Satrangee Ray

One of the finest and most beloved Watsons ever to grace the screen has passed away. David Burke was 91 years old, just shy of his 92nd birthday, and he is survived by his wife Anna Calder-Marshall and his son Tom Burke.

By all accounts, he was a gentleman and a wonderful human being. He could have stayed on to play Watson much longer, which would have made many of us very happy, but he chose to leave the show to be nearer to his family, especially since Tom was very young at the time.

His was not the first intelligent and competent Watson, but this version marked a turning point in mainstream depictions, from comedic sidekick to a hero in his own right.

RIP, dear sir. You will be missed. Thank you for everything.

~*~

The largest populated country in the world, with the largest and the oldest queer community in the world, India, has recently passed a bill stripping trans people of basic human rights. They are ILLEGAL in the country now. Trans men and trans women are not recognised as trans (who are not kinner-hajra). It is now illegal to be themselves. Only intersex and kinner-hijra will be recognised , that too after a medical inspection. They want to criminalise transitioning. The bill has already been passed. Even though the majority was opposed, the opposition walked out and the bill was passed. Please talk about this. The so called "developing" country has been developing backwards 4 times as fast as it is ever developing forwards. People keep saying "just move out of the country". But not everyone has the luxury to. Not everyone is in a position to do that. They will have to keep staying here while the whole country and the government reject their identity.

Elphaba isn’t just Generic Misunderstood Outcast Rebel Girl fighting fascism, she is very specifically the Wicked Witch of the West, far and away one of the most iconic characters in film. And she’s iconic, because she’s a caricature. Pure evil. No nuance. Green skin, crazy cackle, setting people on fire, terrorizing a whole nation over a pair of shoes, tried to kill a kid and her little dog too. Completely irredeemable.

Glinda the Good Witch? Same deal, but flipped. A caricatureof pure goodness. 

And after watching Part 1, so many people decided Wicked was a SURPRISE TWIST THE GOOD GUYS ARE THE BAD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS ARE THE GOOD GUYS story. 

Which is so completely insane to me given that right from jump, Wicked is screaming at the top of its lungs “The concept of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil is NOT REAL, it is a tool used by a fascist regime to subjugate and control the masses.”

If Wicked were a Good versus Evil story, or a Hunger Games-esque Fight Fascism story, Elphaba and Fiyero would be the central relationship, Elphaba as our Outcast Rebel Protagonist, Fiyero as our secondary lead who would presumably show some textual evidence of a grander moral backbone and awareness and aspirations beyond just running away from it all and becoming Mr. Elphaba Thropp.

But Elphaba and Fiyero aren’t the main characters, Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters; because Wicked is not a Good versus Evil story, nor is it even a Fight Fascism story. Fighting fascism is Elphaba’s personal goal, and it’s the reason why her image has been twisted and exploited - but it’s not the overarching theme of the narrative itself.

The narrative itself is about Good and Evil as propaganda, not literal moral states of being. It’s asking you to look at the Wicked Witch, and Glinda the Good, two of the most recognizable icons in film who represent Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, and dismantle both of them.

Not SWITCH both of them; DISMANTLE both of them.

Because both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are creations of the Wizard’s regime; they’re pawns, they’re puppets, they’re caricatures manufactured by the authoritarian government to keep control over people, to keep people from questioning or rebelling, specifically by weaponizing moral panic. As such, both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are just as much the antagonists of the story as the Wizard and Morrible. Because they ARE the propaganda machine.

And the only way to take down the fascist regime is to take apart the propaganda machine, which means taking apart the two most pivotal pieces keeping it together.

Basically you’re supposed to be unearthing the humanity beneath the icon, on both ends of the spectrum. 

When we first meet Elphaba and Galinda in Act 1, back when they had no idea they were going to become political props, they were both very human - BUT, very notably, they were both extremely armored in these protective facades they’ve been carrying around since childhood. For Elphaba, that armor manifests as brutal honesty, self righteousness, and disdain for social hierarchy. For Galinda, that armor manifests in hollow, self-serving proclamations of goodness, and an obsession with outward appearances of perfection, both physical and moral.

What’s interesting about their “loathing” era is that they loathe each other specifically because they see the human in each other. Galinda doesn’t hate Elphaba for being green, she hates her because she publicly took a sledgehammer to the Galinda Is Perfect statue she built of herself and said nah, you’re not perfect, you’re just a person, and kind of a lousy one at that.

In a very weird way, Elphaba just created the first genuine human connection for BOTH of them - Elphaba has always been treated like an inhuman monster, Galinda has always been treated like the superficial embodiment of perfection beyond reproach - so for the first time, these two girls have someone looking them dead-on and saying, no, idiot, you’re human. And because of that, they’re obsessed with scratching and picking away at the armor of each other. It’s loathing, but there’s a give and take to it, even a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment - they want to find the human in each other, even if they claim it’s for purposes of mutually assured destruction.

So by the time we get to the Ozdust, they’ve both worked away at each other and gotten to see the human in each other so well, Galinda recognizes the vulnerability in Elphaba when she’s dancing alone, when no one else does - when even Fiyero just thinks Golly it’s so super duper cool Elphaba doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about her. 

Both Elphaba and Galinda are at their most vulnerable during the Ozdust duet, because they’ve earned it. They know each other better than anyone, they both see each other as human when no one else does. But this time it’s changed tone - Galinda dances with her because of this recognition of holy shit, this person whose armor I’ve been obsessively chipping away at is vulnerable in the way that all humans are vulnerable, and I did that, I’m responsible for that, and I don’t want to be that person, and I actually admire this person, and care about this person, and I want to fix the damage I’ve done, I need to do something to show her I’m with her.

Of even more significance is Elphaba’s acceptance of Galinda dancing with her. Elphaba is very shrewd and very guarded and very good at seeing through people’s bullshit, so by accepting this olive branch, she’s also recognizing that this person whose armor she’s been chipping away at does actually have a genuine desire to make amends, to admit she was wrong, to be better than who she was - to be human, not just a one-dimensional icon superficially beloved by the masses. 

It’s not elegant, but from both Elphaba and Galinda, that scene is a slow unfolding of “I was obsessed with hating the fact that you called out the human in me,” to “Oh, there’s a vulnerability to the human in you.”

So now we’ve got Defying Gravity, and Elphaba and Glinda hit the irreconcilable differences mark, and they part ways - and the dictator swoops in and uses them to embody an ideal of Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, effectively stripping away the humanity that Elphaba and Glinda found in each other. Thus begins the propaganda machine.

These are not roles Elphaba or Glinda ever meant to find themselves in. And they still love each other, but over time, we see them begin to relapse into their old pre-Ozdust facades in order to protect themselves - Elphaba withdrawing into self righteous solitude, Glinda fixating on surface level adoration from the world, both of them beginning to deny and reject the vulnerabilities in themselves that the other brought out.

The Wizard and Morrible very much succeed in driving this narrative of the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good,” to the point that both Elphaba and Glinda start to find comfort and strength in these roles as their personal lives and relationships begin to fall apart. Toward the end of Act 2, they have largely embraced and committed to these caricatures of themselves, which means that just like the rest of Oz, they’ve been suckered in by the propaganda machine, while at the same time, literally being the propaganda machine.

The story hinges on their ability to recognize that they’ve become part of that machine, and their ability to dismantle it. 

I don’t know where the article is anymore but I remember Jon Chu said something along the lines of them being each other’s salvation, which in addition to being the most insane way he possibly could have phrased that, is actually the crux of their relationship. They saw each other as human before anyone else did, then they had that humanity torn away from them, then they took comfort in the stripping-away of their humanity…so how do they get it back?

Essentially they have to come back to themselves at the Ozdust. Glinda has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by her own denial and fear and need to be adored, and Elphaba has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by self righteousness and hubris and the need to be respected, and that neither of them has had any real effect on the state of Oz as a whole, except to serve the narrative created by the Wizard and Morrible. That’s the point: they have both been reduced to pawns who exist to propagate the unchecked authority of the Wizard’s regime.

Wicked has heavy Fight Injustice, Resist Fascism, and Stand Up for What’s Right Even If You’re Standing Alone messages, and it does raise parallels to the real world stripping away of human rights and using “otherness” as a scapegoat to manipulate a disenfranchised populace (I’m gonna say they were clumsy about it and really lost that whole plot in Act 2, but…y’know…that’s…it’s Wicked Act 2 - Dana Fox, you did the best you could with what they gave you, angel, truly Act 2 is a whole mess to try to work with, you’re a hero honestly <3)

But as the audience, you really are supposed to be looking at Good and Evil as propaganda, not a true moral binary to simply be flipped on its head. You’re supposed to be taking two of the most recognizable fictional images of Good and Evil in media, and questioning the whole concept of Good and Evil, and how this authoritarian government was able to use these young women to embody that concept to further their own agenda, and to what degree both Glinda and Elphaba submitted to it. 

And you’re supposed to be looking for the human in both Elphaba and Glinda when they’re at their worst, when they’re petty or vengeful or self-serving. You’re supposed to be rooting for them to get free of the roles they’ve been corralled into and come back to themselves, which in turn will allow them to, y’know, overthrow the government. That is actually the point of this very oddly-paced and inconsistently-toned weirdo story, that’s the reason Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters, because the evolution of their relationship from beginning to end actually addresses the main themes Wicked has laid out. 

…Or! Alternatively! You can just say Elphaba is a precious pure cinnamon roll who’s a misunderstood but morally pristine freedom fighter and is also meeeee :D and Glinda is a self-obsessed fascist >:( and Fiyero’s a noble hero and martyr and should actually be the main character <3 and thank goodness Elphaba’s arc ends in being provided for by a man who loves her so she can live out the simple life she REALLY wants as wife and mother in the story of Anthony Bridgerton’s Adventures in Oz ;) Like genuinely some of you are so determined for Wicked to be about quite literally anything except what it’s about, and I’m just over here smacking my head against the wall slowly going insane.

wicked is a two act musical and it has under three hours (five if you're talking about the movies) to tell the story that they're trying to tell. so unlike gregory maguire's novel, which is longer and has five acts/parts to play out, they're far more pressed for time. and honestly, i think you could make a solid argument that maguire's novel already has too many characters and plot points (i personally think it works stylistically but i'm a certified gregory glazer). so when they adapted the novel into a musical, there was always gonna be pretty big cuts, which is why the first act of the musical pulls mostly from the shiz section, and the second act is a mesh of the city of emeralds section and the events of the WoO

so pretty big cuts were going to have to be made, which is probably why almost every significant character who wasn't a WoO character and was a maguire OC had to be axed (crope and tibbett, avaric, sarima and her children, nanny, yackle and the maunts, liir who's at the end of this list cuz i forgot about him anyway he's still in a fishwell). the only ones who weren't morrible and dr dilly, who are prominent parts of the shiz chapter, and fiyero, who's shoved into the role of scarecrow anyway. and honestly even with all these cuts the musical still feels like it has more plot than it can handle, but it also has this problem where everything in the second act needs to line up with the WoO, at least loosely, so stuff like the nessa-boq plotline has to stay in

i also think it's relevant that wicked the musical is a retelling of the WoO as much (if not more than, at times) an adaptation of maguire's novel. obviously the musical, novel, and og WoO are all playing around with the same story, and large plot points and certain characters in the musical only exist because of maguire's work, but they also recognize that most audiences members will be most familiar with the 1939 movie, and will be going into the musical expecting a retelling of that specific oz iteration, rather than an adaptation of maguire's novel. most audience members likely haven't read the novel. the musical also wants to market itself as family friendly, so tying itself to the kid friendly WoO movie, rather than the book with tiger sex and puppet orgies is probably a sensible marketing decision

and when you take all of these considerations into account, it makes sense to have glinda be a prominent character in the musical. she's arguably the most important character in the shiz chapter of the novel (besides elphaba ofc), as her pov is how the chapter starts and ends, and reappears in both the city of emeralds chapter and the final chapter. she also has to stay in because she's a prominent character in the wizard of oz. notably, in the 1939 movie, she's really the only character besides dorothy to have an actual interaction and back-and-forth with the wicked witch, outside of dorothy's friends getting like a quippy one-liner or two. glinda's an extremely recognizable character that people will expect to see in a musical about the wicked witch

glinda's also literally propped up as the antithesis of the wicked witch in the og movie. the wicked witch is a bad witch; glinda is a good witch. the first thing she asks dorothy is "are you a good witch or a bad witch?" and in that same conversation, she's the one who explains the bad witches are ugly good witches are beautiful logic. given that wicked is a deconstruction of the nature of evil and what we're doing when we label something good or wicked, she's the most logical character to be elphaba's costar. the "untold story of the witches of oz" schtick works because audiences will likely think back to their confrontation over the ruby slippers, and want to know what the real story behind that was, and what was happening behind the scenes

on the other hand, fiyero tigelaar is not an og wizard of oz character. he's only a character in the wicked novel, a property far less people are familiar with (and frankly the musical completely whitewashed and butchered him but whatever). people are probably going to be less interested in a musical about the love story between the wicked witch and some guy's oc no one's heard of (jk gregory love you <3)

now, the musical addresses this problem by also making him the scarecrow, but a musical about the love story between the scarecrow and the wicked witch is also a weaker story than a glinda-elphaba one for a few reasons. one, the scarecrow is at the forefront of the wizard of oz; he's dorothy's first and favorite companion. his motivations, backstory, and personality are pretty clearly shown throughout the story. the idea that he (and dorothy's other friends) all want something besides what they say could be interesting. but in a musical about the wicked witch, i think glinda works better as a deuteragonist because she, like the wicked witch, is also operating away from what the audience sees for most of the movie

i also just don't think wicked the musical does anything particularly clever or thematically relevant with the whole scarecrow wants a brain thing outside of "fiyero is thoughtless haha get it." but him losing a brain or wanting one isn't really anything outside of a lie he told to play along so he could eventually get back to elphaba. it's a different canon than the WoO, i know, but they also don't want to show anything that directly contradicts the mgm movie. and since the scarecrow is in the mgm movie so much, it's hard to reconcile that with the character of fiyero tigelaar. whereas we know very little about where glinda fucks off too and what she's doing behind the scenes, and that gives them more room to play with writing and characterization and whatnot

also i'm sorry but "secret love story/friendship between glinda the good and the wicked witch of the west" is just inherently more compelling than "secret love story between the wicked witch of the west and fiye--i mean the scarecrow." they have that whole rivals to friends to ??? to enemies to doomed thing going on. the good vs wicked thing ties in with the themes of the musical and explores them better than any iteration of elphaba and fiyerocrow. again, if you're writing a story about the wicked witch, exploring her history with glinda the good witch just makes more sense than any other wizard of oz character, except maybe the wicked witch of the east

so an elphaba-glinda centric musical was always going to be the way to go. and frankly i think a lot of the musical's oversaturated plot would be best dealt with by cutting the love triangle and giving fiyero (and boq to some extent) more minor role like the Lion, where they get tangled up in elphaba's bs for a moment in time, and largely focusing on elphaba glinda and nessa since they're the three witches of oz driving the plot of the WoO from behind the scenes (or haunting the narrative in nessa's cases) and that ties it back more effectively to the og WoO. the scarecrow's already had his story with the WoO, so a retelling that focused on the three witches, rather than dorothy and co would've been really cool. wicked got close but i do think the love triangle drags it down

I understand that I’m painfully biased on that front; not only I’ve always favoured Gelphie, but I’ve also always disliked Fiyero even before being exposed to the musical. There’s only so much likability you can squeeze out of a guy that cheats on his wife — who, by the way, practically raises their THREE KIDS on her own because her husband is always away — with his college crush, and also refuses to tell said crush about the fact that her sister and best friend (who she hasn’t seen in YEARS) are in town, because… he’s just so in love that he “doesn’t want to stress her” or risk her having a support system away from him, I guess. Sorry, people. The musical did Fiyero dirty with the whitewashing, which contributed to him losing a large part of his indemnity and the novel’s exploration of racism, however, it is really a coin toss on whether he’s more or less likeable in the musical compared to the book. I guess in the book he never became a cop, so there’s that…

The musical had the opportunity to do something solid with Elphaba and Fiyero. Maybe it couldn’t show their steamy affair in Emerald City, but they could just be creative and do other stuff. In the book, it’s clear that has been in love with her since Shiz, and since Musical!Fiyero is written sort of like the jock to Elphaba’s nerdy, dorky girl, it makes perfect sense for the musical to introduce their romance during the first act. “Jock guy falls for dorky chick” was already a tired cliche in the early 2000s, but just like Glinda being a deconstruction of the “brainless pink bimbo”, they could’ve done something similar to their dynamic and added layers. You can see that that’s exactly what they tried to do: Fiyero is more than a shallow and self-absorbed womaniser, this is just what he tries to be, because if he thinks too much he’ll care too much, and caring too much is ultimately pointless in a society like theirs, with the Wizard’s dictatorial shadow looming over Oz. A philosophy very similar to Glinda’s. They both adopted a nihilistic mindset that simultaneously helps them deal with the cruelty of the world while also easing their mind about their passivity and lack of action. The exact opposite of Elphaba, who has every reason to be as frustrated and cynical as she is, yet still believes with all her heart that good actions can have a positive impact on the world, and that evil can be overcome. She’s a very active character, while Glinda and Fiyero are slaves to their mindsets of conformity and passivity. Yet when people draw parallels between Wicked’s themes of “action vs inaction”, 99% of the time they refer to Elphaba and Glinda to illustrate it. Fiyero is very rarely brought up for his thematic importance to the overall story or, more importantly, for how his view of the world clashes with Elphaba’s.