Wicked, Politics & Unity: How Can We All Agree On Who the Villain is in The Story, But Not in Real Life?
After viewing Wicked: For Good for the third time over Thanksgiving break, my thoughts were stuck on my TikTok “For You Page.” It was full of Wicked fans calling out the irony of far-right individuals embracing a film rooted in themes they often oppose.
In case you live under a rock, have no taste or are holding out on seeing the movie just to spite me, here is a quick overview of the film: A green and powerful little girl with a great heart is bullied throughout her youth, but befriends the popular girl. She then grows to learn the truth about the leader she once admired and sets out to expose him.
In conversation with my friend and fellow NYU student, Eliza Roth, about the contradictory viewership of the film, we realized just how deeply entertainment can cut across political divides.
In a divided America, citizens claim to hate those with opposing political opinions. Our politics become blended with identity. As Ezra Klein says in his book Why We’re Polarized, we form “in and out groups” and set them against each other. However, everyone — in, out or somewhere in between — showed up to Wicked: For Good.
It’s no wonder then that the film had the most successful opening of any broadway musical adaptation ever. For a film that includes messages touching on discrimination, propaganda and autocratic rulers, the fact that millions of Americans of all different political ideologies celebrate the film at record-breaking rates sends a powerful message: narrative storytelling is a medium through which to reach wide audiences, and political messaging weaved into the stories do not necessarily negatively affect their popularity.
This begs the question: how can we agree on important themes in a film, but not in real life? Obviously no one in real life is green and animals do not talk, nor is there any magic — but the importance of some of the film’s key issues such as acceptance, understanding and using one’s free will for good, is as prevalent in our own lives as it is in the lives of the characters. If anything, the grandiose mythical characters allow for an exaggeration of these principles, which subsequently allows for the audience to truly understand them.
To answer the question, we conducted an anonymous survey in which 17 people, aged 18-23, participated. Our results are as follows:
How would you describe your political identity?
5.9% leftist/ultra liberal
52% liberal
17.6% moderate
23.5% conservative
0% ultra conservative
Which themes in Wicked resonated most with you?
Power and corruption (70.6%)
Friendship across differences (70.6%)
Moral ambiguity (58.8%)
Prejudice and “othering” (52.9%)
Do you think Wicked reflects current real-world social or political themes?
88.2% said yes. When asked if friendship despite disagreement is achievable, the same amount said yes as well.
If we are finding so much common ground in the theatre, how is it that there is such division and hatred the second the credits roll?
According to one survey participant, this divide exists because of “people's defensiveness and inability to see people as other than good or evil.” I strongly agree with this. Where has all of the nuance gone, and when did we become only capable of seeing people as in or out, right or wrong, left or right?
Wicked itself shows how easily complexity gets flattened. Elphaba is manipulated into altering the appearance of the wizard’s monkeys, and before they know the truth, the act is spun into a lie that she intended it maliciously. The narrative becomes the reality, even though her intentions were far more complicated.
Another participant expanded on this idea, noting that “just like characters judge Elphaba for her appearance, people often make quick assumptions about others before understanding them.”
People are much more complex than Elphaba or Glinda, than Yankees or Mets or even Democrat or Republican. Yet in today’s political and cultural climate, those binaries feel more entrenched than ever.
No, I am not saying you have to like everyone, I certainly don’t. However, distaste for our peers is far too common, often based on trivial reasons rather than real understanding. Basically what I’m saying is to do your research before deciding how you feel. Don’t just decide to dislike someone because they belong to a rival group.
What the poll responses ultimately reveal is that the themes of Wicked: For Good don’t just resonate metaphorically — they diagnose a real cultural pattern. We often prefer the simplicity of a storyline over the discomfort of acknowledging ambiguity, mixed motives or incomplete information. Together, these reflections highlight how Wicked mirrors current real-world tendencies to reduce people to simplistic narratives rather than taking the time to understand the full story.
68.8% of the survey participants said that cultural experiences (theatre, film, music) help bridge political divides, with 18.8% saying they are unsure and 12.5% saying no. To the 12.5%: give it a try, you never know.
“The act of viewing and experiencing art, through concerts, narrative storytelling and performances, is able to create space to come together,” Eliza says.
I believe this to be true, as no one is inherently wicked (get it?). Art gives us the chance to see one another with a little more generosity. It may not erase political differences, but if we learn to really listen and let stories challenge us, then bridging divides does not become an ideal, but rather something that we can actively build together.