The ending of ‘Wicked: For Good’ is irresponsible
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf
“Wicked: For Good” burst onto the scene right before Thanksgiving to much acclaim, but I have been stewing over the ending for over a month. What does it say that one of our most important media touchstones eschews accountability for an authoritarian ruler?
The second “Wicked” installment sees Elphaba lead a revolution of sorts to protect Oz’s talking animals, who have been targeted by the Wizard, who needs an enemy within the country to maintain control over the population. Talking animals, who have always had equal rights with Oz’s human residents, are being rounded up and put in cages, while the population at large cheers.
It’s hard not to read the plot of the film as a commentary on our present moment, as Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement has pursued unprecedented cruelty against our neighbors, whether they are documented or not, in Supreme-Court-sanctioned racial profiling. We are meant to side with Elphaba, who is leading a resistance to the malignant designs of the Wizard, but at the end of the movie there is no Nuremberg. The Wizard simply gets in his dirigible and floats away, having been told that he can no longer rule.
Palace coups are not all bad – at least the Wizard does have to cease his schemes and fly back to our world – but they are short on accountability. Everyone still thinks of the Wizard as a benevolent kind ruler who can grant wishes, not as an authoritarian tyrant. What’s even more puzzling is that he is simply replaced by Glinda, who shows no signs of being any better than he is.
At the end, we are asked to believe that Glinda has truly been changed “for good,” and can lead Oz into a new golden age as its new autocratic ruler. We must trust that she will be guided by better impulses than the Wizard, but that is not usually how this story works. Power operates strangely on the human mind, and I for one was not convinced by Glinda’s moral transformation.
I probably should not be as disappointed in “Wicked: For Good” as I am, but when a film self-consciously seeks to speak about our modern-day context, I want it to give us creative ways to extricate ourselves from authoritarianism.
There’s been plenty of mentions of Elphaba as a Jesus figure, who must suffer so that others can live. I think this is largely what the movie wants viewers to take away, but the complete absence of truth is what bothers me the most. Jesus tells us emphatically that “the truth will set you free,” but there is not a shred of truth in the movie. The people of Oz were lied to by the Wizard and are now lied to by Glinda.
Maybe I’m just a pessimist, but if this a supposed to be a moral fable about our present situation and how we get out of it, I am left hoping for a better future than what “Wicked: For Good” imagines. I yearn for a world where we directly address the concrete wrongs that have been perpetuated in our community – a world where someone like Gregory Bovino is called to give an account for his lawbreaking.
If the folks who have peddled fascism and broken laws in this country are allowed to just float off in hot air balloons, we will simply be right back here again in a few years. We must repudiate the dehumanizing ideas at the heart of this present administration, not only because they are bad, but because they fly in the face of our most sacred stories.
I probably should not be as disappointed in “Wicked: For Good” as I am, but when a film self-consciously seeks to speak about our modern-day context, I want it to give us creative ways to extricate ourselves from authoritarianism. At the end of the day, I am convinced that the truth is the only way out for Oz, and for us.
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf is senior minister, Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois. He currently serves as the co-associate regional minister with the American Baptist Churches Metro Chicago. His book, published in 2023 by T&T Clark, is titled “Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically about Whiteness and Sanctuary Movements.” He is also the co-founder of Challenging Islamophobia Together Chicagoland, an initiative that brings together people of all faiths to counter Islamophobia from a religious perspective.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
Get early access to the newest stories from Christian Citizen writers, receive contextual stories which support Christian Citizen content from the world’s top publications and join a community sharing the latest in justice, mercy and faith.