How Popular and As Long As Your Mine are mirrors of each other
This is a long side by side comparison mostly told in pictures with analysis thrown in.
So let us start at how we arrived at the set up of both songs, with previous scenes where both characters put themselves on the line for Elphaba, risking their social currency/commiting treason and they both end with the characters choosing Elphaba, leaving Fiyero, then Glinda stranded. Like everything, the stakes are raised in the second movie so while watching Fiyero perplexed while the girls flee him in the first movie is kinda funny, Fiyero’s choice left him an enemy of the state and his fiancée devastated at the altar in the second.
So back to their dorm and forest hideout they go, taking refuge with each other in a more intimate space. Elphaba starts letting down her guard and both Glinda and Fiyero proceed to learn more about her.
Elphaba letting Glinda into her innermost vulnerable past, her fears, what she blames herself for, while Elphaba lets Fiyero into her intimate present- the space she made for herself away from the world- a reflection of her innermost self: her insecurities, her creativity, her wild beauty in the face of the world against her. Both scenes firmly establish a framework for the two of them to begin to see who she truly is.
Now here is where both Glinda and Fiyero’s reactions differ to what they’ve been told/seen. Glinda learns about Elphaba and decides to make her her new project, a challenge to take on, helping Elphaba find her selfworth the only way she knows to find her own: Popularity. In what follows we see Glinda adding various items trying to beautify her this is symbolic as she’s adding items to try to help normalize her in the eyes of others.
Then there is Fiyero, who is symbolically removing items. Her cape isn’t so much a method of seduction as it is unburdening her and taking the weight off her shoulders for her then removing his own jacket and with it his own burdens.
It should be said that Elphaba does add an item of clothing but it’s something that SHE feels comfortable in.
Because it isn’t really about removing clothing, its about removing layers of what is essentially armor and both of them find the beauty of what’s already there in their stripped down most natural selves and this is also the truly the heart of the relationship- their ability to find the true beauty in their most raw, vulnerable selves- there is no pretense, no frills, nothing that isn’t entirely themselves and that is reflected in the lyrics
“Come be how you want to and see how bright we shine”
We’ve officially arrived at the most oft debated most contentious part of the side by side scenes. Deep breaths. In and out. Okay, ready?
The way these two scenes are staged is deliberate. In the mirror scene Glinda realizes her beauty next to her own reflection, that Elphaba does have her own unique beauty and pink and green really do go together and she MEANS IT. Elphaba is truly moved and as Dana Fox said in a interview something like ‘Glinda opened the door, so Fiyero could later walk through it’ (I don’t have the quote on me but its something to the essence of that) basically Glinda planted the seeds of self confidence in a barren field littered with nothing but shame and ridicule for her appearance she’s internalized throughout her life based on how others treat her.
Fiyero has no mirror, he’s looking directly at her holding a pamphlet of how the world, and likely Elphaba see’s herself. And he’s looking at her in her most natural state, hair the way she likes it, undressed, funky cardigan, all softness no hard edges just a girl alone and what he see’s he truly finds beautiful…. Then she says this
the same way she said this….
So in order to stop her from rejecting the compliment and cutting him off, and she does with her clipped “What is it” after he tells her “its not lying” he needs to find a way very quickly to reach her on a level that has nothing to do with her appearance, that she understands and appreciates: her inner beauty beyond the superficial- which he also finds attractive. So he does in the most Fiyero kind of way….
Hilariously this is what makes her understand, this is something she will allow even if in the last slide there is still some apprehension that she can’t believe it. That someone like him could love her and find beauty in her when she can’t find it in herself.
Glinda struggles with the internal where to truly reach Elphaba and couldn’t make that last ditch save before she ran out of the room so we leave the two of them with only the compliment and Elphaba fleeing the scene, that’s okay she’s not to broken up about it
In ALAYM Elphaba does stay and we see various shots play out that also mirror Popular, but here’s the thing, one of them happens being led around and simply having fun believing that’s all it is, the other after she truly feels desired and chosen by someone who threw his life away for her and its moments of true intimacy and connection they are having while learning each other. Elphaba is no longer the one being led around, she’s the one doing the leading.
(Please note I’ve officially hit my picture limit so special thanks to the artists gifs credited throughout this post)
Which is where the comparisons stop, because one ends like this…
While the other ends like this…
Kind of foreshadowing the ending of the musical in the process.
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