"What makes Wicked truly magical isn’t the fabulous music or the stunning costumes or the choreography; it’s the story’s unabashed animal rights themes."
Spoilers ahead!
This weekend, I was buzzing with excitement to see the film adaptation of one of my favorite musicals, Wicked – the beloved origin story that flips the script on the witches of Oz: Glinda, the supposed Good Witch of the North, and Elphaba, the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West. Truth be told, I’ve seen Wicked on stage multiple times, and also read the novel. And, for me, what makes Wicked truly magical isn’t the fabulous music or the stunning costumes or the choreography; it’s the story’s unabashed animal rights themes.
Though the novel is more explicit in this area, Wicked, the musical, still strongly conveys the message that animals deserve to be free and respected, and that they have much to teach us.
Wicked presents us with a version of Oz much like the 1939 film, where animals – think the Cowardly Lion – are able to speak. Animals participate in society; they are teachers and scientists and clergy.
In the film's first moments, when Elphaba is woefully rejected by her family for her green appearance, it is only her nanny, a bear, who is willing to open her heart and show her love and affection.
When Elphaba is older and invited to attend Shiz University, she quickly learns from one of her professors, Dr. Dillamond, a goat, of rumors that animals all over Oz are being persecuted. That they are being stripped of their rights and losing their ability to speak. In a haunting scene, Dr. Dillamond discovers that someone has defaced his blackboard, writing on it: “Animals should be seen and not heard.”
Later in the film, in another shocking moment, Dr. Dillamond is arrested and forcibly removed from his classroom. He is immediately replaced with a human professor who appears with a caged lion cub and uses the captive animal to teach the class a new lesson: that animals should be forced into submission.
Elphaba becomes enraged and casts a spell that puts the class asleep so she can free the cub and release him back to the wild. This pivotal moment of rebellion lights a fire in Elphaba, who now seeks to go to the Emerald City so she can plead for the Wizard to come to the animals’ aid.
But in the final scenes of the film, Elphaba learns that it is the Wizard himself who is behind the war on the animals of Oz, making them a (pun-intended) scapegoat. Elphaba is faced with a choice: abandon her ethics and become the Wizard’s prized pawn (an outcast no more) or forge her own path and fight for the animals.
Much like Elphaba, we are all faced with choices every day that determine what sort of lives the animals in our world get to live. Every time we buy a ticket to SeaWorld, or purchase a garment made from fur, leather, or feathers, or when we sit down to eat, we choose.
Because of the way our society normalizes the subjugation and exploitation of animals, it’s easy to feel like Elphaba, an outsider, when we advocate for them. It’s not just the color of Elphaba’s skin that sets her apart by the conclusion of Wicked, but her refusal to conform and accept a paradigm she knows is wrong.
Thankfully, in our world, there are many of us speaking out on behalf of animals. And together, we can and have moved the world for them. It is up to us to demonstrate, organize, and raise awareness. It is up to us to effect change. It is up to us to defy gravity.