The Green Oppression
It has been brought to my attention recently that there is a large amount of unspoken colour prejudice to the quietly suffering green people. It passes unseen everyday, but there it is: the hatred of the greens. Just look at the famous green people – Shrek, the Wicked Witch of the West, stereotypical aliens – they are hated, treated like monsters. The only reason Shrek becomes acceptable is when he risks his life and saves a princess, thus being married into the protection of the royal family. Even then though, he goes through many trying, albeit highly entertaining, incidents, never able to live a normal life, forced to hang out with a slight irritating donkey and a nymphomaniacal cat. And this is in a fairyland! One shivers to think of how it is in realityland.
It is shocking to observe how stories and culture is steered to build up our animosity towards these green people. Just think of that poor frog that turns into a prince. He was probably green. What is the moral there? Don’t worry greenies, you’ll be okay as long as you can transform into an acceptable white, upper class male! To be honest, I’m not even sure if such transformation is biologically possible, so now they are lying to them as well. Offering cruel hope rather than the acceptance that they most likely deserve.
Now I must admit, I did not realize about this oppression until recently, but now my eyes have been opened and I realize it’s worse and worse everyday. In art green is ‘a secondary[1] colour that has been formed by the mixture of blue and yellow pigments.’ It is not even described as a colour in its own right! If you’re jealous, you are described as a ‘green-eyed monster.’ Your skin doesn’t even have to be green before you’re described as a monster now, which is even worse because if it was just green skin it wouldn’t be as bad because there aren’t that many of them and they are mainly fictional. But green eyes now! I know tons of green-eyed people, and a lot of them are not monsters in the slightest.
However, that isn’t even a third of the problem. Just look at other definitions of the word ‘green’:
- ‘not fully developed or perfected in growth or condition; unripe; not properly aged.’
- ‘unseasoned’
- ‘immature in age or judegement; untrained; inexperienced: a green worker.’
- ‘(of wine) having a flavour that is raw, harsh, and acid, due esp. to a lack of maturity.’
- ‘freshly slaughtered or still raw.’
- ‘simple; unsophisticated; gullible; easily fooled.’
Looking at these it is all too clear how our minds have been shaped against green people. Even potentially complimentary terms, such as ‘fresh, recent, or new’ are tainted by the examples they use, such as ‘an insult still green in his mind.’ Why insult? Why not ‘a love still green in his heart’? Furthermore, take recycling and saving the world as an example, otherwise known as being ‘green.’ Sounds great, doesn’t it? But, really, who likes doing it? So often do I hear recycling, in other words ‘being green’, described as ‘a bit of a pain’, especially when you put paper in the usual bin and then remember you should recycle it, but now it has some egg yolk on it, which is kind of disgusting so you just leave it and feel guilty. I’m pretty sure no one likes feeling guilty. Such is the flagrant mind manipulation to shape us against them. It is despicable and slightly unfair.
[1] Italics are inserted for emphasis
Wicked = Disney
I was never keen on the idea of going to see the musical ‘Wicked’. I always found the posters too childish and amateurish, and the foyer at the Apollo theatre did little to dissuade this judgment. It is hard to comprehend that you’ve paid £40 a ticket to enter what looks like a single Disney ride. Actually the presence of Disney pervades this musical with the cheesy songs, forced happy ending, and even the set that, for no reason whatsoever, has a massive, very fake looking dragon looming over the stage. However, I was told firmly by the people I was going with that the novel it was based on was very good and I have to admit that the musical has persuaded me to read the book. This is, conversely, due to the general poor nature of the musical, though, rather than because of how impressed I was.
To explain, the musical ‘Wicked’ is not ‘Wicked’. This isn’t supposed to be a crass pun, but a simple statement that the musical ‘Wicked’ does not appear to reflect in any way the novel ‘Wicked’. However, this is a very good thing, as long as you go with someone who has seen it. This may seem like an odd piece of advice, but there was nothing more encouraging than being able to turn round to my sister at embarrassingly poor parts and hear her reassuringly say, ‘That doesn’t happen in the novel.’ Every single negative bit I found with the musical turned out to be an alteration on the novel. It appears that, short of keeping the names and the fact that the main character is green, there were very few similarities to the novel.
For one, unless the novel when opened plays a tune like a musical card (I’ve been assured that it does not), none of the songs are in the novel. This is a good thing. The songs tended towards cheesy numbers that you could easily forget and were quite thankful to. I cannot recall one song or lyric, except for the most promising section when the Wizard almost hints towards an interesting political side to this story, which apparently is very prevalent in the novel. However, before I could get too excited, that single political verse ended, replaced by the Wizard once again repeating that he is ‘wonderful’, accompanied by a whacky dance routine.
Rather than exploring the political implications of the prejudice many creatures were suffering within the plot, the writers of this musical clearly preferred to go with the cutting edge story of a ditsy yet popular blonde and a clever oddball hating each other and then becoming really good friends. Legally Blonde meets Mean Girls in the wonderful land of Oz. While the actress playing Glinda the Good is undoubtedly very good at her role, the audience is left wondering why she is actually so prominent in the play. Apparently in the novel, she only appears at the beginning and right at the end, yet she constantly lingers in this musical, it never being clear exactly why. It is actually a musical that leaves you with lots of questions. Why do Elphalba and Glinda remain such good friends? Why is Glinda in such a high position at Oz when she is so clearly incompetent? What do her and Elphaba actually have in common? What is Glinda’s purpose in this plot now? Why is she still on stage? Why is she STILL on stage? Unfortunately the questions are probably not the questions the writers want you going away asking. To be honest, I think any questioning is strongly urged against.
Also, apparently unlike the novel, the musical increasingly relies on the original novel, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ to maintain the plot. This is a shame as the plot for the entire first half is clearly self-maintained; associated with L. Frank Baum’s classic yes, but never relying on it. It presents a clever portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, as she’s growing up that feeds your nostalgia if you are a fan of the original story, while equally being pleasing as a new story in itself. One especially strong bit is how the flying monkeys are created, which is a very chilling section that both horrifies the audience and generates sympathy for the Wicked Witch. However, as the musical seems to get confused over what aspect of the storyline it is supposed to be following, the plot completely disappears and is replaced by jokes and events completely reliant on people’s awareness of the ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’. Glinda the Good frets that she’s shown Dorothy the right way, as she is awful with directions, and there is an incident with how the scarecrow appears and his relationship with the Witch that is frankly cringe worthy. In my opinion, if you are going to create a new story that is based around a well-known classic, such as ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, it needs to be a highly strong plot in order that it doesn’t descend into parody. Now I cannot say whether the novel does achieve this, although I am told by a number of people it does, but it seems that the musical just does not have enough time to deal with all the ideas it throws up in the first half. Therefore, the plot crumbles and at points it even seems to be a pantomime, preparing us for Christmas. At one point the prince, Fiyero, swings in on a rope from offstage despite them clearly being outside and points his wooden gun at the guards, saying, ‘Let the green woman go!’ This was a low point.
I must reiterate though that I didn’t hate this musical. The cast were extremely strong singers, dancers and actors and the costumes and set were incredible(except for the dragon. Why was it there? Yet another thought provoking issue). It was an enjoyable play, but it was also far from impressive. It was a pretty production that lacked substance, a lot like the majority of 3D Disney films that are released today. I am not wholly disinclined to this kind of entertainment. I fully admit I enjoy watching films like Snakes on a Plane, Dodgeball and The Emperor’s New Groove. However, what is dislikeable about this musical is that the process of removing anything that may be too complicated within the plot and making it just a pleasing nothingness is just so explicit in this production. It is as if it’s the segue between the novel and the Disney film. It certainly made a lot of sense when I discovered it was created by Universal Productions. It would not surprise me if in the not too distant future we see ‘Wicked On Ice’.
