January 6, 2025 • 59 mins
In this podcast episode, Dr. Greg and Bryan discuss the psychological themes present in the film adaptation of Wicked, which they recently watched together. They explore various topics such as trauma, grief, identity, self-acceptance, friendship, and resilience, emphasizing the complexity of the characters Elphaba and Glinda. The episode delves into how Elphaba's green skin symbolizes societal prejudice and the challenges of acceptance, while Glinda's journey reflects her transformation from a superficial "popular girl" to someone who confronts her insecurities.Dr. Greg and Bryan analyze the film's portrayal of bullying and the emotional depth of the characters, highlighting the nuanced depiction of good and evil. They discuss how Wicked challenges traditional moral narratives, suggesting that characters are often misunderstood rather than purely good or evil. This conversation, inspired by their shared viewing experience, underscores the cultural relevance of Wicked in contemporary discussions about identity, acceptance, and the complexity of human nature.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And welcome to Off the Couch, where psychology meets everyday life.
I'm doctor Greg case On Psychologist here with Brian Gomez, producer.
Hi Brian, and also especially here is Tony Sweet and
he on the board, and Tony is also going to
join the conversation. Hi Tony, Hello. Today we have a
(00:30):
special episode. All three of us went to see Wicked,
didn't we, of course, with the rest of the nation,
and we're going to talk about the psychology of Wicked,
the good, the bad, and the Green. Also, we're going
to talk about eleven psychological themes in the movie, and
then at the end we're going to assess who really
is the good one, who's really the bad one, and
(00:52):
who's just green? Sounds good, That sounds great. And a caution,
I mean, this is so dumb, but yeah, we may
spoil if you haven't seen the movie. Some of these
things may be spoilers, but so be it. I don't
think you're watching, you're listening if you haven't seen it.
But if you do see it, at least you'll be
(01:13):
better prepared for a lot of the things because the
movie's actually quite good and quite complex. What did you
guys think about the movie in general.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, I loved it. I you know how it said
it's almost three hours. Yeah, it felt like an hour.
I wanted more, Honestly. I know some people are like, oh,
it's so long, and I'm like, honestly, I was just entertained.
So I loved every moment of it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, that was my impression. It flew. It actually really entertained.
You grabbed you from the very first moment and you
just ride with the movie like a little trip down.
I don't know, Fantasy Lane. Did you like it, Tony?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I loved it too, Yes, and agree. I've watched three
hour movies before where you're like, oh my gosh, it's
this ever going to end? And this one did go
really fast.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Which is surprising. And I think a lot of people
were surprised because it's a musical. I've heard a lot
of people saying I didn't like me. I don't like musicals,
but this one I thought was Okay. I do like musicals.
And I was really worried going into this movie because
I was like, oh, we've got these pop star girls,
you know, doing the roles. You know, I was wrong.
(02:23):
They were incredible. We you know this, you know you've
got Jeff Goldbloom is the Jeff Goldberg, golgold Bloom, what's
his name? Anyway, he was the the Wizard and You've
got you know, all these major stars in the show.
But that ended up being kind of an interesting feature
(02:44):
that they portrayed. And I loved all the cameos from
the original Broadway Wicked cast that were in the in
the movie, which I don't think everyone caught, which was
pretty much a trip when that happened.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
How could you have?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Though? I don't think a lot of people knew who
Adina Manzell and Kristin Chenna with were, although they pretty
much approximated their roles as Alphaba and Glinda in that
reprise in Oz, so that was kind of interesting. The
original Nasa Rose was actually Glinda's mother. Who else was
(03:27):
in the show? Oh yeah, Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the
music for the show, was one of the Oz characters
in the Land of Oz. There were a bunch of
them that just kind of popped out there.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I didn't even know,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it was. It was cool that they had all
those things. And who was one of the munchkins? I
think the woman who wrote the book or something. Anyway,
let's talk about the different psychological themes. The first one
that I saw in this was almost from the very beginning.
You remember when they find out that the witch is dead.
(04:09):
The movie starts finding out that the wicked old Witch,
the Witch of the West, Alphaba is dead. And when
she then somebody asks Glinda, did you know her? You
knew her from the past, you know, you were friends,
and then she's like, oh, yeah, I was acquainted with her,
(04:31):
and then she kind of starts to go down memory
lane in her mind in talking to Alphaba. And what
that started to bring up with me was the first
major psychological theme that came up in this movie, which
was trauma and grief. That there were you know, they
(04:54):
had strained family relationships. You saw that in Alphabe's feelings
of inadequacy and abandon and you saw that, didn't You
see that from the first moments when you're looking at
this family and you're looking at the parents. The father
is the mayor of munchkin Land and the and they're
(05:14):
going through and you know, the mother, the father goes
out on a trip and the mother has an affair
with someone and she drinks a green bottle of liquid
and then you know the next scene, you see she's
giving birth to little Alphaba, who is green, and the
(05:35):
father is instantly horrified and wants the child taken away,
instantly horrified. So you see this that happens, and what's
implied is that the mom had an affair here and
that the Alphaba is actually the bastard child. So it
(05:58):
seemed to me that maybe a father actually knew. But
and what did you guys think?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It also happens often to like in other movies or
TV series where let's say the child is born with
a disability or like they can't speak properly or anything,
and like the father will be really embarrassed that their
child is like not perfect or normal or anything and
wants them not to be a part of the picture
(06:28):
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
For me, what was weird though the youngest daughter was
disability did have a disability also, and he was the
that was like his princess, which.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Is yeah, it was his. It was it was his princess.
And Alphabet had a deep caring and love for her
little nessa Rose and even in the very beginning was
protecting her sister from the bullies or maybe the bullies
were aimed at her, but she definitely wanted to protect
(07:07):
her sister and that was very evident. And you know,
later we find out that maybe the father blamed Nessa
blamed Alphaba for Nessa Rose's condition. That's what Alphaba does
confess to Glinda in that scene where they're actually telling
(07:30):
each other's secrets, and she comes out with a whopper
saying that the father may blame her for Nessa Rose
being in the wheelchair because she made her eat and
I didn't write it down milk, milk flour or something
milk to try to keep her from being green.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think it was milk thistle or something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Or miss milk thistle keep her liver going. But yeah,
I was I found that kind of interesting. So definitely
what we see see, I mean, maybe besides the bullying,
but the actual abandonment, the father just mistreating and not
caring for his own daughter, leaving for his own daughter
(08:11):
elfat well, I mean it's his daughter, maybe not biologically,
but leaving her to be raised more by than Nanny,
who was a bear who could speak. And I think
that comes back later in the movie and really doting
over a little nessa Rose who is very sweet in
(08:32):
the movie, very wonderful. But we'll see about what happens next.
What did you think, Brian would do you see trauma
and grief in this movie?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Oh yeah, throughout the whole film. It's a beautiful way
how they portrayed everything and how they really showed you
how people start off, like their childhood. It's this trauma
and like you know, everything starts from when their kids.
They have to carry that throughout their entire life.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
They really do. And I think the second one really
blends into the trauma and grief, which is bullying and
social exclusion. We see that right from the very beginning
because little Alphabe is green. She's boring green, so she's
in a certain way of a freak of society, Like
everyone finds her odd for having green skin, and she
(09:28):
experiences the bullying and ostracism because of her appearance, but
also because of her strong opinions, which makes her fiercely
independent by people reject her. So she kind of has
to bone up and be strong and be able to
put her shoulders back and be able to approach others.
(09:49):
And she's also deeply caring. That's the interesting thing, and
we see that play out with nessa Rose. We see
it play out with the animals, you know, the animals
who could talk, who accept her. I don't think there
was a single animal who rejected her, but a lot
(10:10):
of the humans did.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The skin color for me brought up like the whole
scenario about racism. That's what it really points out. And
I feel like, I hope people can understand that effect
of how people just because they have a different skin
tone from you, people will often be like, Oh, that's weird,
or that's wrong, or that's bad, and like it shows
(10:34):
the movie really portrayed that it's just because of her
skin color that people treated her so differently and awful
in that way.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And I think the choice that have an actress here
who's black versus a lot of the Broadway actresses which
are various ethnicities. But you know, I think Adina menziel
I think she's Caucasian. I don't know, but the she's
the one who played the original Alphabeff. But definitely, racism
(11:06):
is a big part of this particular story, and it
is portrayed in the color of the skin, but the
fact that she's black, and they show the mother and
every and the sister that it's a non issue, but
when you see green, then it's very much an issue.
(11:27):
So it does portray racism in a more stark manner,
I think because of all those background factors. That's just me.
But to go with the racism too, I have this
psychological impact of being othered and how it shapes your
mental health. So if you're somehow this other person, you know,
(11:52):
you're not fitting into the social norm of whatever group
you get othered, and it does negatively impact your health
because of social exclusion. We don't just see this in racism.
We see it in sexism with boys clubs. We see
it in gender is a you know, are people looking
at someone who doesn't fit into a gender specific norm.
(12:16):
We also see it in people who might have differences
in dress or physical attractiveness or being you know, a geek,
just you know, just not fitting into the social norm
and being excluded.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, and we did a really good job at like
showing how hurtful bullying and being an outsider can be.
Like they showed it so well, especially in that dance
scene that they have when she first wears her hat,
Alphaba wears a black hat, the which hat that Glinda
gave her.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
That Okay. There there are two scenes that made me
love this actress playing Alpha, but that made me think, wow,
she's incredible. And that dance scene was so incredible. And
this is something you didn't see in the stage play
because what they allowed for here is something we get
(13:13):
uniquely from film, was up close takes of the person's
expression and you get right into their soul. It's sort
of like you feel the pain that was inside of
her as she's out there dancing and everyone's just they
all spread into a circle around her and just laugh
at her.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You saw the vulnerability of somebody so different, and you
felt her sadness and brokenness in that moment.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I feel like, right, I really felt it. Yeah, I
really felt it. And I think that particular scene you
just loved everything about her because not only she was
she vulnerable and shocked. I think she's she went in
with the impression wearing that hat, thinking she would be accepted,
(14:06):
thinking that she was okay to come to this event
because they kind of misled her earlier, and goes into
the event and goes out there and everyone just laughs
because of her hat, because of her, and she does
this dance that wasn't like the other dances, and you
(14:30):
saw the vulnerability, but you also saw her strength. And
I was so taken with the scene and the actress
and also what happens next with Ariana Grande going out
and dancing with her, which I thought was an incredible,
incredible moment was between two people.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
She was so good in that scene too, because you
feel her feeling horrible for the first of all giving
her the hat and then making her building up her
confidence and then it being destroyed on the dance floor
in front of everybody, and you can tell that she
feels terrible about her being in that position right there,
(15:11):
which is kind of like something you wouldn't expect from
the popular girl and those like in a movie like
this or anything, for her to actually feel and have
like a change of heart.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You know, Brian, did you get did you get mean
girl vibes at all? From Glinda?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It wasn't like purposely mean girl vibes. It's like she's
so in her own world that what comes out of
her mouth doesn't seem wrong or inconsiderate to her. It
seems like she's just doing the best that she knows
how to do. And like her own little world. But
(15:49):
from an outsider point of view, little comments or little
things that she would have been doing were kind of
mean girl, popular girl kind of things.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You know, that's true. I guess she wasn't a true
Regina George because Regina George and mean girls really did
kind of understand the impact of her behavior here. She
just sort of was it's just sort of in her
own way. Dancing through Life, which is actually a song
that Pierro sings, and I thought that was a powerful
(16:22):
song because he's kind of singing in the in that song,
I'm Dancing through Life, just kind of skidding by. He
goes from school to school, gets kicked out. He just,
you know, he's kind of a ne'er do well, and
you get later that that's just an that's because he's
can't really meet anyone who's his equal. He's just sort
(16:44):
of just kind of having fun. And you finally does
meet his equal in a very interesting way with Alpha Ba.
You get that feeling as well that he actually meets
someone who really entre him and that he really wants
to be with, versus the person who's this obvious match,
(17:06):
which is Glinda, which is you know, just another sort
of vapid surface person, but you get with him that
he's much deeper with her. You have to watch the
transformation that she goes through in the movie.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah. I loved it. I mean they did so well
with all the characters. I did like how he fell
for Alphabet for just her being so strong and different
and didn't really care to fit in and like go
with like the popular kids or try to like kiss
up to them to just fit in. You know, he
(17:46):
saw that she was different and like like actually like
that about her.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
And you know, this is the green skin thing that
goes to the third theme, which is identity and self accepting.
It's the green skin thing on my part, it's it's
the the issues that we cannot change about ourselves. Like
the gay, gay kid who is very effeminates, you know,
(18:14):
it's the you know, overweight kid. It's the kid who
was born with a you know, some kind of deformity
or something that you know that they find that the
other kids find negative and want to push against. Or
even the kid that just doesn't have parents who have
(18:36):
a great deal of money so they wear hand me downs.
These are things they can't really control. And the green
skin in many ways represents that thing that we cannot fix,
we can't control, and it ends up alienating you from
other people, which I thought was yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, she was trying, like her whole old dream was
for her not to have green skin. That's why she
wanted to go meet the Oz, the Wizard of Oz.
And at the end, like you saw that, she finally
was like, no, I love like my green skin, like
she didn't. That wasn't her, you know, a dream anymore
to change her skin.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And in fact, that really brings to the metaphor that
what you're pointing out, Brian, is embracing one's own uniqueness
despite what other people think, despite societal judgment, being able
to embrace.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Whether it's like dating or making friends young or older.
I mean, I feel like it follows us throughout our
entire life, where we have our own little things that
we look at ourselves in the mirrors and we're like,
I wish I could change this, I wish I could
change this. But some people wish they had those things
that we are trying to get rid of, you know.
(19:56):
So it's kind of like a beautiful thing to really
appreciate yourself or what you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Are, and I you know, it's no doubt to me
that this movie is so popular with gay men because
so many gay men specifically deal with self doubt, internalized shame,
and that watching someone like Glinda who's so ostracized, I mean,
(20:23):
not Glinda, I'm sorry, Alphaba go through this transformation and
to become her own woman, to be able to be
accepted a little bit, but then realize the cost of
acceptance is too big. She could have stayed accepted, if
(20:45):
you will, if she had just gone along with the
program in OZ. But she had to eventually kind of
come into her own self empowerment and be okay with
who she is because who she is was true to
her value use and true to her core self.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's what I love. That she was a good person,
Like you saw she was a good person. The fact
that she was trying to help the animals whenever they
were getting silent and taken away and weren't allowed to
teach anymore, to where she let she stole the little
tiger and like let them out in the forest. Just
you saw her truly being a good person the entire time.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So fun fact about me. When I was a kid,
I read several of the OZ books and I since
this before we did this podcast, I went back and
reread The Wizard of Oz. First thing I thought was,
how did I think this was so amazing? Because I
did when I was a kid, But when you're young.
(21:48):
It's a children's book. It's written for kids. It's written
in a very simple manner, because I kept thinking, oh,
I want more detail. But one thing that's true about
the story is they go into a lot more than
the original Wizard of Oz movie does. And the book
(22:09):
Wicked is not based It's not written by L. Frank Baum.
L frank Baum is the author, and I believe he
first published The Wizard of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz is the first book, and I believe he published
that in nineteen hundred. I believe the movie came Tony,
(22:29):
you can probably let me know. Was it nineteen thirty
eight or thirty nine, thirty nine? Yeah, I mean, an
amazing achievement, I think. And they did a good job
in the movie of sort of truncating the book, which
you know, and they kind of pushed things together to
make it a little more fast and entertaining. And then
(22:53):
there were other versions. There are several books. But one
thing I really liked about the stage play that was
true in the book is the Emerald City wasn't green.
The Emerald City was mostly white. I mean, just like
(23:14):
it was just not it was. I mean maybe it
just the reason it appeared emerald is because everyone was
forced to wear glasses so they would see it as green.
And you don't find out that in the first book,
but you get a little bit of a hint of
it when Dorothy leaves the Emerald City and she finds
(23:38):
that her green dress is turned white, and I think
there's another article of clothing on maybe Toto or one
of the others that turns white, and that's why she
frames it. Oh, they took out the glasses. She stepped
outside and the clothes turned white. That they were forced
to wear glasses. And one thing I loved about the
(24:00):
stage play, because it wasn't in the original movie, is
that they wore the green glasses in the stage play.
I was disappointed in the movie they didn't wear the
green glasses because to me, this was part of the allegory.
So L. Frank Baum was really trying to tell the
story of what was going on here, and it was
(24:24):
a political allegory, even though it's a children's book, and
one thing he was envisioning is basically people who have
to go into these societies, political regimes, they're forced to
put on glasses to be able to see a reality
that isn't true, which I thought was a fascinating when
(24:44):
I was a kid. I thought this was the coolest
thing that was that was going on. By the way,
Alpha Ba think about it. L frank Baum, elfha bah
L Frank Baum.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Good, good callback to him, I think, or a good
you know, honoring of him. Also to go back into
Glinda's transformation too, she goes through a transformation in the movie.
You think this chick has it all together, you think
she has everything, and she sort of appears to and
(25:24):
the girls next to me just never stopped talking. I
got to see this movie again without being in a
theater with people who are talking the whole time. But
they were going off about how she's Barbie, Barbie Barbie
because I guess there was a lot of pink going
on and long blonde hair, so there are a lot
of Barbie callbacks in this section next to me, but
(25:46):
the but she does first appear like a Barbie Barbie
like figure, but she really starts to have to deal
with her societal expectations of this perfection of this you know,
popular girl who's always on top, who always gets everything
what she wants, and has to suddenly start to discover
(26:09):
a depth within her that I don't know that she
knew that she had until this, until she met Alphaba.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And she got one of her first rejections from Fiera.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Oh yes she was. She's like, oh, like, was I rejected?
Like that's weird? And he Fierro got his first rejection
from Alpha ba. Yeah, you know, so he was quite
shocked at that too. They are both two people who
(26:42):
got everything they wanted. So, by the way, do you
know Fiera was You know, he's this guy Bailey I
think is his last name. Did you recognize him, Brian?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You watched Bridgid ten so he's been on a lot lately,
actually doing a lot of different things. But I was
so happy he was on there because I love him
as a character from Bridgeton, so I was like, yes,
he's gonna be great in this one too. So yeah,
the character was perfect too.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'll tell you I recognized him, but I didn't know
where from And it really bugged me, so I finally
looked it up. I'm like, where do I know this
guy from? I knew him from Fellow Travelers. He plays, Yeah,
he plays one of the two lovers and Fellow Travelers.
He's actually the main character in that particular show that
really looks at the McCarthy hearings and he's a gay
(27:33):
man that works for the government and you're looking at
the McCarthy hearings and I thought, you know, he's incredible.
He's an incredible actor. He could dance. I mean, he's incredible.
So hats off to Fierro.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And with Ariana Grande, I think she's super talented. Respect
her as an artist, but like as a person. It
wasn't somebody that I'm like, oh, I love her, you
know how like a lot of people do you like
live for her? But this movie made her made me
like her so much from just how campy she was,
and finally, like you fell in love with her even more.
(28:10):
If you are were already a fan. You know.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Me too, Brian, me too. I had. I was like, oh,
pop star playing this role now, hands down, she was fantastic.
Did you what did you think? Tony?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
I agree, I I like like will my husband, he's
always you know, oh Arianna, And I'm like, she's good.
I like her, you know. I wasn't overly bits nothing
that I was really impressed with her active, but I
but I did notice she's very good impressionist of people,
like seeing like on Jimmy Fallon She's like doing impersonations
(28:49):
of Celnye Dion and Maria Carey and Whitney Houston. And
I definitely heard Kirsten Chinna with in in her impression
of her in this film, like some of her riffs
and the way she's sang, and yeah, I was like, Okay,
I can definitely hear that impression of her, but she
(29:09):
made it her own too.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, I had heard you. It's really funny too. So
I'm like this was it was just such a different
light seeing her and so good in it. So I mean,
I feel like she gained even more fans from this movie.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, and count me among them, because I actually thought
she did a great job. You and you really went
with her on that journey and really saw her become
more of a character with some depth, which you know,
also hats off to the director. He really put together
(29:46):
an incredible film. I would have to say, there's anyone
I want to give credit to here, it's the director.
He must have been incredible to work with because he
really pulled together a spectacular film. So Prejudice and Social
Exclusion is the next one. I think we kind of
went over that Alphaba is marginalized due to her appearance
(30:08):
and unconventional beliefs and the beliefs like she believes animals
should be equal. What does that sound like, you guys,
And what do we do? We discriminate against the animals,
And that is something that comes up later in the
Oz books too. So the person who wrote Wicked really
(30:29):
pulled a lot from the Oz books. I mean, it
really is based on the Oz books. But what you
learn is that they were once great, a great power
in society, these animals, and that they, you know, the
Wizard starts to discriminate against them and to push them
out in society and make them a common enemy, and
(30:51):
the animals get more and more excluded, and then they
lose their voice. They're no longer the intellectuals who ran
like government to schools. They suddenly become these just you know,
things out in the field. And that is that is
completely something parallel this was written remember back in nineteen hundred,
(31:13):
but we could say that theme is very much active
in today's world.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, if you think about it, that's kind of the
racism because you know, they kept saying they belong in cages.
Well I found that fascinating to say in cages. And
I'm like, well, this is almost sounds like slavery in
a way. Yes, So I just thought that that stuck
out to me when they said that. I was like, Okay,
(31:37):
that makes sense already.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And or now we're talking about putting people who are
immigrants into detention centers or cages. I mean, it's really
interesting that we're going through this same parallel real world
experience we go through the side.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Didn't he say that he was trying to unite everybody
and by uniting everybody, he had to have a common
enemy for them, And.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yes, I'm going all the way to that quote. Yes,
he says the best way to bring people together is
to give them a really good enemy.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
And I think he and uh, that was intentional. I
feel like.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You think that was intentional.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Just sounded very intentional, like that was yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, in fact, Michelle Yo joins him in that the
Michelle Yeo, who plays Madame Morrible. By the way, you
love this name Madame Morrible, like Madam Horrible, Like it's
like it's just one letter off, which she turns out
to be.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So she did a great Yeah, but oh my god.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Now, Brian, did you ever have watched uh what's uh
everything everywhere all at once?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Oh? I did, but I fell asleep part of it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
She's the main character. She's incredible in them.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
You think she's so good.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
She's incredible in that. Yeah, and she was great here too. Absolutely.
The next theme we see is friendship and emotional bonding.
Now we're on number five, and friendship and emotional bonding
we see in this movie loyalty, jealousy, and reconciliation. Through
Glinda and Alphaba's relationship. You see them coming. You know, first,
(33:32):
they hate each other. They're forced to live together, and
they're kind of pushed to live together because they both
want something. Glinda wants to be accepted into Madame Morrible's
spells class and Glinda, I mean Alphaba, Am I saying
(33:53):
this right? Alphaba wants to she has to stay. Basically,
she's told by her father to stay to take care
of her sistant sister. Nessa rose, and so she just
does what she's told, even though she didn't especially voice
wanting to be there. So Madame Morrible makes Ariana Grande
(34:17):
or not Ariana Glinda. Golinda at the time be able
to put her into her room so she could so
they could be together. And that's when you see this
horrible side of Glinda that she just carves out the
tiniest little hole for Alphaba to live in in this giant,
(34:41):
beautiful room. And it's and it kind of goes from
there and they have a lot of trouble together. And
what was the turning point? Do you think, guys? When
did they start to see each other? I have my
own theory. I think it's pretty obvious.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But for me, I thought when Glinda gave her the
hat and Alphaba asked Adam Marble that she wanted Glinda
to be part of her private trainings or else Alphaba
was going to leave. And Glinda was so moved and
(35:15):
didn't understand why Alphaba was wanting her to be included
in that, but that's all she wanted, that's all she
wanted to do, so it like touched her. I feel
like that was that point where it like switched everything around,
and it was right before the dance, so her getting
that news right before her Alphaba got there and was
(35:38):
like super awkward in front of everybody. It was like
the perfect time, like they did it so well for
that to be the switch for Glinda to jump in
and like hold her hand out. Pretty much, very good.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's really interesting because that's exactly what I think too.
But the hat was an interesting one, wasn't it. Because
the two friends of Glinda's the you know played by
Bowen Yang who's from Saturday Night Live, is one of
the friends and the other one was Shinschhin that was
the the girl, and they were making fun of the
(36:17):
hat and Glinda says, oh that my grandma made that.
It's so horrible, blah blah, and they're making fun of it,
and then she gives it to Alphabat almost really is
a joke to you know, make fun of her. But
I think there you saw instantly Alphabet's sort of taken
(36:40):
aback and like, oh, you know, you're giving something to me.
You see that moment in her when she someone's finally
done something nice for her. It was like a first moment.
And yes, even though it didn't come with good intentions
on Glinda's part came with bad and tensions. The hat
(37:01):
really moved alphabet because she really wants she saw it
in a very different way. Then went to Madame Morrible
like you said, and said she has to be in
the class. And then Madame Morrible begrudgingly goes to the
oz musk oz dust ballroom is that what it was called?
Oz dust ballroom and gives her that training wand gives
(37:22):
Glinda the training one and I think that you see
her get touched in that moment because why would this
person who I hate do something nice for me? And
it just starts to go in a very different direction,
and then that dance scene happens. So that was such
(37:44):
a pivot point in this movie. But it really illustrates
that psychological principle that when you do something nice for somebody,
they can go into cognitive dissonance. I mean, you do
something nice for someone that doesn't like you can go
into cognitive dissonance and begin to think, wait a minute,
(38:07):
then they you know, I have to return this favor
they do something nice for you, and then they'll fully
start to think, well, I'll only do something nice if
I like the person and you can see an attitude
change happen. This is the advice I often give to clients.
Like it's an old I call it the Ben Franklin
principle that you know. Ben Franklin said, if you have
(38:30):
a terrible neighbor, borrow a shovel. I think this is
a quote, but it's basically, borrow a shovel, use it,
return it to the neighbor the next day, say thank you.
I really appreciated that, and the neighbor then will start
to think, oh, okay, I gave you that shovel and
you returned it. I guess I don't hate you that much,
(38:56):
and it can actually start to change opinions. We saw
the complexities of relationships and we saw the personal growth
that happened through the connection. What was interesting to me
with Alphabott know how you guys felt. Did you ever
see the movie Pollyanna, the Disney movie, Oh Pollyanna. It's
(39:19):
like an old term we used to say, somebody who's
so goody goody, they're always happy all the time and everything.
But that movie I saw as a kid too, and
it really struck me that this movie Pollyanna, who was
so perky and happy and loved everybody, no matter how
horrible they were. She changed people because she was genuinely
(39:41):
She genuinely saw people's good sides. She genuinely tried hard,
and you saw her change the people around her. And
it's interesting that Alphaba had that same effect on people
that she knew. They reacted to her negatively at first,
but she changed significantly the people around her. So I
(40:03):
was really impressed with that, the personal growth, the connection
that happened as a power of her. Okay, guys, number six,
power and control. What did you see? We saw power
and control especially. You think I'd be talking about it
with Alphaba, but really I saw this with the Wizard.
(40:25):
The Wizard's manipulation symbolizes psychological effects of authoritarianism and gas lighting.
He was fooling people and he was trying to make
them think like one that the animals are bad people,
and he controlled things very very tightly.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, the big thing was that the Wizard wasn't even
a wizard. He didn't have any magic.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
He just all the time and got everybody to believe
he was this big, powerful wizard.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
H you did get that, but did you get who?
Did you start to figure out that maybe the wizards
more to Alphaba than just the wizard.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And what because it was for me the wizard was
just like her being validated almost.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But if you go back to the beginning and think
of the man, the stranger who comes who we never
see their face and gives the green bottle to Alphaba,
I mean to Alphabe's mom.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Wait, was that the wizard?
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think we're gonna find out that he plays more.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
The guy that her Alphabe's mom had an affair with.
That was.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
So what we see here are you know? He's he's
a bad dude, he's authoritarian, he's gaslighting, he's the he's
the head of this nation and he needs to keep
a thumb on the scale or people are going to
find out he's a fraud. Does this sound familiar? So
he just he rules with an iron fist and he's
(42:11):
he's not a nice guy, but he tries to make
people think he is, which is really interesting. And then
we see that she's she is very much a product
in some ways. She has a lot of power. Though
she has power that who knows where that power came from?
(42:34):
Was it the green bottle, which at the time I
was wondering is that opium because there's a little bit
of theme in the movie about that. But you know,
I can't answer that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
What's funny is I just looked and it does answer
that question.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's oh, what's the question? What's the answer, Tony?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
It says, yes, the Wizard is the father?
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty interesting. Huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
I wouldn't even have thought that same.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
That's a big plot twa Stephen for me.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Right now, I know that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
I need to watch it again so that.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Now it makes sense though, how he really they knew
pretty much about who she was, Like, they were interesting.
I don't know, do they know or do they mean
they They seemed very like attached to her, yes, because
of her powers.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Immediately immediately, yes you didn't you think too. When the
Wizard meets them, he immediately runs out. He's like, oh,
I don't need to put on a show for you.
He immediately runs out, and then he goes up to
her and he just only focuses on her and does
something a dad does with his daughter. He pulled a
(43:51):
coin out from behind her ear. He did like a
stupid dad trick, and that was an interesting moment. For
me to watch. I thought that really portrayed this weird
intimacy and tenderness between the two of them in just
that moment, and Ariana Grande and I'm sorry, Glinda is
(44:12):
standing there looking going what about me? The whole time,
which was kind of funny too.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
The entire movie issues very nice what about me?
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, well, you see Alphabe struggling when she's with the
Wizard that she wants her own autonomy and empowerment, like
she's going to be with the Wizard because she wants
to learn from the Wizard. She's thinking she's going to
spend time, she's going to learn special powers, to learn
how to harness her magic, her power with the Wizard
and instead sees him for what he really is and
(44:48):
then has to pull away and become her own person.
This is very much a parent child analogy, or it's
a parent child dynamic working itself out.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
But it also shows you how strong she is where
versus Glinda, who was I guess considered friends of hers
at the end when they define gravity part and then
and then goes back to the Wizard, And you.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Know, were you disappointed in that tone? Because even though
I already knew that way. I mean, yeah, I was
still disappointed.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Yeah me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I like, I don't I don't know because I don't
know what the second part is going to be like.
But there's a little part of me I don't want
to like ruin it if this is how it is
going to turn out, that they're in on it, like together,
Alphaba and Glinda on this situation that when they said
(45:45):
that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead, that
she's not really dead, and yeah, yeah, Glinda and her
like it's the chance for Alphabe to just live her
life away from every chaos and all like a bad
press she gets from the city, and it's Glinda's way
of getting exactly what she wanted in life as well.
(46:10):
Like so well they went back with the Wizard and
Madam Marvel and like becomes her little prodige and everything
to make it like she's going to be the hero
of the story. But at the end of the day,
I feel like Glinda will always be friends with Alphaba,
And even though it portrays that it's that she murdered
her pretty much, that she let her sneak away in
(46:35):
a way that it makes Glinda the hero and people
just get to forget about alphabet and Alphabet can live
her life. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
You You are gonna get that answer question that question,
answered Brian Will. That is I mean, obviously in the
second part of the movie, she is gonna appear.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Are going to get that.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
You gotta see, you got to see. I just noticed
the time, Tony. So I'm going to go through these
a little more quickly. So the next one I have
is number seven, Cognitive dissonance. Glinda and Fierro grapple with
conflicting beliefs and actions. So she becomes Glinda, remember at
(47:24):
one point, because she's trying to impress Fierro, who's concerned
about the animals. And there was one of the animals
who is Professor Gosh, I'm forgetting his name. He was
the doctor who was played by Peter Dinklice, who was
who was in Game of Thrones and you know, and
(47:46):
many many other things. And she Fierro is expressing concern
about the animals and the discrimination that's happening with the
animals and this particular animal, but who is a goat
played by Peter Deange couldn't say Linda. He kept saying
Glinda because of the kind of stutter in his mouth.
(48:07):
He doesn't have front teeth. So she decides to change
her name to Glenda in honor of Fiero. But I
love how she does it. She announces it to everybody
to make her look very impressive that she's doing this.
But then they kind of have to go through there grappling.
You know, they're attracted to each other, but maybe not
(48:29):
so much because their values are actually kind of different,
at least at first. And the we see loyalty and
personal values playing out and people have to figure out,
you know, what's more important, loyalty to a person or
being true to your values. We especially see that at
the end in the scene you were just illustrating Brian
(48:52):
right at the end. Also number eight resilience and transformation.
One of my favorite themes resilience is Alphabet demonstrates resilience
despite all the adversities she suffers, She goes for it.
She inspires other people with her inner strength and her
inner transformation, didn't you think? And then number nine is
(49:18):
friendship and loneliness. The complex relationship between Alphaba and Glinda
highlights themes of connection, misunderstandings, and reconciliation. Is this movie
was so human and I actually was really thinking I
was worried about this movie because the stage play is
really spectacular. Everything happens at lightning speed. The movies really
(49:42):
slowed down, but they make use of slowing everything down
and really give us those personal connections and the humanity
between these two characters that's so evident and so powerful.
But what was interesting to me, I don't know if
you guys saw this, both people, well both Alphaba and
Glinda were lonely. Yeah, Alpha Ba was because of her
(50:07):
beliefs that she believed in equality and she was believed
in helping people and her appearance that she's green. But
Glinda had to deal with she was lonely because of
her popularity, like she was just the Queen Bee and
she didn't really have any equals around her. Again, Alpha
Ba was probably the only person who who really challenged
(50:31):
her a little bit fiero too.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
I just hope people, I mean, at least like younger
kids from watching this movie can take that away from
the movie where Glinda becomes her friend and even though
they're completely different and they hate each other at first,
that she becomes her friend, because you know that happens
a lot in school with like somebody that's like the outsider,
(50:58):
and like they get bullied and stuff, that one person
that's popular can really change that person's life around just
by being nice to them, you know, or like just
helping them out with whatever they're going through. So I
just hope like that.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
I do too, Brian, I do too. I think far
too many kids are going to want to be like
Glinda or want to be popular like pretty Yeah, But
I think the real story here is Alphaba and her
incredible power to transform the people around her with no
(51:34):
magic at all, with just being a strong human being
who sticks up for what she believes in and goes
forward despite all of society turning against her. Number ten,
we have power and isolation. Gaining power and authority. Especially
is the Wicked Witch isolates Alphaba further so when she
(51:56):
breaks through the glass at the end and does the
big member of the show that is the big number
of the show, and she's you know, looked toward the
western sky and she's singing about, you know all I
wanted to get a chance to fly, and she's out
there tooling around with her broomstick. It shows that, you
(52:17):
know that that separates her further, but it's also being
true to herself and being able to fight for what
she wants. Whereas the wizard we talked about has no
real power and maintains isolation and propaganda to fool people
he has power, so he you know, that sounds like
(52:38):
I don't know leaders that we may have coming our way.
So it's it's you know, that propaganda, continually telling people
he's powerful and scary when really he has none at all.
And I love the line when Michelle Yoe that Madame
Morrible says to Glinda. It says to Alphaba that you
(53:02):
know she's she, you know she might she needs to
be afraid of the Wizard something like that, and she said, no,
he needs to be afraid of me, which I think
she recognized at that point that he had no real power.
He couldn't really read from the book that had all
the magic spells in it. And you know, the biggest
(53:23):
thing is, of course you talked about the best way
to bring people together is to give them a good enemy,
and that's exactly what he focused on, was an enemy
to hate and they would all band together to fight
that that enemy really was sad and the the last
theme was moral ambiguity and psychological conflict challenges the binary
(53:44):
of good versus evil, emphasizing circumstantial morality, Like circumstantial morality
is you know, sometimes things in certain circumstances aren't necessarily
bad or aren't necessarily good, depending on what's going on.
So we can't really say one thing is good and
one thing is evil. You see that with Alphaba, her
(54:06):
conflict between doing good and being branded as evil creates
a psychological tension because she really does good in the movie.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I think, well, I also think sometimes the environment that
makes people evil, like so long of being attacked and
attacked and put down and being left out and everything
and bullied, and it's like, you can't expect somebody to
have like this beautiful nice heart after being like pushed
down all the time.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
No, you can't. No, I mean, do you understood her upset.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
And all the whole city down.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Well, you know she did. When she get upset, her
powers were enact and things would happen around her, But
she never really did it herself. I mean, it would
just happen. It wasn't until she read from the Book
of Spells that she started to make things happen. In
a different way, but she you know, you saw things
(55:07):
crashing around her, people getting upset, like when the one
woman was taking Nessa Rose in school and Alphaba was
trying to say, no, bring her back, She's supposed to
take care of her, and she got very angry and
caused everything in the school to levitate, including Nessa Rose,
to get her away from that woman, which I thought
(55:29):
was fascinating. We also saw Glinda as being known as
good and doing some good things, mostly for her own
advancement or in so you could look at the objective
things she did, like giving Alphaba the hat, but it
really wasn't being nice. She also tried to get Nessa
(55:50):
Rose Alfaba's sister together with Bach, remember Bach, the woodsman
the you know, I believe he was from Munchkin Lane
and he he was in love with Arianna or with them,
sorry Glinda, and he decided and she manipulated him to
go out with Nessa Rose to please her so she
(56:14):
could get Nessa Rose paired up, which again also Alphabet
thought that was unusually nice, but it was really just
so she could get so Glinda could get with Fierro.
She was just doing it to get her own stuff done.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
There's so much we're gonna need a part two for
this because we need a wrap and we need a
part two wicked.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
So let's good. Let's say are people Glinda asked this
at the very beginning, and I'm gonna ask you, guys,
are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust
upon them?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Wickedness thrust upon them? It's rare that people usually are
like born evil?
Speaker 1 (56:57):
And who do you Yeah, I think I agree with
you one hundred percent. And who do you think is good?
Who's bad? And who's green? Green? I think is misunderstood.
That's the misunderstood, Like we think something something else, but
they're really not Alpha. But what would you say, She's good,
bad or green? You have to pick one.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I think they're all misunderstood, honestly, each character.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Perhaps perhaps we're.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
All misunderstood, and we misunderstand a lot of people. Honestly.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Perhaps the adults are more evil than the kids. Yeah,
young misunderstood, Yeah, but adults know better.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So I saw Alpha Butt is good in this movie. Yeah,
she's good, even though she's the wicked witch. I saw
her as the good one. Glinda, by the way, I
didn't see as good or bad. I saw her as
green because you see her transformation and you could see
her inner turmoil, that she's misunderst stood even to herself,
(58:02):
and that she can start to look inside and be
a little bit more self reflective. She follows the rules
a lot, mostly to gain her own ends, which sometimes
has good effects, sometimes not so much. But she's just
kind of, you know, kind of going through the motions
(58:23):
a lot of the time. And to me, the Wizard
was straight out bad the Wizard here, you know, he
was doing some of the really most evil things. So
that was Yeah. So that wraps up our show. Thank
you Tony, and thank you Brian. That wraps up the
show for today. Reminder to like subscribe give us five stars.
(58:46):
Links to the studies, Well, we do not really have
a study, but you can go to the YouTube page
YouTube dot com forward slash doctor Greg and check out
what we have. Also, if you have any questions or
topics you'd like to cover, hit me up at socials
and asked doctor Greg. This is doctor Greg, Brian and
Tony bidding you farewell until next time, Be flexible, be present,
(59:09):
and be kind.
And welcome to Off the Couch, where psychology meets everyday life.
I'm doctor Greg case On Psychologist here with Brian Gomez, producer.
Hi Brian, and also especially here is Tony Sweet and
he on the board, and Tony is also going to
join the conversation. Hi Tony, Hello. Today we have a
(00:30):
special episode. All three of us went to see Wicked,
didn't we, of course, with the rest of the nation,
and we're going to talk about the psychology of Wicked,
the good, the bad, and the Green. Also, we're going
to talk about eleven psychological themes in the movie, and
then at the end we're going to assess who really
is the good one, who's really the bad one, and
(00:52):
who's just green? Sounds good, That sounds great. And a caution,
I mean, this is so dumb, but yeah, we may
spoil if you haven't seen the movie. Some of these
things may be spoilers, but so be it. I don't
think you're watching, you're listening if you haven't seen it.
But if you do see it, at least you'll be
(01:13):
better prepared for a lot of the things because the
movie's actually quite good and quite complex. What did you
guys think about the movie in general.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, I loved it. I you know how it said
it's almost three hours. Yeah, it felt like an hour.
I wanted more, Honestly. I know some people are like, oh,
it's so long, and I'm like, honestly, I was just entertained.
So I loved every moment of it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, that was my impression. It flew. It actually really entertained.
You grabbed you from the very first moment and you
just ride with the movie like a little trip down.
I don't know, Fantasy Lane. Did you like it, Tony?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I loved it too, Yes, and agree. I've watched three
hour movies before where you're like, oh my gosh, it's
this ever going to end? And this one did go
really fast.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Which is surprising. And I think a lot of people
were surprised because it's a musical. I've heard a lot
of people saying I didn't like me. I don't like musicals,
but this one I thought was Okay. I do like musicals.
And I was really worried going into this movie because
I was like, oh, we've got these pop star girls,
you know, doing the roles. You know, I was wrong.
(02:23):
They were incredible. We you know this, you know you've
got Jeff Goldbloom is the Jeff Goldberg, golgold Bloom, what's
his name? Anyway, he was the the Wizard and You've
got you know, all these major stars in the show.
But that ended up being kind of an interesting feature
(02:44):
that they portrayed. And I loved all the cameos from
the original Broadway Wicked cast that were in the in
the movie, which I don't think everyone caught, which was
pretty much a trip when that happened.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
How could you have?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Though? I don't think a lot of people knew who
Adina Manzell and Kristin Chenna with were, although they pretty
much approximated their roles as Alphaba and Glinda in that
reprise in Oz, so that was kind of interesting. The
original Nasa Rose was actually Glinda's mother. Who else was
(03:27):
in the show? Oh yeah, Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the
music for the show, was one of the Oz characters
in the Land of Oz. There were a bunch of
them that just kind of popped out there.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I didn't even know,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it was. It was cool that they had all
those things. And who was one of the munchkins? I
think the woman who wrote the book or something. Anyway,
let's talk about the different psychological themes. The first one
that I saw in this was almost from the very beginning.
You remember when they find out that the witch is dead.
(04:09):
The movie starts finding out that the wicked old Witch,
the Witch of the West, Alphaba is dead. And when
she then somebody asks Glinda, did you know her? You
knew her from the past, you know, you were friends,
and then she's like, oh, yeah, I was acquainted with her,
(04:31):
and then she kind of starts to go down memory
lane in her mind in talking to Alphaba. And what
that started to bring up with me was the first
major psychological theme that came up in this movie, which
was trauma and grief. That there were you know, they
(04:54):
had strained family relationships. You saw that in Alphabe's feelings
of inadequacy and abandon and you saw that, didn't You
see that from the first moments when you're looking at
this family and you're looking at the parents. The father
is the mayor of munchkin Land and the and they're
(05:14):
going through and you know, the mother, the father goes
out on a trip and the mother has an affair
with someone and she drinks a green bottle of liquid
and then you know the next scene, you see she's
giving birth to little Alphaba, who is green, and the
(05:35):
father is instantly horrified and wants the child taken away,
instantly horrified. So you see this that happens, and what's
implied is that the mom had an affair here and
that the Alphaba is actually the bastard child. So it
(05:58):
seemed to me that maybe a father actually knew. But
and what did you guys think?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It also happens often to like in other movies or
TV series where let's say the child is born with
a disability or like they can't speak properly or anything,
and like the father will be really embarrassed that their
child is like not perfect or normal or anything and
wants them not to be a part of the picture
(06:28):
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
For me, what was weird though the youngest daughter was
disability did have a disability also, and he was the
that was like his princess, which.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Is yeah, it was his. It was it was his princess.
And Alphabet had a deep caring and love for her
little nessa Rose and even in the very beginning was
protecting her sister from the bullies or maybe the bullies
were aimed at her, but she definitely wanted to protect
(07:07):
her sister and that was very evident. And you know,
later we find out that maybe the father blamed Nessa
blamed Alphaba for Nessa Rose's condition. That's what Alphaba does
confess to Glinda in that scene where they're actually telling
(07:30):
each other's secrets, and she comes out with a whopper
saying that the father may blame her for Nessa Rose
being in the wheelchair because she made her eat and
I didn't write it down milk, milk flour or something
milk to try to keep her from being green.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think it was milk thistle or something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Or miss milk thistle keep her liver going. But yeah,
I was I found that kind of interesting. So definitely
what we see see, I mean, maybe besides the bullying,
but the actual abandonment, the father just mistreating and not
caring for his own daughter, leaving for his own daughter
(08:11):
elfat well, I mean it's his daughter, maybe not biologically,
but leaving her to be raised more by than Nanny,
who was a bear who could speak. And I think
that comes back later in the movie and really doting
over a little nessa Rose who is very sweet in
(08:32):
the movie, very wonderful. But we'll see about what happens next.
What did you think, Brian would do you see trauma
and grief in this movie?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Oh yeah, throughout the whole film. It's a beautiful way
how they portrayed everything and how they really showed you
how people start off, like their childhood. It's this trauma
and like you know, everything starts from when their kids.
They have to carry that throughout their entire life.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
They really do. And I think the second one really
blends into the trauma and grief, which is bullying and
social exclusion. We see that right from the very beginning
because little Alphabe is green. She's boring green, so she's
in a certain way of a freak of society, Like
everyone finds her odd for having green skin, and she
(09:28):
experiences the bullying and ostracism because of her appearance, but
also because of her strong opinions, which makes her fiercely
independent by people reject her. So she kind of has
to bone up and be strong and be able to
put her shoulders back and be able to approach others.
(09:49):
And she's also deeply caring. That's the interesting thing, and
we see that play out with nessa Rose. We see
it play out with the animals, you know, the animals
who could talk, who accept her. I don't think there
was a single animal who rejected her, but a lot
(10:10):
of the humans did.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The skin color for me brought up like the whole
scenario about racism. That's what it really points out. And
I feel like, I hope people can understand that effect
of how people just because they have a different skin
tone from you, people will often be like, Oh, that's weird,
or that's wrong, or that's bad, and like it shows
(10:34):
the movie really portrayed that it's just because of her
skin color that people treated her so differently and awful
in that way.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And I think the choice that have an actress here
who's black versus a lot of the Broadway actresses which
are various ethnicities. But you know, I think Adina menziel
I think she's Caucasian. I don't know, but the she's
the one who played the original Alphabeff. But definitely, racism
(11:06):
is a big part of this particular story, and it
is portrayed in the color of the skin, but the
fact that she's black, and they show the mother and
every and the sister that it's a non issue, but
when you see green, then it's very much an issue.
(11:27):
So it does portray racism in a more stark manner,
I think because of all those background factors. That's just me.
But to go with the racism too, I have this
psychological impact of being othered and how it shapes your
mental health. So if you're somehow this other person, you know,
(11:52):
you're not fitting into the social norm of whatever group
you get othered, and it does negatively impact your health
because of social exclusion. We don't just see this in racism.
We see it in sexism with boys clubs. We see
it in gender is a you know, are people looking
at someone who doesn't fit into a gender specific norm.
(12:16):
We also see it in people who might have differences
in dress or physical attractiveness or being you know, a geek,
just you know, just not fitting into the social norm
and being excluded.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, and we did a really good job at like
showing how hurtful bullying and being an outsider can be.
Like they showed it so well, especially in that dance
scene that they have when she first wears her hat,
Alphaba wears a black hat, the which hat that Glinda
gave her.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
That Okay. There there are two scenes that made me
love this actress playing Alpha, but that made me think, wow,
she's incredible. And that dance scene was so incredible. And
this is something you didn't see in the stage play
because what they allowed for here is something we get
(13:13):
uniquely from film, was up close takes of the person's
expression and you get right into their soul. It's sort
of like you feel the pain that was inside of
her as she's out there dancing and everyone's just they
all spread into a circle around her and just laugh
at her.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You saw the vulnerability of somebody so different, and you
felt her sadness and brokenness in that moment.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I feel like, right, I really felt it. Yeah, I
really felt it. And I think that particular scene you
just loved everything about her because not only she was
she vulnerable and shocked. I think she's she went in
with the impression wearing that hat, thinking she would be accepted,
(14:06):
thinking that she was okay to come to this event
because they kind of misled her earlier, and goes into
the event and goes out there and everyone just laughs
because of her hat, because of her, and she does
this dance that wasn't like the other dances, and you
(14:30):
saw the vulnerability, but you also saw her strength. And
I was so taken with the scene and the actress
and also what happens next with Ariana Grande going out
and dancing with her, which I thought was an incredible,
incredible moment was between two people.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
She was so good in that scene too, because you
feel her feeling horrible for the first of all giving
her the hat and then making her building up her
confidence and then it being destroyed on the dance floor
in front of everybody, and you can tell that she
feels terrible about her being in that position right there,
(15:11):
which is kind of like something you wouldn't expect from
the popular girl and those like in a movie like
this or anything, for her to actually feel and have
like a change of heart.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You know, Brian, did you get did you get mean
girl vibes at all? From Glinda?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It wasn't like purposely mean girl vibes. It's like she's
so in her own world that what comes out of
her mouth doesn't seem wrong or inconsiderate to her. It
seems like she's just doing the best that she knows
how to do. And like her own little world. But
(15:49):
from an outsider point of view, little comments or little
things that she would have been doing were kind of
mean girl, popular girl kind of things.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You know, that's true. I guess she wasn't a true
Regina George because Regina George and mean girls really did
kind of understand the impact of her behavior here. She
just sort of was it's just sort of in her
own way. Dancing through Life, which is actually a song
that Pierro sings, and I thought that was a powerful
(16:22):
song because he's kind of singing in the in that song,
I'm Dancing through Life, just kind of skidding by. He
goes from school to school, gets kicked out. He just,
you know, he's kind of a ne'er do well, and
you get later that that's just an that's because he's
can't really meet anyone who's his equal. He's just sort
(16:44):
of just kind of having fun. And you finally does
meet his equal in a very interesting way with Alpha Ba.
You get that feeling as well that he actually meets
someone who really entre him and that he really wants
to be with, versus the person who's this obvious match,
(17:06):
which is Glinda, which is you know, just another sort
of vapid surface person, but you get with him that
he's much deeper with her. You have to watch the
transformation that she goes through in the movie.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah. I loved it. I mean they did so well
with all the characters. I did like how he fell
for Alphabet for just her being so strong and different
and didn't really care to fit in and like go
with like the popular kids or try to like kiss
up to them to just fit in. You know, he
(17:46):
saw that she was different and like like actually like
that about her.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
And you know, this is the green skin thing that
goes to the third theme, which is identity and self accepting.
It's the green skin thing on my part, it's it's
the the issues that we cannot change about ourselves. Like
the gay, gay kid who is very effeminates, you know,
(18:14):
it's the you know, overweight kid. It's the kid who
was born with a you know, some kind of deformity
or something that you know that they find that the
other kids find negative and want to push against. Or
even the kid that just doesn't have parents who have
(18:36):
a great deal of money so they wear hand me downs.
These are things they can't really control. And the green
skin in many ways represents that thing that we cannot fix,
we can't control, and it ends up alienating you from
other people, which I thought was yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, she was trying, like her whole old dream was
for her not to have green skin. That's why she
wanted to go meet the Oz, the Wizard of Oz.
And at the end, like you saw that, she finally
was like, no, I love like my green skin, like
she didn't. That wasn't her, you know, a dream anymore
to change her skin.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And in fact, that really brings to the metaphor that
what you're pointing out, Brian, is embracing one's own uniqueness
despite what other people think, despite societal judgment, being able
to embrace.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Whether it's like dating or making friends young or older.
I mean, I feel like it follows us throughout our
entire life, where we have our own little things that
we look at ourselves in the mirrors and we're like,
I wish I could change this, I wish I could
change this. But some people wish they had those things
that we are trying to get rid of, you know.
(19:56):
So it's kind of like a beautiful thing to really
appreciate yourself or what you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Are, and I you know, it's no doubt to me
that this movie is so popular with gay men because
so many gay men specifically deal with self doubt, internalized shame,
and that watching someone like Glinda who's so ostracized, I mean,
(20:23):
not Glinda, I'm sorry, Alphaba go through this transformation and
to become her own woman, to be able to be
accepted a little bit, but then realize the cost of
acceptance is too big. She could have stayed accepted, if
(20:45):
you will, if she had just gone along with the
program in OZ. But she had to eventually kind of
come into her own self empowerment and be okay with
who she is because who she is was true to
her value use and true to her core self.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's what I love. That she was a good person,
Like you saw she was a good person. The fact
that she was trying to help the animals whenever they
were getting silent and taken away and weren't allowed to
teach anymore, to where she let she stole the little
tiger and like let them out in the forest. Just
you saw her truly being a good person the entire time.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So fun fact about me. When I was a kid,
I read several of the OZ books and I since
this before we did this podcast, I went back and
reread The Wizard of Oz. First thing I thought was,
how did I think this was so amazing? Because I
did when I was a kid, But when you're young.
(21:48):
It's a children's book. It's written for kids. It's written
in a very simple manner, because I kept thinking, oh,
I want more detail. But one thing that's true about
the story is they go into a lot more than
the original Wizard of Oz movie does. And the book
(22:09):
Wicked is not based It's not written by L. Frank Baum.
L frank Baum is the author, and I believe he
first published The Wizard of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz is the first book, and I believe he published
that in nineteen hundred. I believe the movie came Tony,
(22:29):
you can probably let me know. Was it nineteen thirty
eight or thirty nine, thirty nine? Yeah, I mean, an
amazing achievement, I think. And they did a good job
in the movie of sort of truncating the book, which
you know, and they kind of pushed things together to
make it a little more fast and entertaining. And then
(22:53):
there were other versions. There are several books. But one
thing I really liked about the stage play that was
true in the book is the Emerald City wasn't green.
The Emerald City was mostly white. I mean, just like
(23:14):
it was just not it was. I mean maybe it
just the reason it appeared emerald is because everyone was
forced to wear glasses so they would see it as green.
And you don't find out that in the first book,
but you get a little bit of a hint of
it when Dorothy leaves the Emerald City and she finds
(23:38):
that her green dress is turned white, and I think
there's another article of clothing on maybe Toto or one
of the others that turns white, and that's why she
frames it. Oh, they took out the glasses. She stepped
outside and the clothes turned white. That they were forced
to wear glasses. And one thing I loved about the
(24:00):
stage play, because it wasn't in the original movie, is
that they wore the green glasses in the stage play.
I was disappointed in the movie they didn't wear the
green glasses because to me, this was part of the allegory.
So L. Frank Baum was really trying to tell the
story of what was going on here, and it was
(24:24):
a political allegory, even though it's a children's book, and
one thing he was envisioning is basically people who have
to go into these societies, political regimes, they're forced to
put on glasses to be able to see a reality
that isn't true, which I thought was a fascinating when
(24:44):
I was a kid. I thought this was the coolest
thing that was that was going on. By the way,
Alpha Ba think about it. L frank Baum, elfha bah
L Frank Baum.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Good, good callback to him, I think, or a good
you know, honoring of him. Also to go back into
Glinda's transformation too, she goes through a transformation in the movie.
You think this chick has it all together, you think
she has everything, and she sort of appears to and
(25:24):
the girls next to me just never stopped talking. I
got to see this movie again without being in a
theater with people who are talking the whole time. But
they were going off about how she's Barbie, Barbie Barbie
because I guess there was a lot of pink going
on and long blonde hair, so there are a lot
of Barbie callbacks in this section next to me, but
(25:46):
the but she does first appear like a Barbie Barbie
like figure, but she really starts to have to deal
with her societal expectations of this perfection of this you know,
popular girl who's always on top, who always gets everything
what she wants, and has to suddenly start to discover
(26:09):
a depth within her that I don't know that she
knew that she had until this, until she met Alphaba.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And she got one of her first rejections from Fiera.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Oh yes she was. She's like, oh, like, was I rejected?
Like that's weird? And he Fierro got his first rejection
from Alpha ba. Yeah, you know, so he was quite
shocked at that too. They are both two people who
(26:42):
got everything they wanted. So, by the way, do you
know Fiera was You know, he's this guy Bailey I
think is his last name. Did you recognize him, Brian?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You watched Bridgid ten so he's been on a lot lately,
actually doing a lot of different things. But I was
so happy he was on there because I love him
as a character from Bridgeton, so I was like, yes,
he's gonna be great in this one too. So yeah,
the character was perfect too.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'll tell you I recognized him, but I didn't know
where from And it really bugged me, so I finally
looked it up. I'm like, where do I know this
guy from? I knew him from Fellow Travelers. He plays, Yeah,
he plays one of the two lovers and Fellow Travelers.
He's actually the main character in that particular show that
really looks at the McCarthy hearings and he's a gay
(27:33):
man that works for the government and you're looking at
the McCarthy hearings and I thought, you know, he's incredible.
He's an incredible actor. He could dance. I mean, he's incredible.
So hats off to Fierro.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And with Ariana Grande, I think she's super talented. Respect
her as an artist, but like as a person. It
wasn't somebody that I'm like, oh, I love her, you
know how like a lot of people do you like
live for her? But this movie made her made me
like her so much from just how campy she was,
and finally, like you fell in love with her even more.
(28:10):
If you are were already a fan. You know.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Me too, Brian, me too. I had. I was like, oh,
pop star playing this role now, hands down, she was fantastic.
Did you what did you think? Tony?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
I agree, I I like like will my husband, he's
always you know, oh Arianna, And I'm like, she's good.
I like her, you know. I wasn't overly bits nothing
that I was really impressed with her active, but I
but I did notice she's very good impressionist of people,
like seeing like on Jimmy Fallon She's like doing impersonations
(28:49):
of Celnye Dion and Maria Carey and Whitney Houston. And
I definitely heard Kirsten Chinna with in in her impression
of her in this film, like some of her riffs
and the way she's sang, and yeah, I was like, Okay,
I can definitely hear that impression of her, but she
(29:09):
made it her own too.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, I had heard you. It's really funny too. So
I'm like this was it was just such a different
light seeing her and so good in it. So I mean,
I feel like she gained even more fans from this movie.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, and count me among them, because I actually thought
she did a great job. You and you really went
with her on that journey and really saw her become
more of a character with some depth, which you know,
also hats off to the director. He really put together
(29:46):
an incredible film. I would have to say, there's anyone
I want to give credit to here, it's the director.
He must have been incredible to work with because he
really pulled together a spectacular film. So Prejudice and Social
Exclusion is the next one. I think we kind of
went over that Alphaba is marginalized due to her appearance
(30:08):
and unconventional beliefs and the beliefs like she believes animals
should be equal. What does that sound like, you guys,
And what do we do? We discriminate against the animals,
And that is something that comes up later in the
Oz books too. So the person who wrote Wicked really
(30:29):
pulled a lot from the Oz books. I mean, it
really is based on the Oz books. But what you
learn is that they were once great, a great power
in society, these animals, and that they, you know, the
Wizard starts to discriminate against them and to push them
out in society and make them a common enemy, and
(30:51):
the animals get more and more excluded, and then they
lose their voice. They're no longer the intellectuals who ran
like government to schools. They suddenly become these just you know,
things out in the field. And that is that is
completely something parallel this was written remember back in nineteen hundred,
(31:13):
but we could say that theme is very much active
in today's world.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, if you think about it, that's kind of the
racism because you know, they kept saying they belong in cages.
Well I found that fascinating to say in cages. And
I'm like, well, this is almost sounds like slavery in
a way. Yes, So I just thought that that stuck
out to me when they said that. I was like, Okay,
(31:37):
that makes sense already.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And or now we're talking about putting people who are
immigrants into detention centers or cages. I mean, it's really
interesting that we're going through this same parallel real world
experience we go through the side.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Didn't he say that he was trying to unite everybody
and by uniting everybody, he had to have a common
enemy for them, And.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yes, I'm going all the way to that quote. Yes,
he says the best way to bring people together is
to give them a really good enemy.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
And I think he and uh, that was intentional. I
feel like.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You think that was intentional.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Just sounded very intentional, like that was yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, in fact, Michelle Yo joins him in that the
Michelle Yeo, who plays Madame Morrible. By the way, you
love this name Madame Morrible, like Madam Horrible, Like it's
like it's just one letter off, which she turns out
to be.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So she did a great Yeah, but oh my god.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Now, Brian, did you ever have watched uh what's uh
everything everywhere all at once?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Oh? I did, but I fell asleep part of it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
She's the main character. She's incredible in them.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
You think she's so good.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
She's incredible in that. Yeah, and she was great here too. Absolutely.
The next theme we see is friendship and emotional bonding.
Now we're on number five, and friendship and emotional bonding
we see in this movie loyalty, jealousy, and reconciliation. Through
Glinda and Alphaba's relationship. You see them coming. You know, first,
(33:32):
they hate each other. They're forced to live together, and
they're kind of pushed to live together because they both
want something. Glinda wants to be accepted into Madame Morrible's
spells class and Glinda, I mean Alphaba, Am I saying
(33:53):
this right? Alphaba wants to she has to stay. Basically,
she's told by her father to stay to take care
of her sistant sister. Nessa rose, and so she just
does what she's told, even though she didn't especially voice
wanting to be there. So Madame Morrible makes Ariana Grande
(34:17):
or not Ariana Glinda. Golinda at the time be able
to put her into her room so she could so
they could be together. And that's when you see this
horrible side of Glinda that she just carves out the
tiniest little hole for Alphaba to live in in this giant,
(34:41):
beautiful room. And it's and it kind of goes from
there and they have a lot of trouble together. And
what was the turning point? Do you think, guys? When
did they start to see each other? I have my
own theory. I think it's pretty obvious.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But for me, I thought when Glinda gave her the
hat and Alphaba asked Adam Marble that she wanted Glinda
to be part of her private trainings or else Alphaba
was going to leave. And Glinda was so moved and
(35:15):
didn't understand why Alphaba was wanting her to be included
in that, but that's all she wanted, that's all she
wanted to do, so it like touched her. I feel
like that was that point where it like switched everything around,
and it was right before the dance, so her getting
that news right before her Alphaba got there and was
(35:38):
like super awkward in front of everybody. It was like
the perfect time, like they did it so well for
that to be the switch for Glinda to jump in
and like hold her hand out. Pretty much, very good.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's really interesting because that's exactly what I think too.
But the hat was an interesting one, wasn't it. Because
the two friends of Glinda's the you know played by
Bowen Yang who's from Saturday Night Live, is one of
the friends and the other one was Shinschhin that was
the the girl, and they were making fun of the
(36:17):
hat and Glinda says, oh that my grandma made that.
It's so horrible, blah blah, and they're making fun of it,
and then she gives it to Alphabat almost really is
a joke to you know, make fun of her. But
I think there you saw instantly Alphabet's sort of taken
(36:40):
aback and like, oh, you know, you're giving something to me.
You see that moment in her when she someone's finally
done something nice for her. It was like a first moment.
And yes, even though it didn't come with good intentions
on Glinda's part came with bad and tensions. The hat
(37:01):
really moved alphabet because she really wants she saw it
in a very different way. Then went to Madame Morrible
like you said, and said she has to be in
the class. And then Madame Morrible begrudgingly goes to the
oz musk oz dust ballroom is that what it was called?
Oz dust ballroom and gives her that training wand gives
(37:22):
Glinda the training one and I think that you see
her get touched in that moment because why would this
person who I hate do something nice for me? And
it just starts to go in a very different direction,
and then that dance scene happens. So that was such
(37:44):
a pivot point in this movie. But it really illustrates
that psychological principle that when you do something nice for somebody,
they can go into cognitive dissonance. I mean, you do
something nice for someone that doesn't like you can go
into cognitive dissonance and begin to think, wait a minute,
(38:07):
then they you know, I have to return this favor
they do something nice for you, and then they'll fully
start to think, well, I'll only do something nice if
I like the person and you can see an attitude
change happen. This is the advice I often give to clients.
Like it's an old I call it the Ben Franklin
principle that you know. Ben Franklin said, if you have
(38:30):
a terrible neighbor, borrow a shovel. I think this is
a quote, but it's basically, borrow a shovel, use it,
return it to the neighbor the next day, say thank you.
I really appreciated that, and the neighbor then will start
to think, oh, okay, I gave you that shovel and
you returned it. I guess I don't hate you that much,
(38:56):
and it can actually start to change opinions. We saw
the complexities of relationships and we saw the personal growth
that happened through the connection. What was interesting to me
with Alphabott know how you guys felt. Did you ever
see the movie Pollyanna, the Disney movie, Oh Pollyanna. It's
(39:19):
like an old term we used to say, somebody who's
so goody goody, they're always happy all the time and everything.
But that movie I saw as a kid too, and
it really struck me that this movie Pollyanna, who was
so perky and happy and loved everybody, no matter how
horrible they were. She changed people because she was genuinely
(39:41):
She genuinely saw people's good sides. She genuinely tried hard,
and you saw her change the people around her. And
it's interesting that Alphaba had that same effect on people
that she knew. They reacted to her negatively at first,
but she changed significantly the people around her. So I
(40:03):
was really impressed with that, the personal growth, the connection
that happened as a power of her. Okay, guys, number six,
power and control. What did you see? We saw power
and control especially. You think I'd be talking about it
with Alphaba, but really I saw this with the Wizard.
(40:25):
The Wizard's manipulation symbolizes psychological effects of authoritarianism and gas lighting.
He was fooling people and he was trying to make
them think like one that the animals are bad people,
and he controlled things very very tightly.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, the big thing was that the Wizard wasn't even
a wizard. He didn't have any magic.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
He just all the time and got everybody to believe
he was this big, powerful wizard.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
H you did get that, but did you get who?
Did you start to figure out that maybe the wizards
more to Alphaba than just the wizard.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And what because it was for me the wizard was
just like her being validated almost.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But if you go back to the beginning and think
of the man, the stranger who comes who we never
see their face and gives the green bottle to Alphaba,
I mean to Alphabe's mom.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Wait, was that the wizard?
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think we're gonna find out that he plays more.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
The guy that her Alphabe's mom had an affair with.
That was.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
So what we see here are you know? He's he's
a bad dude, he's authoritarian, he's gaslighting, he's the he's
the head of this nation and he needs to keep
a thumb on the scale or people are going to
find out he's a fraud. Does this sound familiar? So
he just he rules with an iron fist and he's
(42:11):
he's not a nice guy, but he tries to make
people think he is, which is really interesting. And then
we see that she's she is very much a product
in some ways. She has a lot of power. Though
she has power that who knows where that power came from?
(42:34):
Was it the green bottle, which at the time I
was wondering is that opium because there's a little bit
of theme in the movie about that. But you know,
I can't answer that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
What's funny is I just looked and it does answer
that question.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's oh, what's the question? What's the answer, Tony?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
It says, yes, the Wizard is the father?
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty interesting. Huh yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
I wouldn't even have thought that same.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
That's a big plot twa Stephen for me.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Right now, I know that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
I need to watch it again so that.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Now it makes sense though, how he really they knew
pretty much about who she was, Like, they were interesting.
I don't know, do they know or do they mean
they They seemed very like attached to her, yes, because
of her powers.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Immediately immediately, yes you didn't you think too. When the
Wizard meets them, he immediately runs out. He's like, oh,
I don't need to put on a show for you.
He immediately runs out, and then he goes up to
her and he just only focuses on her and does
something a dad does with his daughter. He pulled a
(43:51):
coin out from behind her ear. He did like a
stupid dad trick, and that was an interesting moment. For
me to watch. I thought that really portrayed this weird
intimacy and tenderness between the two of them in just
that moment, and Ariana Grande and I'm sorry, Glinda is
(44:12):
standing there looking going what about me? The whole time,
which was kind of funny too.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
The entire movie issues very nice what about me?
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, well, you see Alphabe struggling when she's with the
Wizard that she wants her own autonomy and empowerment, like
she's going to be with the Wizard because she wants
to learn from the Wizard. She's thinking she's going to
spend time, she's going to learn special powers, to learn
how to harness her magic, her power with the Wizard
and instead sees him for what he really is and
(44:48):
then has to pull away and become her own person.
This is very much a parent child analogy, or it's
a parent child dynamic working itself out.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
But it also shows you how strong she is where
versus Glinda, who was I guess considered friends of hers
at the end when they define gravity part and then
and then goes back to the Wizard, And you.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Know, were you disappointed in that tone? Because even though
I already knew that way. I mean, yeah, I was
still disappointed.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Yeah me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I like, I don't I don't know because I don't
know what the second part is going to be like.
But there's a little part of me I don't want
to like ruin it if this is how it is
going to turn out, that they're in on it, like together,
Alphaba and Glinda on this situation that when they said
(45:45):
that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead, that
she's not really dead, and yeah, yeah, Glinda and her
like it's the chance for Alphabe to just live her
life away from every chaos and all like a bad
press she gets from the city, and it's Glinda's way
of getting exactly what she wanted in life as well.
(46:10):
Like so well they went back with the Wizard and
Madam Marvel and like becomes her little prodige and everything
to make it like she's going to be the hero
of the story. But at the end of the day,
I feel like Glinda will always be friends with Alphaba,
And even though it portrays that it's that she murdered
her pretty much, that she let her sneak away in
(46:35):
a way that it makes Glinda the hero and people
just get to forget about alphabet and Alphabet can live
her life. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
You You are gonna get that answer question that question,
answered Brian Will. That is I mean, obviously in the
second part of the movie, she is gonna appear.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Are going to get that.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
You gotta see, you got to see. I just noticed
the time, Tony. So I'm going to go through these
a little more quickly. So the next one I have
is number seven, Cognitive dissonance. Glinda and Fierro grapple with
conflicting beliefs and actions. So she becomes Glinda, remember at
(47:24):
one point, because she's trying to impress Fierro, who's concerned
about the animals. And there was one of the animals
who is Professor Gosh, I'm forgetting his name. He was
the doctor who was played by Peter Dinklice, who was
who was in Game of Thrones and you know, and
(47:46):
many many other things. And she Fierro is expressing concern
about the animals and the discrimination that's happening with the
animals and this particular animal, but who is a goat
played by Peter Deange couldn't say Linda. He kept saying
Glinda because of the kind of stutter in his mouth.
(48:07):
He doesn't have front teeth. So she decides to change
her name to Glenda in honor of Fiero. But I
love how she does it. She announces it to everybody
to make her look very impressive that she's doing this.
But then they kind of have to go through there grappling.
You know, they're attracted to each other, but maybe not
(48:29):
so much because their values are actually kind of different,
at least at first. And the we see loyalty and
personal values playing out and people have to figure out,
you know, what's more important, loyalty to a person or
being true to your values. We especially see that at
the end in the scene you were just illustrating Brian
(48:52):
right at the end. Also number eight resilience and transformation.
One of my favorite themes resilience is Alphabet demonstrates resilience
despite all the adversities she suffers, She goes for it.
She inspires other people with her inner strength and her
inner transformation, didn't you think? And then number nine is
(49:18):
friendship and loneliness. The complex relationship between Alphaba and Glinda
highlights themes of connection, misunderstandings, and reconciliation. Is this movie
was so human and I actually was really thinking I
was worried about this movie because the stage play is
really spectacular. Everything happens at lightning speed. The movies really
(49:42):
slowed down, but they make use of slowing everything down
and really give us those personal connections and the humanity
between these two characters that's so evident and so powerful.
But what was interesting to me, I don't know if
you guys saw this, both people, well both Alphaba and
Glinda were lonely. Yeah, Alpha Ba was because of her
(50:07):
beliefs that she believed in equality and she was believed
in helping people and her appearance that she's green. But
Glinda had to deal with she was lonely because of
her popularity, like she was just the Queen Bee and
she didn't really have any equals around her. Again, Alpha
Ba was probably the only person who who really challenged
(50:31):
her a little bit fiero too.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
I just hope people, I mean, at least like younger
kids from watching this movie can take that away from
the movie where Glinda becomes her friend and even though
they're completely different and they hate each other at first,
that she becomes her friend, because you know that happens
a lot in school with like somebody that's like the outsider,
(50:58):
and like they get bullied and stuff, that one person
that's popular can really change that person's life around just
by being nice to them, you know, or like just
helping them out with whatever they're going through. So I
just hope like that.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
I do too, Brian, I do too. I think far
too many kids are going to want to be like
Glinda or want to be popular like pretty Yeah, But
I think the real story here is Alphaba and her
incredible power to transform the people around her with no
(51:34):
magic at all, with just being a strong human being
who sticks up for what she believes in and goes
forward despite all of society turning against her. Number ten,
we have power and isolation. Gaining power and authority. Especially
is the Wicked Witch isolates Alphaba further so when she
(51:56):
breaks through the glass at the end and does the
big member of the show that is the big number
of the show, and she's you know, looked toward the
western sky and she's singing about, you know all I
wanted to get a chance to fly, and she's out
there tooling around with her broomstick. It shows that, you
(52:17):
know that that separates her further, but it's also being
true to herself and being able to fight for what
she wants. Whereas the wizard we talked about has no
real power and maintains isolation and propaganda to fool people
he has power, so he you know, that sounds like
(52:38):
I don't know leaders that we may have coming our way.
So it's it's you know, that propaganda, continually telling people
he's powerful and scary when really he has none at all.
And I love the line when Michelle Yoe that Madame
Morrible says to Glinda. It says to Alphaba that you
(53:02):
know she's she, you know she might she needs to
be afraid of the Wizard something like that, and she said, no,
he needs to be afraid of me, which I think
she recognized at that point that he had no real power.
He couldn't really read from the book that had all
the magic spells in it. And you know, the biggest
(53:23):
thing is, of course you talked about the best way
to bring people together is to give them a good enemy,
and that's exactly what he focused on, was an enemy
to hate and they would all band together to fight
that that enemy really was sad and the the last
theme was moral ambiguity and psychological conflict challenges the binary
(53:44):
of good versus evil, emphasizing circumstantial morality, Like circumstantial morality
is you know, sometimes things in certain circumstances aren't necessarily
bad or aren't necessarily good, depending on what's going on.
So we can't really say one thing is good and
one thing is evil. You see that with Alphaba, her
(54:06):
conflict between doing good and being branded as evil creates
a psychological tension because she really does good in the movie.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I think, well, I also think sometimes the environment that
makes people evil, like so long of being attacked and
attacked and put down and being left out and everything
and bullied, and it's like, you can't expect somebody to
have like this beautiful nice heart after being like pushed
down all the time.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
No, you can't. No, I mean, do you understood her upset.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
And all the whole city down.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Well, you know she did. When she get upset, her
powers were enact and things would happen around her, But
she never really did it herself. I mean, it would
just happen. It wasn't until she read from the Book
of Spells that she started to make things happen. In
a different way, but she you know, you saw things
(55:07):
crashing around her, people getting upset, like when the one
woman was taking Nessa Rose in school and Alphaba was
trying to say, no, bring her back, She's supposed to
take care of her, and she got very angry and
caused everything in the school to levitate, including Nessa Rose,
to get her away from that woman, which I thought
(55:29):
was fascinating. We also saw Glinda as being known as
good and doing some good things, mostly for her own
advancement or in so you could look at the objective
things she did, like giving Alphaba the hat, but it
really wasn't being nice. She also tried to get Nessa
(55:50):
Rose Alfaba's sister together with Bach, remember Bach, the woodsman
the you know, I believe he was from Munchkin Lane
and he he was in love with Arianna or with them,
sorry Glinda, and he decided and she manipulated him to
go out with Nessa Rose to please her so she
(56:14):
could get Nessa Rose paired up, which again also Alphabet
thought that was unusually nice, but it was really just
so she could get so Glinda could get with Fierro.
She was just doing it to get her own stuff done.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
There's so much we're gonna need a part two for
this because we need a wrap and we need a
part two wicked.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
So let's good. Let's say are people Glinda asked this
at the very beginning, and I'm gonna ask you, guys,
are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust
upon them?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Wickedness thrust upon them? It's rare that people usually are
like born evil?
Speaker 1 (56:57):
And who do you Yeah, I think I agree with
you one hundred percent. And who do you think is good?
Who's bad? And who's green? Green? I think is misunderstood.
That's the misunderstood, Like we think something something else, but
they're really not Alpha. But what would you say, She's good,
bad or green? You have to pick one.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I think they're all misunderstood, honestly, each character.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Perhaps perhaps we're.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
All misunderstood, and we misunderstand a lot of people. Honestly.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Perhaps the adults are more evil than the kids. Yeah,
young misunderstood, Yeah, but adults know better.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So I saw Alpha Butt is good in this movie. Yeah,
she's good, even though she's the wicked witch. I saw
her as the good one. Glinda, by the way, I
didn't see as good or bad. I saw her as
green because you see her transformation and you could see
her inner turmoil, that she's misunderst stood even to herself,
(58:02):
and that she can start to look inside and be
a little bit more self reflective. She follows the rules
a lot, mostly to gain her own ends, which sometimes
has good effects, sometimes not so much. But she's just
kind of, you know, kind of going through the motions
(58:23):
a lot of the time. And to me, the Wizard
was straight out bad the Wizard here, you know, he
was doing some of the really most evil things. So
that was Yeah. So that wraps up our show. Thank
you Tony, and thank you Brian. That wraps up the
show for today. Reminder to like subscribe give us five stars.
(58:46):
Links to the studies, Well, we do not really have
a study, but you can go to the YouTube page
YouTube dot com forward slash doctor Greg and check out
what we have. Also, if you have any questions or
topics you'd like to cover, hit me up at socials
and asked doctor Greg. This is doctor Greg, Brian and
Tony bidding you farewell until next time, Be flexible, be present,
(59:09):
and be kind.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!