This essay was written by Sawyer Wood, BYU Humanities Center intern and student fellow.
A few months ago, Wicked: For Good was released in theaters. As the concluding adaptation of one of Broadway’s longest-running musicals, it stood among the year’s most anticipated films, and seemed to be something the whole world was talking about.
When I saw the movie, though there were many things I liked (and some I didn’t), the part that struck me most, the thing that kept running through my head as I walked out of the theatre, was the unexpected nuance of the story’s ending. Even though it’s a narrative that includes more than a few silly-sounding words and talking animals (not exactly what you’d expect to hear discussed in an academic context), the ending left me with the same feeling I’ve often had after reading an insightful passage of literature—the feeling that I need to stop and think about the world in a new way. I’ll explain why, but first I want to give some necessary context, starting with a short introduction of moral ambiguity.
In storytelling, moral ambiguity is a fairly important concept. In the context of literature, it’s one factor that generally differentiates genre fiction from literary fiction. In genre fiction (most mystery, romance, horror, science fiction, and fantasy), by the end of the story, we usually know where each character falls on the line between good and evil. There’s often a clear “bad guy” or “bad thing” the hero needs to stop, and they try their best to do so. In literary fiction (the kind of narratives English majors like me study in class), the endings are generally less clear-cut, often leaving the characters in just as much (or more) moral ambiguity as they started with. This has been the case for many narratives I’ve read in my literature classes over the last few years, including novels like The Dutch House, All the Pretty Horses, City of Glass, This Other Eden, and Gilead. As with any rule, there are certainly exceptions, but this is a pretty common differentiator in literature. As stated (or rather, sung) by the Wizard in Wicked, “there are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities,” [1] so it’s no surprise that genre fiction tends to be more popular with the masses than literary fiction does, and that the same trend applies to film. It could be that many viewers like to imagine a world where the line between good and evil is clearer than they experience in their everyday lives, hoping they can “act as though [morally ambiguous decisions] don’t exist,” [1] even if only for the length of a feature film. It was this kind of genre-fiction story I was expecting when I went to see Wicked: For Good. However, I was surprised to find that the film’s ending contained an unusual amount of nuance. As I explain my reasoning, I’ll ask you to try to see past some of the more fantastical elements of the story.
In the movie, Elphaba, who’s believed in the Wizard all her life, discovers that he’s been secretly slandering and capturing the land’s talking animals to unite the people of Oz against them. The Wizard claims that creating this “common enemy” is how he’s managed to bring Oz together, and this assertion is confirmed by the in-group vs out-group mindset many of the citizens embrace. When Elphaba challenges the morality of the Wizard’s actions, she is vilified along with the animals, being labeled as the “Wicked Witch.” Glinda—Elphaba’s best friend—sides with the Wizard and, out of cowardice, helps him propagate these lies. In return, she is given the title of the “Good Witch.”
Though Glinda later has a change of heart and somewhat re-allies herself with Elphaba, the Wicked Witch is later supposedly defeated, leaving Glinda in a position of power on her own. She decides to forge a better Oz in place of the one the oppressive Wizard created, and she invites the talking animals back into the fold of acceptance. When watching these events play out, what struck me as most interesting was the fact that Glinda never denies the lies about Elphaba, instead portraying her death as “good news” for the people. In the song “No One Mourns the Wicked,” Glinda sings: “Goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely. Goodness knows the wicked die alone. Nothing grows for the wicked; they reap only what they sow.” While this certainly shows Glinda’s willingness to lie about her friend, I think it’s also meant to give a cutting glimpse into her own psyche—she is the wicked one who’s lonely, who fears dying alone, who can reap only the lies she’s sowing. This song is the opening number in the musical, but it’s also the moment the story loops back to at its end, hinting at this deeper layer within the lyrics. I assumed the film version wouldn’t end here—a genre fiction story wouldn’t want the final note of the narrative to be the heroine actively spreading lies about her best friend. That would pollute the perceived redemption of the story’s ending, leading far too many members of the audience to question, “Is she really the Good Witch?”
And yet, that’s exactly where Wicked: For Good ends. Granted, it’s accompanied by a return of fluffy talking animals, which probably makes most of the audience forget about the fact that Glinda is being less than truthful, but it still struck me as unusual. Even if it’s about someone she believes to be dead, Glinda is essentially buying into the Wizard’s claim that the people need a “common enemy” to be united. I was surprised that what I thought was a genre fiction movie would end on such a seemingly dissonant note.
Strangely, this reminded me of a piece of literary criticism I read last semester on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In “Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn,” Leo Marx pinpoints a pivotal moment in Twain’s famous narrative, one that reveals strikingly similar morally ambiguous tones. He writes:
When [Huck] comes upon a mob riding the Duke and the King out of town on a rail, we are given his most memorable insight into the nature of man. Although these rogues had subjected Huck to every indignity, what he sees provokes this celebrated comment:
“Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
The sign of Huck’s maturity here is neither the compassion nor the skepticism, for both had been marks of his personality from the first. Rather, the special quality of these reflections is the extraordinary combination of the two, a mature blending of his instinctive suspicion of human motives with his capacity for pity. [2]
This “extraordinary combination of the two” is exactly what I saw when I watched Wicked: For Good. In this case, the combination was represented in the lies Glinda spread about the Wicked Witch, paired with her intention to make a better future.
So, where does that leave us? Well, for one, I think it leaves us with a much better movie than I had expected. And I think it also leaves us the same place where most literary fiction does: with more questions than answers. We might find ourselves asking “Can doing immoral things have good consequences?” or “Is a better future worth the cost of paving the past in lies?” I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I think they’re worth thinking about. And I’m also hopeful that the average audience, the kind that doesn’t generally read much literary fiction or watch movies that stretch the definitions of good and evil, can handle more moral ambiguities than the Wizard gives them credit for. Perhaps engaging in books, shows, and movies like Wicked can help us more clearly navigate others’ ambiguities, as well as our own.
References
[1] Schwartz, Stephen and Winnie Holzman, Wicked, 2003.
