Unnaturally Green: The Superhero in Wicked

Editor’s Note: This essay was originally written for Chris Gavaler’s superhero class. We’re pleased to be able to reprint it here.
 

Wicked-poster

 
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900, has captivated American culture and spawned numerous book, film, and stage adaptations which play with the original narrative. The novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire was brought to the stage and became one of the most famous musicals of all time. Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz by Steven Schwartz premiered on Broadway in 2003, and a national tour directed by Joe Mantello recently visited Altria Theater in Richmond, VA for performances in April and May of 2014. This twist on the traditional Ozian tale presents the Wicked Witch of the West as the hero, using her powers to fight an oppressive regime. Her narrative mimics many plot elements in Gladiator, a novel by Philip Wylie; Superman Chronicles, a comicbook collection by Jerry Siegel; and Zorro, a film directed by Fred Niblo. All three of these draw from the superhero genre, borrowing a set of standard tropes identified by Blythe and Sweet in “Superhero: The Six Step Progression,” Coogan in Superhero: The Secret Origins of a Genre, and Reynolds in Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Wicked warps The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a superhero story. Elphaba’s powers, origins, dual identities, mission, and outsider status all mark her as a bona fide superhero, in the same hallowed ranks as Superman and Zorro.

Blythe and Sweet, Coogan, and Reynolds all agree that “a superhero by definition has super powers” (Blythe and Sweet). Elphaba meets this essential requirement, possessing powers on par with Hugo Danner, Superman, and Zorro. She is born with the ability to read the Grimmerie, “The Ancient Book of Thamaturgy and Enchantments” with ease, while her sorcery tutor, Madame Morrible, required “years of constant study” to “read a spell or two” (Schwartz 1.13). Elphaba gives herself the power of flight with a “levitation spell” on a broom shortly after she obtains the book (Schwartz 1.14). Even without the Grimmerie, Elphaba is a powerful sorceress, capable of telekinesis and mind control; Morrible recognizes Elphaba’s unusual powers: “Many years I’ve waited for a gift like yours to appear” (Wicked,Schwartz 1.2). Blythe and Sweet also stipulate that a superhero’s powers must be “limited” to allow a “possibility for conflict” (Blythe and Sweet). Hugo Danner, a superhuman, may have “inklings of invulnerability,” but can be killed “by the largest shells” (Wylie 20, 77). Superman has nearly identical powers to Hugo, but can be disabled by an electric shock and “can’t survive fire” (Siegel 192). Zorro is a master swordsman and clever freedom fighter, but he is mortal and can be killed like any normal man (Niblo). Elphaba discovers her limitations too, finding that her “spells are irreversible,” making her unable to reverse her spell that painfully implanted wings in Chistery’s shoulders (Schwartz 1.13). When she first discovers her powers, she claims she is “unlimited,” but later, she revises her tune, saying: “Just look at me—I’m limited” (Schwartz 1.2, 2.8). Like other superheroes, Elphaba has limited powers that elevate her above the common man.

Elphaba’s origins—her acquisition of powers and her upbringing—draw heavily from standard plot elements present in Gladiator, Superman Chronicles, and Zorro. Elphaba’s father gives her mother a “drink of green elixir” before their sexual encounter. Neither of her parents shares her unusual pigment or her powers, so the beverage is the implied source of her abilities (Schwartz 1.1). In a virtually identical scene, Hugo obtains his powers from a serum of “alkaline radicals” injected into his mother after his father, Abednego, drugs her with “opiate” in “a bottle of blackberry cordial” (Wylie 3, 9). Reynolds discusses upbringing in his definition, stating that the hero “often reaches maturity without having a relationship with his parents” (16). Elphaba’s father is the Wizard of Oz, but her mother is married to the Governor of Munchkinland (Schwartz 2.14, 1.2). Because of this, Elphaba never knows her true father, and is raised by her stepfather. Superman is also brought up by foster parents, since his biological parents die on “the doomed planet” of Krypton (Siegel 195). His foster parents die before he takes on his superheroic cause, leaving him without parents when he reaches adulthood (Siegel 196). Elphaba’s mother dies giving birth to her younger sister, Nessarose, and she has no relationship with her stepfather, who blames her for her mother’s death, openly despises her, and only sent her to school to look after her sister: “Elphaba, take care of your sister. And try not to talk so much” (Schwartz 1.7,2). Similarly, Zorro’s father ridicules his apparently weak, idiotic son, unaware that Diego Vega is Zorro (Niblo). Hugo is a “foreign person” to his father, and they never become friends; even trying “to open a conversation” with his father is a hopeless cause (Wylie 20, 121). All three characters deal with an absent father figure. The way Elphaba obtains her powers and her lack of good parenting show similarities to other superhero narratives, demonstrating that her origins fall within the well-established tropes of the genre.

All three definitions agree that a superhero must have a dual identity, an “everyday persona” coupled with a “superpowered self” (Blythe and Sweet). Reynolds states that the “extraordinary nature of the hero will be contrasted with the mundane nature of the alter ego” (16). Elphaba assumes the identity of the Wicked Witch of the West, much like Diego Vega becomes Zorro and Clark Kent becomes Superman. Coogan claims that a superhero identity “comprises the codename and the costume,” with the codename representing the hero’s “inner character” and the costume being an “iconic representation” of that inner character (32, 33). As an example, Coogan argues that Superman’s codename identifies him as “a super man who represents the best humanity can hope to achieve” and his costume emblazons the first letter of his codename on his chest (33). Elphaba adopts a superhero identity described by Madame Morrible: “Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature! This distortion! This repulsion! This Wicked Witch!” (Schwartz 1.14). Elphaba’s codename fits her, because her primary power is sorcery, and “she is evil” in the eyes of the people of Oz (Schwartz 1.14). The language Morrible uses in reference to Elphaba’s “unnaturally green” skin is almost identical to Coogan’s description of the superhero costume: her skin represents the power and supposed evil inside her (Schwartz 1.1). She loses her glasses when she becomes the Wicked Witch, much like Clark Kent puts them away when he dons his Superman attire (Schwartz, Siegel). However, unlike Superman and Zorro, Elphaba does not switch back and forth between her identities. She permanently transforms into her superhero identity at the end of the first act, saying: “Something has changed within me” (Schwartz 1.14). Elphaba has the superhero’s dual identities, and her codename and costume match Coogan’s idea that they are outward manifestations of inward character.

Elphaba transforms into the Wicked Witch to accomplish a superheroic mission identical in principle to those of Superman and Zorro. Coogan argues that “the superhero’s mission is prosocial and selfless” (31). Hugo Danner’s mission is not prosocial and selfless, and Coogan notes he “gains personally from his powers,” but Elphaba, Superman, and Zorro all fit Coogan’s idea of the hero working for society’s benefit (31). Elphaba recognizes that “something bad is happening to the animals” as they are being stripped of their rights to speak (Schwartz 1.4). Though she is not an animal, she pursues justice for them when she meets the Wizard. She opens her case to the Wizard by saying, “We’re not just here for ourselves,” showing her altruistic motivations (Schwartz 1.13). She adopts her identity to fight the Wizard, who enforces the “reporting of subversive Animal activity,” once she realizes he will not defend them and that she must (Schwartz 1.14). Most of her heroic actions occur off stage, but in a conversation with Elphaba, Nessarose reports: “You [Elphaba] fly around Oz, trying to rescue animals you’ve never even met” (Schwartz 2.2). She performs superheroic deeds on stage as well. She uses a spell to give crippled Nessarose the ability to walk, she saves Boq from death by turning him into a tin man, and frees flying monkeys held captive by the Wizard (Schwartz 2.2,3). Elphaba could fit the description pinned to both Zorro and Superman–a “champion of the oppressed” (Niblo, Siegel 196). Zorro states that he fights for “justice for all,” and says, “to rid our country of a menace is a noble deed”, clearly identifying his driving motivations (Niblo). Similarly, Superman uses his powers in a “one-man battle against evil and injustice” (Siegel 84). Elphaba’s mission is exactly the same, fighting the injustice in Oz, serving as a champion of the oppressed animals.

The superhero’s mission makes them an outsider, viewed as evil by the general populace because “the superhero transgresses man’s petty laws” (Blythe and Sweet). Reynolds states that “the hero is marked out from society” (16). They often fight the establishment, because “the hero’s devotion to justice overrides even his devotion to the law” (Reynolds 16). Superman is called “the devil himself,” Zorro is called a “graveyard ghost,” and Elphaba is called “the wickedest witch there ever was” and “the enemy of all of us here in Oz” (Siegel 11, Niblo, Schwartz 1.1). Superman works above the law. His most drastic vigilante action involves reducing a ghetto to “desolate shambles” so that its reconstruction will guarantee “splendid housing conditions” (Siegel 110). From then on, police seek to “apprehend Superman” (Siegel 110). Zorro fights the government which is oppressing the poor, and a contingent of governor’s troops set out to capture him (Niblo). Elphaba first attempts to work within the law, appealing to the Wizard on behalf of the animals (Schwartz 1.13). When the Wizard refuses to comply, she says, “I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game,” and becomes the Wicked Witch, a vigilante fighting for the animals and defying the Wizard, the ruling authority in Oz (Schwartz 1.14). She is outcast because society views her deeds as an evil: “Wickedness must be punished. Kill the witch!” (Schwartz 2.7). Elphaba’s defiance of law and order makes her an outsider who is hunted and viewed as wicked, much like Superman and Zorro.

Elphaba’s superpowers, origins, dual identities, altruistic mission, and outsider status all fit the well-established tropes of the superhero genre. Though the musical is not advertised as a superhero story, it contains all the necessary ingredients for one. Elphaba meets the superhero definitions of Blythe and Sweet, Reynold, and Coogan. She also draws story elements from Gladiator, Superman, and Zorro. Elphaba’s mission ends when she sees Glinda the Good send the Wizard away; with Glinda’s rule, the animals will no longer be oppressed. Her mission accomplished, Elphaba leaves Oz with her love Fiyero, akin to Zorro’s retirement and marriage to Lolita once he causes the governor to abdicate (Schwartz 2.9, Niblo). While the musical ends with Elphaba and Fiyero walking off into the night, it is not entirely implausible to imagine her coming to Earth and teaming up with this world’s mightiest heroes. The Wicked Witch of the West could be the next member of the Avengers or the Justice League; with all her similarities to those supermen, she would fit right in.

 

Works Cited

Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “Superhero: The Six Step Progression.” The Hero In Transition. Bowling Green: Popular, 1983. Print.

Coogan, Peter. Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre. Austin: MonkeyBrain Books, 2006. Print.

Reynolds, Richard. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1992. Print.

Schwartz, Steven. Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz. 2003. Web. <http://wickedthemusicalscript.blogspot.com/>.

Siegel, Jerry and Joe Shuster. Superman Chronicles. V1. New York: DC, 2006, Print.

The Mark of Zorro. Fred Niblo. United Artists, 1920. Film.

Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz. By Stephen Schwartz. Dir. Joe Mantello. Altria Theater, Richmond. 2 May 2014. Performance.

Wylie, Philip. Gladiator. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. Print.

wicked-witch

(Joy Putney is an engineering and biology major at Washington and Lee University. When she’s not doing mad science, she loves writing fantasy novels, playing the oboe, and fighting crime.?)

Undoing Maleficent

To say the announcement that Disney is working on a new, live action film adaptation of their most revered villain, Maleficent, the wicked fairy godmother from Sleeping Beauty sent shockwaves through the internet would be an enormous understatement. Reactions ranged from excited to ecstatic, with virtually everybody (at least within the range of cartoon enthusiasts, feminist, and feminist cartoon enthusiasts I spend much of my time with) thrilled at the idea of one of Disney’s most beloved creatures of wickedness getting the chance to tell her full story. But even as I shared in the excitement, I couldn’t help to thinking back to another story that had given a similarly ghoulish green witch a chance to tell her tale – Wicked, the book musical about how the Wicked Witch of the West got as wicked as she is. And after that, I remembered the existence of two pieces of media that explored the origins of famous heroines, namely Nintendo’s Metroid: Other M and Square Enix’s 2013 remake of the Tomb Raider series. Through all these works, we see two specific themes: the subject matter of a popular and critically acclaimed female subject, who has succeeded whether through the force of her character or her execution, and the need to redress this character, to explore who she is and how she became the person we know her as. And perhaps instinctively, this realization gave me a queasy feeling. Sure, it’s great to get character backstories, but why are we seeing all these female characters, characters that never needed an in depth explanation for who they were, being given backstories to justify their characters when justification was never necessary? Is it just an attempt to flesh out characters that may have only ever been seen as villains, or is there a more salient urge here, to strip female heroes and villains alike of their mystery and autonomy and make them explain themselves to us? From this perspective, it seems necessary to ask what it is that the new Malificient film does; does it validate her, giving us an idea of why she is who she is, or does it undo her, removing the excess villainy and mystery that made her at once so captivating and inspiring to viewers?
 

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Didn’t she play Lara Croft too? Or am I just losing it…

 
Like a male hero or villain, there are myriad reasons a female hero or villain may succeed, or fail, in their given function. But unlike most male characters, female characters are also caught up in the complex politics of representation and sexualization, and must be interrogated with pointed questions to determine whether they break down sexist stereotypes or uphold them. Upholding the institutions of sexism is done in ways that range from outfits to motivations; if the heroine or villainess wears the same three loose pieces of cloth everywhere she goes, she’s demeaning eye candy for men, and if her motivations are for romance, wealth, or eternal beauty, she’s a damsel, a conniving harpy, or any one of the literal hundreds of pre-formed molds made for female characters of all shapes and DnD alignments. To escape this is no easy task, for it requires simultaneously the recognition of the female character’s specific social position while also being clear to point out that her gender changes nothing about her basic human motives, objectives and desires. In this sense, characters like Maleficent and Samus Aran of the Metroid game succeed; their motivations do not rest in anything directly coded as feminine, but simply in who they are as human beings (or in Maleficent’s case, fairies). And while Elphaba and Lara Croft no doubt fulfill sexist functions (in the case of the former, being a vindictive hag and in the latter, being eye candy for 13 year olds with a PlayStation) their characters seem to exist and have motives for action outside of them. From craving treasure to craving vengeance, acting out of senses of duty, honor, wickedness and for the thrill of it, the motivations of these women are not wholly contingent on their gender; anyone in Elphaba’s position would want to avenge their sister, and the tropes of bold and brash treasure hunter like Lara Croft is as common as the adventure genre itself. And more importantly, the motivations of these characters don’t really need to be qualified; we have seen enough villains and heroes with them to not so much bat an eye at them. Does this drive to qualify the motivations of female characters represent a drive to strip them of their character nuances, as if we as viewers have trouble believing that they, as female characters, are capable of doing the things they do without qualifying it?
 

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Is it really necessary to know how this became this?

 
With Maleficent in particular, this question is troubling. More than any of the previously outlined characters, Maleficent triumphs not because she is a character so much as she is a symbol, an awe-inspiring avatar of wickedness and malevolence in semi-human form. This is what, in the already impressive pantheon of comic, tragic and wicked villains of the Disney canon, makes her stand out as above and beyond the rest. The average Disney villain may have myriad motivations and reasons for being evil, be they jealousy, gluttony, old grudges or simple dislike of the protagonist. But Maleficent is above such petty mortal concerns. It is true that she is slighted in not being invited to Princess Aurora’s Christening, but this seems little more than pretext for her to unleash her evils upon the kingdom. And were it not for the meddling of the “good” fairies, she would have succeeded; by the films halfway point, she has the prince in chains, the princess in eternal sleep, and the kingdom completely plunged in darkness. Further, she never relies on the powers of her minions to get things done: for the most part, it is her who does the plotting, the trapping, and most of all the fighting, and she does it damn well. By the film’s final act, she has become evil itself, manifesting as an enormous black dragon capable of leveling entire kingdoms, before good triumphs and she is finally slain once and for all. Even as she loses, she stands out in a way no villain has before or since. Maleficent is a force of nature, an awe inspiring manifestation of villainy in its purest, most captivating form, and it is in the very force of her evil and power that she has emerged as the perennial, classic villain of the Disney mythos.

According to the Wikipedia page for the new Maleficent film, our favorite evil fairy is being recast as a defender of nature and wildlife from the encroaching forces of man. Is this how far the mighty have fallen? The dark lady Maleficent, a militant Greenpeace activist? Forgive me if I don’t sound too enthused. In some cases, fleshing out the ideas of female villains and heroes gives them an extra bit of dimension they previously lacked; with Wicked especially, we got to see an arresting and ultimately convincing portrait of the Wicked Witch, with her origins as dreamy idealist and the way the corruption of the world she lived in made her something far worse. But this recent spate of female backstories too often seems to ask questions that don’t need to be asked, namely why do these characters, characters we already know and care about, act the way they do? For Maleficent this is a pointless line of inquiry. Maleficent has never operated on the basis of everyday logic and passions, for if she did she wouldn’t be a fire breathing sorceress living in a rickety castle in the darkest, creepiest corner of the Earth. What makes Maleficent a gripping character is not who she is, but what she represents. She is evil incarnate, angry, spiteful, cunning and all-encompassing evil, and the fact that she happens to manifest this in a female form seems to make little difference. But in creating a new backstory for her, in the same vein that other classic female characters have had done for them, we see an underlying anxiety not on the part of the viewers, but on that of the producers who both want to make a buck on and feed into the ever-more pervasive idea that classic female characters have to justify their very existences as classic characters.

So, I ultimately pose this question; is a new Maleficent film really necessary? Do we have to create a backstory for a character who’s more a force of nature than anything, and deconstruct everything she represents to a world where powerful female symbols are already rare to nonexistent? In undoing Maleficent and other female characters like her, are we selling them short, and telling them that we don’t believe that they can be gripping, powerful and meaningful on their own terms?

My answer to this is yes. Rather than revisiting classic female characters, it seems a much better use of the time and energy of writers and artists everywhere to build off of them, to learn from their mistakes and appreciate their impact, and create new, dynamic characters that through their actions destroy expectations of gender and all related institutions. Rather than undoing Maleficent, we should champion her cause, and learn from the things she has taught us about character designing and building. If we do not do this, moving forward will only become more difficult, and the mistakes of the past will just keep repeating themselves.
 

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I’m sticking with the classic look in this case.