saying?
because it was so high, yeah,that I couldn't.
I thought it was beautiful, butI was just like, oh my gosh, I
don't know what she's saying,but it sounds good.
So that's dope, all right.
Okay, good job on her.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I am a distant fan of Ariana Grande.
You know me being a fan ofiCarly and Sam and Cat and
Victorious and that whole lineof shows.
I mean her, her talent is offthe charts, right.
And then she was kind ofadjacent to the hip-hop
community with her day and macmiller and and big sean.

(12:55):
So it's kind of like that's howI first got exposed to her was
okay, this chick is blowing up.
She was on these shows, she was.
She's hilarious.
I think she's kind of like tome, like these stars from like
the 50s and 60s, like a judygarland or like you know what's
her, what's her daughter's name,uh, which I can't remember
right now.
Um, she's like a throwback tothese people who can act and are

(13:18):
funny, they don't takethemselves too serious and they
can sing and they got all threeadults right Liza Minnelli, liza
.
Minnelli, she's a throwback tothat era.
Barbra Streisand like that typeof vibe, like she can hit
Broadway, she can hit everywhereshe can.
Saturday Night Live she can dositcoms, she can she's she got

(13:38):
it all.
She can do a stadium toursinging.
So yeah, I've always been a um.
I won't say I'm necessarily afan of her songs, but her talent
is just ridiculous, like.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I haven't seen anything she ain't dope at.
Yeah, I was.
I was really surprised by thatand I'm a fan of her music.
I mean she does amazing.
I remember her from Victorious,but she also did really good on
Saturday Night Live.
She was just recently on thereand she was phenomenal, super
hilarious.
So I didn't really realize theextent of her um, her background

(14:06):
with just everything that shedoes, so it was really dope to
see her really be able to comein and just knock this part born
to be galinda.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Born, yeah, born to be linda.
Yeah, because this needs somecomedy, this needs that look and
she wanted.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Apparently this was like a role that she has lived
for, so like dream come true forher.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
That's dope.
So we still at the first scene.
Glinda is explaining to themyeah, the witch was dead.
You know, she looked kind oflike kind of bittersweet about
it.
Yeah, just kind of confusinglooking.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, her face was kind of like I mean.
Mean, it just really kind ofdepends on what, your
interpretation of what it isbecause some parts she looked
like she was really sad, someparts she looked like she was
upset and then some parts shejust looked like okay, let's get
this over with like she wasjust like okay, that's done.
Check let's go let's keep itmoving.
So you know, um, she did a goodjob of putting on the smiley

(15:06):
face and and doing what she does, but you could tell she
definitely had some conflictedemotions, for sure and I thought
that was good, you know, and so, like I said, at the end she
hits the.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
You can see they're setting up.
You know, this is the wizard ofoz.
Obviously right, like the wholeworld, the whole universe we're
talking about is the Wizard ofOz cinematic universe right.
So these people are scammers,right, so she's a witch, but
she's rolling in this thing.
Where she's got, like you said,she's got to hit buttons and

(15:37):
press foot pedals and pop abubble to hear it's not real.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Right, it's manufactured.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
So she's showing that already.
I love the fact that they showthat in the first scene because
it stays true to the Wizard ofOz, the Wiz, everything that we
already know.
You know you can't get thisover on us.
You've got to show us up frontbecause we already know the Wiz
is a scammer, we already knowthe Wizard is a scammer.
So she is trying to float awayand they ask her, like yo, but

(16:04):
wasn't you?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
friends with this witch, right yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
And she says, yeah, back in school.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Back in school and then we get a flashback.
Story begins.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Right, so the story begins with.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Her dad, her mom and her dad, or her mom and the
mayor of Munchkinville?
Yes, and.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Elphaba, which is the name of the Wicked Witch.
She's played by Cynthia Erivo.
Cynthia.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Erivo.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Great, great job.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
I mean, she's ridiculous, amazing.
First of, all.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
She played Aretha Franklin and the Wicked Witch of
the West.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Amazing, and she was also Harriet Tubman.
And she was Harriet Tubman andshe wrote and produced this song
that came from that movie and Imean she wrote and produced
this song that came from thatmovie.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
And I mean, we don't live near New.
York, we don't produce things,but we know she done toured
Broadway down for some years now.
Yeah, she was in the ColorPurple.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
She's amazing, her voice is amazing.
I mean I couldn't have pictured.
Obviously I've never seen, likewe said earlier, the play or
anything, but I just can'timagine anybody else playing
this role to the level that thisrole.
She did an amazing job.
She was phenomenal, phenomenalin this movie.
Her voice is just, and I mean Idon't even think she's actually

(17:13):
said that this, like DefyingGravity, is not the hardest song
that she ever sang, which iscrazy, because that song you got
so many highs and lows and dipsand valleys for that song.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's really good.
It in this really good.
It is good, but it is hard itis not it's not elementary stuff
this is not elementary melodiesor lyrics or rhyme patterns.
Is it's floating on?
It's complex?

Speaker 2 (17:38):
and her and ariana grande.
I mean their harmony is justbeautiful.
Sometimes it's like, is it justone voice?
They blend so well and then oneof them will kind of take the
lower note.
But I mean even that they justthey did so well like they
picked.
Uh, john chu did such a greathe did a good job.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Step ups right step up.
He did quite a few step up two,three, four, five, six.
Step up to the game.
Step up in space.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Step up to the streets, and then he did In the
Heights.
He also did.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Lin-Manuel Miranda.
By the way, y'all In theHeights he did.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
In the Heights he also.
He did something else.
Why am I drawing a blank on theother thing that he did?
But yeah, he's.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Step up four Electric Boogaloo.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
He did a great job.
Oh Asians, what was?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
that.
Oh yeah, Crazy Rich Asians,which I haven't seen, but I got
to see it.
Everybody always says that'sdope.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
They got a bunch of awards, but yeah, so yeah, we
kind of get an intro to how sheis brought into this world.
You got her mama tipping out.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Tell us what happened .

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Mama's like okay, okay, husband, go on and do your
job, let me go and bring mylittle bo skin.
And then they're drinking, likethis green elixir or whatever.
They're drinking a green theydrink, they're tipping back
they're tipping back and you cantell that they having some fun,
right, and he drinks it, shedrinks it, and then the next
thing, they, they were twirlingaround all over the pianos yeah,
yeah, they was getting it.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
And then the next scene they twirling around All
over the pianos yeah, yeah, theyromping they was getting it,
and then the next scene is whoop.
She's pregnant, popping out ababy right.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And then we also see that the baby, which is clearly
a black baby that they paintedgreen, comes out green and she's
a disgrace.
You know neither of them holdher mother or father.
She's delivered by a bear,talking bear with the nanny, and
then raised by the bear.

(19:32):
And then raised by the bearbecause she's practically
disowned by her family.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Now this caught me off guard the fact that now,
outside of the Wizard of Oz andthe Wiz, I didn't really do a
lot of Wizard of Oz folklore.
I wasn't reading do a lot ofWizard of Oz folklore.
I wasn't reading all into thebooks, but I didn't realize that
it was based on talking animals.
Yeah me either People andtalking animals living side by
side.
I didn't know that was a thing.

(19:56):
I don't know if that's justsomething they sprung up later.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, because I don't remember that being in the
actual.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
But I mean, they did have a cowardly lion.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
So yeah, I mean it was there yeah that makes sense
it does yeah everything.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh, you know what it is?
Because the crows can talk.
Well, I'm thinking about thewhiz, but either way, but the
tin man I mean he was able toyeah, he was able to talk to and
I thought so interesting thatyou know here it is.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
This girl is green and you find that weird, but
you're hanging out with talkinganimals.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
What are we talking about?
But that green is.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's the green oh, she's the odd one here, which is
crazy, you know, because Icouldn't help but feel like, you
know, I mean as a black person,you know, having black, darker
brown skin, varying shades ofbeautiful brown skin.
You know, feeling like somekind of way about her being

(20:58):
discriminated against because ofher beautiful green skin.
I thought she was beautifulgreen, I thought, thought I mean
even that baby, like when thebaby came out and you saw that
curly hair and it was like lookat that beautiful baby, right,
green or otherwise, it's abeautiful baby and to see her,
even her younger self wasbeautiful, beautiful.

(21:18):
So the green I just thought wasreally nice.
They said that it was like fourhours every day for her to get
that green painted on her andthey did the freckles and
everything.
They really did a great job ofmaking it look very realistic.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, I mean because you know I grew up watching the
Incredible Hulk on TV and theymessed up on that every week.
You could always see the makeupsmudging.
They did a great job.
It never came off.
I think you make a really goodpoint about the analogy to her
greenness and our blackness.
I thought you know even and Iknow a lot of us can relate to

(21:53):
you know growing up aroundpeople who consider themselves
animal lovers.
Mm hmm, but don't got notolerance for us.
It's like you can go, save allof these species.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
But having dark skin is too far for you, you know.
So it's like I feel thatanalogy you're making.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I mean because not only is she, this different
color, right, she's also hatedimmediately.
And she's beautiful, she'sintelligent, you know, but she's
every turn she's treated likeshe's a monster horrible and the
only part, only thing, onlyspecies that shows her any love

(22:35):
are the animals.
So it makes sense the directionthat the movie goes in, because
you know she's essentially hermom was essentially an animal, a
bear that's, who raised her andtook care of her, where her
father and even her sister whowas in a wheelchair, you know
and the rest of these kids thatshe has to grow up around,

(22:56):
treated her like she was, youknow, an alien.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
So you know.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
It's important, though, that the moment she was
born, she screamed yes and andlevitated every object in the
room every, which was thecoolest thing because it shows
you that her powers were alwaysthere, from birth.
They were there, but again itcame with a cry, right.
So it's still not like, oh,she's smiling, she's happy, know

(23:23):
, she's screaming, like youcould feel that she's not wanted
, you know, and that cry ofSomebody grabbed me, like what,
and you could see.
So I mean, I thought that wasjust so good to see, like
everybody's just like turningaway from her, and then you see
that power and the theme of thatpower throughout the movie is

(23:46):
based on her anger.
So, yeah, really interesting.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
And so you mentioned the sister.
So she ends up with anothersister, yep Younger.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Has another sister.
Mother dies giving birth to thesister.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Tell us how that happened.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So it's brought up in the movie where the father is
distraught, clearly, and disownsElphaba because she's green.
But the mother gets pregnantagain and the father doesn't
want her to deliver anothergreen baby, so he has her taking
milk, milk flour, yeah um, andexcuse me, this causes Nessa

(24:22):
Rose, the little sister sister,to come early and the mother
died Not fully developed.
Clearly her.
You know she's disabled andthen the mother dies during
birth, so you know.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Milk flowers babe Milk flowers, Milk flowers, milk
flowers.
So we're going to make thisbaby white.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
We're going to make this.
So Elphaba thinks that this isher fault because obviously the
dad is this way because she'sgreen.
But that ain't that.
That's the daddy's fault, I'msorry, or it's the milk flowers
fault.
Who we blaming?

Speaker 1 (24:51):
it on, it shouldn't be blamed on her or it's just
the parents fault for being whothey was right and not let her.
Let her understand her realtruth right on.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean the mother.
We can take it back to the mamatipping out what was or what
was daddy doing.
Like you know what I'm saying,it that you're right, it starts
with the parents.
It shouldn't have been placed.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
The heavy weight shouldn't have been placed on
her but it was, and it kind ofreminded me of the way she
internalized that she walkedaround like not only am I messed
up, I'm, I'm so messed up, I'mdefensive.
Everybody, I, everybody I meet.
I got to explain my existence.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yes, she has a disclaimer.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
I got to do this to everybody because it's my fault
that they are uncomfortable.
But not only that.
You owning it Like it's me.
I'm the reason my father didwhat he did gave my mother the
milk, flowers and now mymother's dead.
So all of this is me and itreminded me of like you ever

(25:47):
heard, like when people likeracist people or when people
talk about racism in the pastthey'll be like oh man, they did
this down south because of thecolor of their skin.
They discriminated against thisperson because of the cup.
It's not because of the colorof their skin.

(26:08):
No it's because of the messedup brain they have.
It's got nothing to do with thecolor of their skin.
But it's like that's the waythat it's always explained.
Even when we call in that hate,we'd be like, oh well he, he
hated him because of the colorof their skin that's not the
reason.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Nope, that's you.
That's the uncomfortabilitywith you.
It ain't got nothing to do withthe other person.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
I hate when it's like the fault is always going on
the person for having the wrongcolor skin.
Even when I got abused by aracist, well, it's because you
have the wrong color skin.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
What?
No, what is that?
That's the logic.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
oh okay, no yeah yeah , so I thought that was.
I thought it was really deepand painful and accurate how she
internalized that on herself,because that is how we are, you
know, like even like this isanother one you ever meet people
, non-black people, and racismcome up and people would be like

(27:04):
, man, well, I'm far from aracist okay I don't care if you
black, white, green, red, purple, brown I don't see color uh,
first of all, I hate.
Why would you?
And that's what I think is oneof the most interesting things
about this story- and that lineI do believe was in this movie I
don't see color.
I think somebody said that whywould you equate me being black

(27:26):
to somebody being green andpurple?
It's like why do you?
You gotta be so open-mindedthat you even accept aliens and
non-existent beings to like meright that's what it takes right
.
You can't just be like I'm not aracist.
You gotta be like man.
I don't care if you purple,white, black, it's like what.

(27:47):
All I got to do with it, Iain't purple Right and honestly,
we're all.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
we have racisms in our.
Everybody does.
Whatever color you are,whatever race you are, whatever
culture you are, you have sometype of thoughts to your own.
So, and which could or couldnot be viewed as racist.
So it just is what it is.
Sometimes, I think that when itcomes to portraying it to be

(28:12):
skin color, that's when itbecomes okay.
This is more than that Becauseobviously, culturally, you know,
we all have our thing.
But, then when you get intoother things that have been
classified as a specific youknow color then that's something
else 100, so they end up goingwhere they go to school they go

(28:35):
to university she is university,and actually so we and this is
when gullanda comes into thepicture, right um, we get to see
her.
She's different from everybody.
She's her pink is evident,she's clearly rich and she's
clearly loved by everybody she'sa star.
She walks on the clouds on thecampus and everybody's fawning

(28:59):
over her everybody except for afew people she can do no wrong
she can do no wrong.
I mean, she's raised that way.
That's just who she is.
She's popular, she's the itgirl.
And then you get Elphaba andNessa Rose, who you know is
there.
Elphaba is not enrolled, she'sonly there with her sister.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
I thought that was interesting.
You see her first.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
She comes in first by herself.
She does see her first.
She comes in first by herself.
She does come in first byherself.
Yeah, which, yeah again, isvery, but that's probably
because the dad was helping.
You know the dad was she was onher own and as soon as she
steps foot up, it's immediateshe's green and she gives her
disclaimer that we see multipletimes she says let me answer
your questions up front.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
No, I haven't eaten grass.
No, yes, I was born this way.
Right, she got a whole speechthat she always keeps giving
through the movie.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Right, I didn't eat grass.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
I'm not seasick, and I was born this way.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, which is whack and then you again can see she's
.
You could tell that she wantedto stay, but she's not enrolled
and her father makes her stay tomake sure that Nessa Rose is
okay.
And Nessa Rose is like, why areyou still here?
This is my fresh start in mynew beginning.
I don't want you here.
And then there's this scenewhere they introduced all of the

(30:17):
faculty and you get to see thesorcerer.
I can't remember what her nameis in the movie, but, um, that's
when, um, what's her name?
Michelle woo comes into the thepicture and um, then that or yo
, michelle, yo, and she's madamemorrible, yeah, morrible.

(30:41):
So so she is the only onethat's not entranced with Glinda
and there's a scene where she'ssaying that she's not teaching
her class, but Nessa is beinglike taken off by the
headmistress and it's very bigfor both Elphaba and Nessarose,

(31:04):
for Nessarose to feel like shecan do everything on her own.
And when she takes her away, shekind of like the headmistress,
just kind of like pushes her off, like no, no, no, I can take it
from here.
And then her power comes out.
And then that's when everythingis like oh, she's even scarier
now she levitates everything.
She levitates everything.
She levitates everything andshe even knocks off a piece of

(31:27):
um the brick to show.
I think it had the facade that'sgot like a painting on it yeah,
it had the wizard of oz yeah ithad him on it, and then it
falls off, and then you couldsee that there was, in fact, a
time where there were theanimals that were faculty, who
were teaching everyone andtalking, yeah, and they only had

(31:48):
one animal left, which was thegoat.
Yes, yeah, which was the goat.
So, yeah, so this is how shegets accepted into the school.
The sorcerer sees her, she saysshe wants to teach her, and
Galinda just happens to bearound and volunteers her room
unknowingly, and then that'skind of how her father lets her
attend the school.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
And she has to run with Galinda.
Galinda wants to be a sorceressslash witch.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
And she's hoping that this lady is going to teach her
and the lady's not.
She got no powers.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Galinda is exactly like the wizard she's just a
regular person.
She wants to get with this lady, miss Maribel is that her name.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, yeah, miss morrible miss morrible.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
So she wants to be chosen, as she's always chosen.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
She thinks this is gonna be the same situation,
because she even has the line ohmy gosh, I didn't get my way.
I feel faint.
I just thought that was thefunniest thing.
So ariana grande in this movieis hilarious she has so many
funny lines in this movie umshe's also white privilege she's
oh very very she's theembodiment of white privilege.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yes, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Her friends won't even let her feet touch the
ground she's carried no, becauseeven in that the scene where
they get to the room and she hasto share her room and she gives
her a corner that's literallyjust a cot by a window while she
takes up the rest of the room.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
It's integration, right, racial integration.
We give you separate, but equalquarters right, we give you
that little corner.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, so it progresses to a musical number,
which was great, and then youkind of can see again them just
having different personalitiesher being galinda, being the
popular one and then, of course,elphaba not being popular at
all not only not popular, she,you know.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
I saw that.
They said um, what's thedirector's name?
John chu.
He said one of his trademarksis visual storytelling with
colors.
He absolutely did that in here,right?
So the school's uh uniform isblue.
Everybody's wearing blue exceptfor elphaba and glinda.
So glinda is wearing her she'swearing black.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, glinda's wearing pink.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
She never stops wearing pink.
Does she want to do what shewant to do?
She's she's white privilege.
I do what she want to do.
She's white privilege.
I do what I want to do.
I don't conform to anything.
And on the opposite end,Elphaba is wearing black.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
But she does wear the blue shirt.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
But she starts to phase in.
I thought that was reallyinteresting.
She starts to conform.
She initially didn't.
She initially was standoutstark and then you start to see
her put some blue under herblack and then she even once
they got to be friends, she evenallowed her to make her stylish
from there.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, her outfits were like oh okay, I see you,
alpha, because it was stillblack, but it was like you know,
a dress here, or you know,maybe she has um knee high boots
, or you know, just so.
Yes, you could definitely seethat her style changed quite a
bit, for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, so the middle of the movie was really not,
unlike a whole bunch of othermovies.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, no we got the second act where they they have
the oz dust dance.
Am I saying that?
Um, where they all, they all.
Jonathan Bailey comes into themovie, right, because then they
have this thing where you gotthe animals, the goat.
He has this thing written up inthe classroom where you know

(35:16):
animals are to be seen, notheard.
And then she kind of goes andshe kind of talks to him about
them, about you know them beingtaken away, kind of talks to him
about them, about to you knowthem being taken away.
And then that's when JonathanBailey comes in, because she
meets him like on the way homeand she's totally not impressed
by him at all because, remember,she gives him the disclaimer.
He's like, okay, I'm okay.

(35:37):
Why are you telling me thesethings?
right and she's.
She told him to go get stuffed,which is hilarious, um, and
then the next day, that's whengalinda is like reported that
he's coming, and then galindasees him, and then they have
this big thing where they likeimmediately hook up and then
that goes into the library scenewhere he has his big number,
which was amazing in the librarywith the twirling so this guy

(35:59):
is a prince from another part ofthe land?

Speaker 1 (36:02):
right, ah, so he came from us, yeah, and he comes in
and he is like uh, they tell thestory really quickly and
clearly that he's a bad boy.
He's getting thrown out ofevery school because he doesn't
conform he doesn't conform rightand he's like by all no
different from galinda, he'sjust really the male version of

(36:23):
her.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I mean men and women love him.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
He felt to me like he was the embodiment of both of
them yeah, okay, I can see thatat the same time like because
they are mirror images.
One of them combined is that ishim, is him.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, I agree, but is it, though?
I mean, yeah, that's what hewants everybody to believe.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
So yes, I can see that.
Yeah, I think what he wants, Ican see him playing that part,
yes, but there's also more tohim than he is showing people.
I think he wanted people tobelieve he was the male version
of Glinda Mm-hmm.
But Elphaba can see throughthat.
Yeah, absolutely, and she seesthe part of him that's exactly
like her.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
And the part of him that's exactly like her, yeah,
and I think he.
I mean this story is not aboutlove, it's not a love story per
se, like in the typical movieslike this, but I thought it was
love in that.
That was real for him and itchanged him the moment he saw
that he, she saw that in him.
I think it changed him for therest of the movie and I think

(37:25):
there was a you know, I hate touse that word love because it
kind of makes your mind gosomewhere else with the story.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Because it wasn't all about oh my God, they're going
to kiss and all of that?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
No, it wasn't that.
It was just more of arealization.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, he kind of had his blinders taken off right,
yes, kind of had to had hisblinders taken off right, or our
blinders, because that was athing like you know they have.
They have this dance, which isa huge part in the movie.
They have this dance where, um,well, from the library scene,
you have um brock asking thesister.
Anessa rose to the dancebecause glinda said he should,

(38:02):
and then but the way that shedid it right.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
This is glinda, right ?
So glinda shows her usual style, right?
So we get to see the glindathat ends up becoming the good
witch, right, where she's gonnagive charity to somebody based
on what she wants, right?
What she really wants is toclear the waters yeah right for
her right.
So she's like I'm gonna dosomething good for y'all, which

(38:26):
is what we end up seeing ofglenda right at the end.
Right, this is how glenda is agood right.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Everything has to be self-serving to her in some type
of way and this was to get himout of her way.
Um, and then she invites, so shefinds this hat her grandmother
knitted her, or made her, ablack hat that they were like.
Her friends were like, oh, thishat is horrible.
And she's like, oh, I know, Iwould never give this to anybody
, not even my worst enemy.
And then, of course, elphabawalks into the room and they

(38:55):
think it's funny, like a nicelittle joke, for her to gift her
this hat, which Elphaba is like, wow, you know, and invites her
to this big party that they'rehaving.
And so then Elphaba goes to thesorcerer to say, hey, I really
think that you should, now thatshe's invited me and my sister
to this party, I think youshould allow her to come to the
class that you know us be inthis private class Learning how

(39:19):
to be a sorceress the thing thatGlenda wants more than anything
right elphaba got it for herright.
So they go to the dance, andnice dance.
You could clearly see thatagain, bach is not really into
this chick, but only starts toshow her attention once he sees
glinda.
And um, fiero prince, fierokiss.

(39:40):
And then that's when we see thesorcerer come and tell her uh,
galinda, like hey, I'm givingyou this training wand so that
you can join my class elphabainsisted and she said she would
leave if you didn't allow her tocome.
And you need to make sure youthank her because here she comes
.
And so here elphaba comes inthis beautiful black dress, with

(40:04):
this witch hat that she's givenCalm down, they clowning her
Still clowning.
They just create this big circlearound.
They like spread the watersright.
She's standing in the middle,everybody's laughing at her and
she starts dancing.
She starts doing her, she putsher, takes her hat off first and
starts doing this dance thateverybody's just laughing at her

(40:26):
, clowning her, and she ends upputting the hat back on.
But you can see she's likesuper emotional, she's crying,
she's just kind of like man.
And then Galinda realizes likeI feel terrible.
Here it is.
I've been dogging this girl andshe did the thing that I most
wanted and I have reallyfostered this environment of all

(40:49):
of these people making her feel, yeah, she has a turning point
and she dances with her.
And I love this scene becauseobviously you could sell, you
could tell that there's realemotion there.
And she was directed to notknow the dance so she literally
had to follow her.
Whatever the movements werethat she, the elphaba, was doing
, she had to follow them andthat opened the door for them to

(41:14):
form this friendship.
It was a beautiful scene.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
This was the scene that I got misty, misty-eyed in
at the theater.
It was beautiful they have tobe mirror images of each other
visually, which, again, greatvisual storytelling, letting the
audience know exactly who thesepeople are showing the
progression of glinda.
Letting you know, so thatyou're again tyler perry, if
you're listening again lettingus know this person is not all

(41:41):
evil.
This is a complex character itis very and we're going to show
you exactly how complex we'regoing to give you the whole
story.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right, and then we go right into the popular scene,
which is them having the danceand her trying to figure out how
to dress Elphaba up and makeher different, when she really
just settles on.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
This is her version of love.
This is her version of love.
You are now my friend.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
I'm going love.
This is her version of love.
You are now my friend I'm gonnamake you popular.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
We can tell each other.
You only know how to do it.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
One way, and I'm gonna make you dazzle.
Of course I'm gonna make youpopular.
You're never gonna be aspopular as me and I'm gonna
drive but I'm gonna I'm incontrol steer you and I love
that.
It just really wound up beingyou're perfect and beautiful as
you are.
I'm gonna give you this flower,show you that pink and green
goes together well, and tell youthat you're beautiful, which
she probably has never heard inher life.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Big scene.
She said Huge scene.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
She ran off.
Of course she was emotional.
Again she ran off and then youcould see her finishing.
The scene was like yeah, I'mgoing to make you popular, boo,
but you ain't going to be aspopular as me.
But you know what I thought wasreally interesting, which was
just such a that's a great scene.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
After it all ended with, I'm just going to give you
a flower, because you alreadygot the beauty.
She still imitated Glinda.
After she left, she startedflipping her hair.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
She was.
What did he call her?
The prince came and he saidyou've been Glindified.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
You've been Glindified.
And then he told her you don'tneed to do that, you don't need
to do that.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
You don't.
No, I again that spoke reallymuch, really big to black
aesthetic the black aesthetic ofbeauty versus the white
normalized aesthetic of beauty,and how there is a lot of
pressure.
Even when you do come to thatrealization that I am beautiful
the way I am, there's still thatlingering pressure when they
ain't looking to flip that hairyep and think about that image
of whiteness.
I thought that was excellent.
Those are the little, smallthings you can do to really make

(43:28):
a story perfect.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
And then from there it goes into the scene of the
goat being captured, the teacherbeing captured and then Elphaba
unknowingly casting a poppyspell.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Right, yeah, this so overall and we didn't touch on
it real big because it's a lotand we don't want to take three
hours.
But the overall arch of that isthat in the past the teachers
are teaching them that theiranimal teachers are teaching
them that in the past thatanimals could talk, a lot of
animals could talk and theywould teach and they live
perfectly fine with humans.

(44:04):
And then humans starteddominating them and trying to
take away their ability to talkand the more that they took it
away, the less they couldactually talk.
They actually would becometimid to where they lost their
ability to talk, because it was.
They would be so mistreated yeah, if they did talk and they put
them in cages also if you, ifyou're keeping track at home,

(44:26):
explains the cowardly lion, butwe get there on another episode.
But which?

Speaker 2 (44:32):
is also a little lion cub that is brought into the
classroom and taken away.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
They invent cages, they invent animal cages, and so
the one of the common themes isthat humanity is taking over
animals.
They are making them hide in inback dark rooms to talk, and
they are caging them when theysee them, and eventually there's
not going to be any animalsliving free.
They're all going to be incages, and you know kind of like

(45:00):
how we are right now, whereain't no animals talking or
teaching nobody, nothing.
That's where they're headed,and this is what Elphaba makes
the realization of.
And to your point, bae, which Ithought was really dope,
elphaba was raised by an animalyeah, this is going.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
This is huge for her.
She's the only one in the classis like upset.
Everybody else is like why arewe talking about this?

Speaker 1 (45:20):
and that's another point which I gotta make super
quick.
Ozians, the people who live ineyes, these ain't normal humans.
I thought they did a reallygood job of conveying that,
right.
Like any.
All of us who've seen thewizard of oz especially all of
us who've seen the wiz know thatozians are just sheep people.

(45:41):
They follow whatever a, anaggressive, assertive person
tells them.
They just fall in line likethat.
That's who they are, that's intheir dna.
So you see that over and overin this movie, like, except for
the people who are not exactlyfrom there, right so you see,
like you said, alpha, but it'slike this is messed up.

(46:03):
This dude is a great teacher.
He was teaching us.
I was raised by an animal.
This is not right.
Everybody else you could kindof see on their face that was
like it's kind of messed up.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
But oh well this is where we're headed.
Now let's go and then, evenwhen she cast her, like
unknowingly, cast that spell.
Fiyero is the only other personthat's not affected by it and I
think it's because he's notfrom there.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Remember, at the beginning, when he popped up, he
said I'm from what?

Speaker 2 (46:27):
is it Wicking?

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Wickers.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
He's from Oz.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
No, it was another land he said he was from and it
had a weird name because he saidit a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
He did, but then he said Oz it was somewhere.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
It was somewhere.
Yeah, find that it was, becauseI think he said what was
something like that.
But so, yeah, she, she spreadspoppies, which is great, not
back to the wizard of oz and thewhiz.
I'm gonna keep putting the whizin there because y'all know,
but she spreads poppy winkycountry.
So she accidentally makespoppies fly all over the class.

(46:59):
Everybody goes to sleep.
Her and the prince run off intothe woods with the lion cub.
They pull him out of the littlecage they was building so that
they can really free him andthey start to real.
And that's when he realizes Iam like you.
Yeah, I am not a conformist.
Yeah, I am him out.
Yeah, she told him, I am notlike Glenda.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
I love that scene.
When she told him Mike, you'repretending.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
You wouldn't be so miserable if this was how you
really were.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yep, yeah, and it was facts, and I think it did.
It hit him all the way to thecore.
Yes, it did, and he immediatelychanged Totally changed.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
After that yeah.
After that, yeah, cause shesang that song I'm not that girl
which was another great song.
Um, that doesn't really gettalked about a lot, but it was a
really good song.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
And you can see him.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Oh my gosh, Remember, because she got that happened.
And then the, the um sorcerersent a letter off to the Wiz,
and you know, it came back towhere it was time for you to go
visit and on the way to thetrain coming, he comes back to.
Like you know she was lookingfor him.
Like where is I mean?
You know, I know he ain't hereto see me, but where is he been

(48:08):
acting different?
He been acting different.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
She was like he been thinking his stuff she didn't
open up his mind outside oftheir walls, and so yeah,
overall, the.
The sorcerer lets the wiz thewizard no, I'm gonna always say
the wiz, y'all, y'all know whatit is.
The sorceress lets the wizardknow we got the one yeah, we got
the real one.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know, you've been looking, we got the one so he,
she sends away, he comes back,they send a train for but wait,
I thought that this was a nicething to bring up very quickly
how, when they get the telegram,it starts to rain and remember
she covers her up oh yeah andshe was like I control the
weather and send the rain away,but remember she's supposed to

(48:53):
melt if she gets wet.
So that was nice little, littlewinky wink right at the very
beginning to say, oh, we can'tlet you get wet boo.
So yeah, she comes and gets,the train comes to get her and
um but that also shows you thatthat lady knew oh yeah, of
course she knew yeah, becauseyou the way she said it to her,

(49:14):
was like oh no, we can't haveyou getting wet, because this is
when they still want to use herright right, yeah, so she gets
on the train.
She's leaving.
Uh, fiero gives her a poppy.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Um, they throw this big send off for her, and that's
when galinda gives her thething saying I wish all of your
hope, all of your dreams cometrue, your heart's desires yes,
and she was like you need tocome with me, but before that
happens, you know, her and fieroare talking about the animals
and all they made this bigprotest.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
right, because they took the cub.
And so Glinda's like I'm goingto stand on it too, because he
could never say my name.
Right, I'm going to change myname to Glinda to show
solidarity for the animals, sonow she's Glinda instead of
Glinda, and they go off andagain you get to see glinda as

(50:06):
the good witch, right like thisis how it happens.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yes, because everybody thought it was the
greatest.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Thing ever right and she was like I mean, people love
you.
This is not really a big dealfor those like it's not a big
deal story they.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
You get to see how these people get the positions
they got right.
Like you know, I don't getpolitical with it, but everybody
always get all upset whencertain people get elected.
I'm like, but look at how, yeah, and understand the how you get
.
We see, we've, we've seen inother movies how the wizard got
where he was at.
He flew in on a balloon andthey thought he was magic and he

(50:41):
kept that joint going.
Yep, man, I am magic, you right, yeah, and I ain't gonna let
y'all see the real how I'm doingit, right, but I'm gonna
perform enough tricks yeah thaty'all all gonna think I'm magic
and we, as we just talked aboutozzy and believe anything.
So they will follow a leader andhe is the leader.
So I thought it was dope.
You get to see Glenda be like alittle wizard.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
She's just like him.
Yep, she running the showessentially Because she ain't
got no powers.
No, she does not.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Her popularity is her power.
Her powers are popular.
She know how to manipulatefolks, man, she get what she
want.
And you'll see her do this hairflip thing from oh my gosh,
which is hilarious andeverybody's like, oh she has the
.
It's almost like the wizardwith the giant face yeah, or
emerald city.
It's what she has behind.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
She gotta keep doing yeah, which is why it does not
work for elphaba, because that'snot her thing.
She has her magic, she has hersmarts, she has her skin.
That's her thing yeah so we goto the oz and, beautiful right,
everybody's dancing, they'regreen, they're having a good
time go and hey, shout out tothe black dancers that rolled
through man they came in, theystood out.

(51:57):
so much I was was twerking andeverything we also get to see
the original cast from the play,which was really nice.
They had a scene that they did,so we were able to get to kind
of just have them be in.
And there were quite a fewpeople who kind of popped up

(52:19):
from the play, the various playsthat there were.
There were a few people thatplayed the Wicked Witch, or they
played Glinda, or they had sometype of role in the previous
play.
So that was nice that he he hadthem pop up around the show.
Yeah, so they get to the doors.
We meet the monkeys who do nothave wings.
They're the guard, they're justthere.

(52:41):
They take her to the.
They take them both to thedoors.
We meet the monkeys who do nothave wings.
They're the guard, they're justthere, they take her to the.
They take them both to the back.
And in this you can see, asthey're walking through the, the
town, you can see their bond,galinda and alpha, but getting
stronger and stronger, they getto the door.
They say they're best friends,they go in, they meet the big
wizard of o and he does hiswhole production.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Jeff Goldblum, y'all.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Jeff, we get Jeff Goldblum Come on.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
How can we not have Jeff?

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Goldblum Amazing, amazing actor.
So good to see him just reallybe himself in this movie.
And when she has to comeforward First off the very.
I thought this was so funnywhen he like get all boomy and
she was like, oh no baby.
Elphaba was running.
I thought that was so funny.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
It was just like the Cowardly Lion did.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yes, he was like uh-uh, I'm leaving, and Glitch
was like no, no, no, you got tostay.
But oh, I just thought that wasso funny because I'm with you,
Elphaba.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
I'm like, oh no, you coming booming and booming
behind the big metal face, likehe always is, and as soon as he
heard her name, they say thename he comes back out.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthat at the end, because I know
you got some points to make onthat one yeah he.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
He says, she says her name, he comes out, he's like
oh wow, you're here, let me showyou my plans.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
And so yeah he got plans to make her the first lady
.
Basically, he's gonna run thisplace with me yeah, she's with
me.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
He has a little action figure, he has this whole
sandbox where he has what thefuture town is gonna look like
and she's there with him themost part about it.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
The sandbox that he had was Oz that we see in the
Wizard of Oz.
It actually did come tofruition it did yes, and he
asked him to even choose thecolor of the brick road.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, which was really cool and then the
sorcerer comes, and then it'slike we got.
What was the name of the book,do you remember?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
no, but there's a magical book of spells.
It's shaped funny.
You know how you got to do itin the movies, um, and they like
we need you to go up and trythis book.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Right and you know the sorcerer is telling her.
Like you know, don't be worried, if you know you don't get it.
It took me two years just tosay two words and she gets it
immediately.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
She gets it immediately.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
What they do is they say well what, how can you prove
?
She's like well, how can Iprove myself?
Because the sorcerer told hershe needed to prove herself.
And they, they go to the monkeyand he's like oh well, he loves
birds and he loves birds.
He's always looking at the birdsand you know, and you could see
the emotions on the monkey,like, yeah, I do like birds,
they're really cool, right, ofcourse he's not talking, but you
could see it in his face howthe you know very just the

(55:19):
expression is like yeah so she'slike great, I'm gonna give you
wings she spits a spell out ofthis book that makes wings
violently grow out of themonkey's shoulder blades, and
turns out they grow out of allof the monkey's shoulder blades
and they in pain, and elphaba isobviously like.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
This ain't what I was .
This ain't it.
I was looking to do somegoodness right.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I wasn't trying to do that right, because of course
she loves the animal, she's nottrying to hurt him.
And so she asked the sorcerer,like the Grimory, how do we
reverse this?

Speaker 1 (55:54):
and she tells her you can't reverse anything from the
Grimory, shout out to Elphaba,because she she wasn't like
Dorothy man, she figured it outinstantly.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
She did.
She figured it out instantly,once she realized okay, what
y'all asking me to do, I can'tdo.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
I mean, this was her dream, right, and she didn't
play that whack stuff that theyusually do, where they look at
somebody else first.
She went straight to the wizard.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
She made him the Gregory, remember?

Speaker 1 (56:22):
She was like here you do it you do it like you can't
do it, bro, you fake.
She figured, she figured thewiz out faster than anybody ever
yeah, because they like.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
No, we need you to do .
That's why we got you here.
We need to do this with us.
And as soon as she left, theyrecruit glinda to go get her.
And then the sorcerer goes tothe monkeys and tell them she
did this to you.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
She the one that gave you wings now is where the
movie gets his name she's theevil one see, we have go get her
all apb.
They have an announcementsystem, as you remember, from
the, from the whiz.
They have an announcementsystem, as you remember, from
the Wiz.
They got an announcement systemthat everybody in the town can
hear and she says we got to gether.
Her green skin is what they sayis a reflection of the evil

(57:12):
within.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
She is a wicked witch .

Speaker 1 (57:16):
And there you have it .
And there you have it.
So she off and running, theychasing her, they trying to get
her, they trying to get out.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
They trying to get out, they try to get gold
through the balloon Right.
They got the wizard there.
They sent.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Glenda to get her.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
But Glenda is conflicted because Glenda is
still her friend, she's stillher friend.
And they like we gonna ride outtogether.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
But Glenda's also a scammer.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
She Like what is she really going to be able to do?

Speaker 1 (57:38):
She is way out of her depth and she knows the only
way that I could even stay here.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Is to do what they say To do what they say.
Because my only power is mypopularity and these people are
going to be able to give meessentially what I want.
I can't ride off with you,because now we fugitives, right,
what am I going to be able todo?
But, to her credit, she caughther and she ain't try to make

(58:03):
her, she ain't try to grab her,like what are you doing like?

Speaker 1 (58:04):
this is your dream.
You're being ridiculous.
She tried to use her power ofpersuasion.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
It didn't work but and then, once she realized that
this is and even Elphaba waslike you know what this is
exactly what I want, but I can'tthis is not, I can't want this
anymore.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
This is bigger than us, right yeah so so we get to
the connection of realizations.
Now we're we get to the climaxof it all.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Now we're at the climax.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
She knows that I got to write.
I got to cast a spell on myselfso I can get out of here.
They try to use my man thewizard's balloon, but it got
destroyed.
He kept it in and it wasdestroyed and burnt up.
I got to fly out of here.
Somehow I'm going to cast aspell on me.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
I'm going to think these wings is going to work for
me.
It worked on the monkeys, right, but it didn't.
That's not what she got.
She got her broom.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
She got the broom.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
And I thought in this moment when the wings didn't
come and Glinda's like, oh,maybe you're not as powerful as
you thought I was like when thatbroom started moving.
I was like what you got to sayto that girl, linda right?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
So she got the broom.
Time to fly off, so she, shegot the broom.
She wearing black, she wearinga hat.
What's she missing?

Speaker 2 (59:13):
She missing her cloak , which Glenda gives her right.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
She tells her come on .
She told her to come with her.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
She said come with me , hop on this bone with me she
says you're, you're freezing,you're shaking, and she goes to
get her cloak and you know againwhich is one of her just a
black shroud hanging at the topof the wizard's palace that she
creates on where he flew hisballoon out of.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
So she grabs it and rips it down and ties it around
Elphaba's neck and now she haseverything that we've ever seen.
And you gotta you know John Chuwas good at this, but you know
we're gonna get the Avengersspin around 360 shut beautiful
and it was killer.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
It was beautiful.
I was dope and I thought youmade a good point earlier when
you said that all of these itemsthat she has the hat, the cloak
, these are things that has beengiven to her right by glinda,
by glinda right yeah, the firstone not really being an honest
gift, but the other is, you know, to help her along on her
journey so the final scene is atearjerker oh, it's beautiful,

(01:00:20):
she jumps, she jumps to escape.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
She can't fly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
At first, she loses the broom and she's falling to
her death and she sees herselfher younger self right this
unlimited song she's singing,she sees her younger self and
they reach out to each other andthe connection that they have
is the broom brings the broomback right before she hits the
ground, flies up and she tellthem like y'all want me, I'm the

(01:00:46):
one y'all want.
And guess what?

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
y'all ain't get me, wicked witch is born and she
said what you could find me inthe west yep, oh my gosh, her
singing was the wicked witch ofthe west is born, and the flying
monkeys that they sicked on herare now following her she
turned them around to use to heradvantage, although you notice,
when she did get them to attack, they did not attack Glinda.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
They did.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
No, glinda was still standing there.
Remember, all of them was there, and they was even standing
next to Glinda.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Oh, you're talking about that scene On the original
scene.
They did when they was tryingto get both of them.
You're right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
When Elphaba flew them in, they only attacked the
wizard and the guards.
Yeah, you're right, they didnot attack, or I mean the
sorceress and the guards.
Because the wizard was down inhis office.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Like he always is hiding.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Yep, and then he came out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Then you could also see where galinda and the
sorcerer is now their friend yesbecause you know her token is
not necessarily friends, butshe's there, they got yeah,
marriage of convenience.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Yeah, it's somebody there that she can have do their
will so we got.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
One last thing, though you got to give us a
theory which is who's alphaba'sfather?

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
oh, I think it's that , I think it's the wizard of oz,
absolutely well, because at thevery beginning.
Well, there's father.
Oh, I think it's the Wizard ofOz, absolutely.
What makes you think that?
Well, because at the verybeginning.
Well, there's a couple reasonswhy I think that the very first
reason was at the very beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
They have the green bottle right and obviously
there's some elixir when her momis stepping with the dude.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Yeah, he drinking, she drinking, they drinking, you
got this green baby.
That's magic, magic, of course,right.
And then also it was a, it wasa part where, and I don't know
too, it seems like you said thesorcerer was waiting for her,
they were waiting for her.
So I, you know, I can't saythat you know, obviously because
she was with the munchkin guy,you know the mayor.

(01:02:34):
She wasn't enrolled in theschool, but her being at the
school brought attention toherself and her writing her to
say I think she's the one.
But then she gets there and inthe sandbox when they're talking
about you know he already gotthis figurine of her with green
skin, which you know she washoping to de-green herself.
But she's got this green skinand it's a scene where he says I

(01:02:57):
always wanted to be a father.
And in that it is, I alwayswanted to be a father and in
that it is, I always wanted tobe a father, I wanted to have a
son or daughter and he just got.
He just got so like oozy whenhe said that like a daughter,
and I'm like, and he looked ather and even like, when they
first got there, he did themagic trick only with her, with

(01:03:20):
the coin behind her ear,remember, because he was like
you brought an unexpected person, like they weren't expecting
Glenda to be there, they didn'twant her there until obviously
they needed her.
But I just it was too muchemotion that he was like putting
in and his attention was reallynow you could look at it like,
well, he needs her because shehas powers, but it was just too
much focus on her.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
I think it was more than that.
I think that she is his kid.
I agree with that.
I think it says a couple ofthings too, though.
Um, one thing I love is that itmeans, if that's true and I I
agree with that, I think it istrue but that means the wizard
actually did have some magic yeshe did figure it out.
He couldn't figure it out inhimself, but he got it.

(01:04:07):
He was able to pass it on ormaybe the sorcerer.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
He always knew her and she was remember because she
said that she tried to do thegrimory, the reading and the
grimory, and she couldn't do it,so maybe she had something to
do with it yeah maybe she madean elixir for him and they
supposed they chose this womanspecifically because she's the
mayor's husband wife of themunchkin land all right, it

(01:04:31):
could be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I think it's.
It's so much.
Y'all tell us what y'all thinkright.
Overall, I think this is areally a story about a lot of
things, but conformity about.
Uh, when you are the outsiderto what's normalized, it can.
There's an analogy.
It's an analogy for racism.
It's an analogy for a lot ofthe isms.

(01:04:53):
When you are looked at as theoutside and you know that you
have innate abilities and giftsthat were put in you but you
can't see them through the lensof how normal society is telling
you to look, they feel like youare ugly and you are not
valuable.
So I thought all of that was inthere.
I love the fact that these areall complex characters, even

(01:05:15):
Glinda.
I know we talked about this.
I feel like I don't feel likeGlinda was an evil character
although I know that's the no.
It's easy for us to go there tosay, oh, one of them was seen as
good one of them seen as eviland they flipped it.
I don't think they quite flippedit.
I think they exposed it to showus the real, which is what the
wizard of oz story is all aboutexposing the real, complex

(01:05:36):
reality.
Is the wizard even evil?
Right like yes, that'ssomething that he's exposed.
He's not even a wizard, he's aman who was a uh, a failed
magician circus guy who flew aballoon.
So I think, overall, I thinkthey were true to the essence of
wizard of oz story exposure andgetting to the depth behind.

(01:05:57):
I think, um, I like the prince.
He was a really good side ofthe story I really like.
I thought Ariana Grande did herthing.
Even though the whole point isto not like her, I thought she
really did her thing to be funnyin it, man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
She was wonderful man .
She was so dope, she waswonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
And Cynthia Erivo.
Oh, my goodness, man, man,because you got to bring beauty
to this character that we haveonly seen as this ugly witch
with the bump on the nose andcackling with rotten teeth, like
that's what every single personhas ever seen of this character
flying through the air, butwith the moon behind her.

(01:06:36):
It's like you've never seen anybeauty in this, and in one turn
she had to make you see truebeauty.
I thought she did a great job.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
She did.
Her ending, I mean the climaxof her coming into who she is,
and her power, was justabsolutely beautiful.
The second time around is whenI cry, because I mean it was
just beautiful for her to say,for her to be falling, trying to
figure out who she is, and tocome to herself, child and all,

(01:07:06):
to come to herself to say it'sme, you want, I'm the one right
and there's nothing you can do.
If nothing you can do, that'sgoing to bring me down right,
and to see her power grow whenshe hit that note at the end.
Oh just, this movie wasphenomenal, it's gonna have all

(01:07:28):
the awards.
I'm giving it a eight and a halfI.
I give it an eight and a halfnine I was gonna say I give it
an 8.9.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
I think it's up.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
I think it's up there , man, it's very high, it's up
there, it's an excellent moviethe only reason why I don't give
it a perfect 10 is becausethere were some spots in it that
was a little too fast and madeit a little blurry.
Um, I noticed that in thetheater and I thought it was
just because I was sitting upclose.
But some of this in the big,like some of the fast parts, and
for me it was mostly in thebeginning, but it was kind of

(01:08:00):
blurry where things kind of justseemed a little unclear.
But then once that kind ofstopped, it panned out very well
.
But there were some spots thatwere a little sketchy, but other
than that thought it was anexcellent movie.
I highly recommend you go seeit, there's so many small
stories within the story and, um, people are gonna be talking
this, talking about this, foryears.
There's a part two coming nextyear and then we'll recap then.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
So hit us up on our Facebook page, on our Instagram,
on our TikTok.
Let us know what y'all think.
Did y'all watch it?
Did you like?

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
it.
What were your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Yeah, did you think it was janky?
Did you not agree with any ofthe stuff?
Did you agree with any of thestuff?
Did we bring up anything thatyou didn't think of?
Let us know.
We're going to keep coveringsome more things and we're going
to keep rocking.
I'm glad y'all rocking with us,man.
Oh, by the way, my grade was an8.9.
I would give it a 9, but BowenYang was in it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Oh he did okay.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Did you see his?

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
outfit.
It was both.
Yeah, what it was.
It was phenomenal, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
No, Boing, Yang I usually don't like him, but he
was good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
He was good, everybody did a great job.
Very good movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
That's what's up.
Yo, thanks for rocking with us.
Y'all Check back in with us.
We're going to do some morestuff.
Like we talked about at thebeginning, we're going to try to
have more content, consistently.
We.