try not to panic.

I’ve recently noticed that this phenomenon is carrying into the way people consume media. The purpose of storytelling is getting lost because people don’t know how to examine or break down simplified themes from stories and apply them to the real world. Evolutionarily the reasons stories exist is to learn from them. When we take complex life experiences and break them down into a simplified, consumable way, it teaches our brains how to understand and process these things so that when we come across a new experience in real life our brains will have a reference point stored away that can inform how we deal with new experiences. Myths, Folktales, and Fables all exist with the purpose of taking deep, complex themes and simplifying them so anyone can relate and learn from them.

Recently I have seen people saying that it’s not really worth analyzing and comparing modern stories (*ahem* Wicked *ahem*) to real life because it doesn’t equate to a 1:1 comparison. What this tells me is that kids are just not learning the critical thinking skills to understand that that is the point. It’s not supposed to be a 1:1 comparison because you’re supposed to learn how to apply the message to a variety of different situations.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf is supposed to teach you that constant lying ruins your credibility - you are not intended to think “well this doesn’t apply to this situation because I’m not lying about a wolf.”

The Lion and the Mouse is supposed to teach you that even the smallest act of kindness can make an impact - not “the only way to practice kindness is to remove a thorn from a lions paw.”

When people try to have deep, analytical discussions about the themes of Wicked it isn’t because we’re pretentious or trying to make it into something it’s not - it’s because that is how we were taught to interact with media. We were taught to look at the simplified themes of a story and dive into how these themes carry into the real world, what we can learn from them and how we can apply those lessons to our own lives.

A lot of us are frustrated because these themes are so relevant currently (as they have been repeatedly in the past and will be again in the future). It’s difficult to see something so culturally relevant be overlooked because younger people haven’t been taught the skills necessary to apply the themes to their own lives. Ideally, Wicked would be teaching people to be more accepting and empathetic to marginalized groups (instead it seems that more often than not it’s just people at each other’s throats about shipping). That’s what it did when it came out - it opened up conversations about acceptance, diversity, and the impact of propaganda on marginalized people. Of course we also had fun conversations about the characters and the entertainment aspect, but the messages it sent were what truly stuck with people.

It doesn’t need to be more realistic in order to have value. By making it more accessible and universally relatable to a wider audience it means more people are exposed to the lessons it teaches. This is a good thing. It’s why, throughout history, essential life lessons are packaged as children’s stories in order to be accessible. So you can learn the moral of a story before you run into a situation where that moral might apply.

To be clear, am not at all intending to be preachy or looking down on those younger than me. I do not at all blame the younger generation or hold anyone responsible for when they were born. This is meant more as a commentary on the way certain societal changes are harming the cognitive development of young people. And the thing is, I think it’s intentional. We know that oppressive regimes hate educating the masses. By putting out constant distractions, cutting education, and teaching people to offload their mental effort onto AI, society is grooming people to abandon our core analytical skills.

So when people 30+ are trying to talk about the political situations and the moral lessons taught in Wicked and how they apply to real life, it’s because that’s how we were taught to consume stories - in fact, it’s how people have been taught to consume stories for as long as stories have existed. It is the entire reason stories exist. We also enjoy the characters and the entertainment aspect of it, but for most of us it’s the things the characters represent and the resonance with our real experiences that speak to us.

So, instead of looking at people as pretentious or bigoted for wanting to have these conversations, there is value in examining why people want to have these conversations. You just might find that by looking outside of your own experience you could learn something new or consider a viewpoint you had never realized before. It could help you to be able to look at things another way (sorry I couldn’t resist).

For a good, contemporary perspective on the importance of intersectionality in feminism I highly recommend “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Adichie (or watch her TEDtalk if you don’t feel like reading it).

First of all, without googling, can you tell me what musical did win the Tony that year?

I can tell you (because I watched it play out in real time) it was Avenue Q. And I can promise you that it did not win because it was “less problematic” than Wicked. Avenue Q’s original Broadway run ended in 2009, but the recent revival in London updated several lyrics to resonate better with modern audiences - and because the original lyrics were overtly racist.

Avenue Q had the benefit of the novelty of puppets and the Sesame Street style spoof. They also ran an aggressive campaign called the “Vote Your Heart” campaign, where they handed out political-style buttons targeting Tony voters to vote for them. Even so, the win was a huge shock.