Nazarenes weren't allowed to go to movie theaters, but watching movies on tv was fine, so our parents sat us down every year and forced us to watch the "beloved children's classic."
Apparently it was shown in November or December, but I remember it in the springtime, one of the traumas of the end of the year.
It's old-fashioned, outdated, incomprehensible, and...well, horrifying.
1. 10-year old Dorothy, played by 16-year old Judy Garland, the queen of angst, lives a horrible life on a Depression-Era Dustbowl farm in black-and-white Kansas. Her parents are dead; her elderly Uncle and Aunt appear to be raising man-eating pigs.
Her only source of joy is her dog Toto, but the evil Miss Gulch is planning to take him away and have him killed. So Dorothy dreams of going to a place where there "isn't any trouble."
3. Dorothy has accidentally killed the dictator of Munchkin land and stolen her ruby slippers, which apparently are powerful. The Wicked Witch of the West, the dictator of Winkie Land, shows up. She thinks Dorothy is hot ("I'll get you, my pretty") But she wants to kill her anyway, get the slippers, and take over Munchkin land.
In Oz five minutes, and Dorothy has already started a war and gotten a death threat. No wonder she wants to go home to Kansas.
She's uncomfortably intimate with the Cowardly Lion.
Meanwhile the Witch burns, poisons, and otherwise terrorizes the group. I hated the poppy field -- that's opium poppies, the source of heroin -- where Dorothy and company are almost smothered to death.
Incomprehensible: when the Scarecrow's body is torn up and scattered around, the Tin Man says "That's you all over," punning on a 1930s slang phrase meaning "That's just like you." Who makes a joke about a friend being torn to pieces?
5. At the Emerald City, where the bourgeoisie live in glorious excess and ignore the deprivations of the proletariat, Dorothy and company enjoy a spa day. Dorothy asks about getting her eyes dyed, which is disgusting. There's an incomprehensible reference to "a horse of a different color": another pun on a 1930s slang phrase meaning "that's different."
They undertake a second long and perilous journey to the Witch's castle, where they are captured. The flying monkeys are horrifying, as is the hourglass that counts out the minutes Dorothy has to live. Nightmare time!
After almost being murdered, Dorothy melts the witch, frees her slaves -- at least in The Wiz, they were hunky guys in speedos -- and brings the broom back to the Wizard.
7. Who has no power at all! He's a complete fraud! He sent her on the quest assuming she would be killed, and his secret would be safe. Too cowardly to commit your own murders, Wiz?
The Wizard suggests that, instead of real skills, the companions defraud their way through life. For instance, the Scarecrow gets a diploma he didn't earn and spouts some gibberish that sounds brainy but isn't. He'll probably become a math professor.
Unfortunately, Dorothy can't defraud her back to Kansas.
Why not tell her this before she went through all of the agony and terror, you sadistic jerk?
Were you trying to get her to do your dirty work for you, assassinate two world leaders so you could consolidate your power? Were you the brains behind this whole trip?
And why is the matra that takes you back to Kansas "There's no place like home"? That is, don't stay in Oz. Is Glinda worried that if Dorothy sticks around, she will be a threat to her power?
9. Upon arriving back in Kansas, Dorothy discovers that it was all a dream that occurred when she hit her head during the tornado. All of that trouble, pain, betrayal, fraud, and behind-the-scene machinations for nothing. Besides, the plot about Miss Gulch taking away Toto is never resolved. Dorothy's life is still horrible.
Oh, well, here's a picture of a shirtless guy.
See also: The Wiz; The Boys and Men of Oz
I agree about it being shown in the spring. If senility hasn't set in for me yet, I seem to remember it being aired around Easter each year.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was always aired around Easter time. I LIVED for this movie! (This, and Cinderella with Leslie Ann Warren). My favorite part about Oz is the Art-Deco architecture of Emerald City and the Witch's Castle. The WPA-era pavillions at the Minnesota State Fair always remind me of The Wizard of Oz.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of that. It was very art-deco. People forgot how the movie was very much a product of its time: the Depression, the Dust Bowl, Isolationism, Totalitarianism. And quite different from the book series, which was still being published.
DeleteYou forgot that the flying monkeys are racist.
ReplyDeleteThe whole movie delves into Baum's politics. Oz is ruled by women because he supported suffrage. The yellow brick road references the gold standard; ironically in the 30s the gold standard was looking mighty unattractive.
The Scarecrow is basically self-appointed experts who really know nothing. Still a problem today, actually worse, thank you Silicon Valley.
The Tin Man represents the fear of automation. Yeah, this goes back to Marx's day. Canard then, canard now. Despite what the Scarecrow says.
The Cowardly Lion represents William Jennings Bryan. Really nothing more to say.
The Wizard represents politicians in general. They say they'll help you, but it's a scam.
I've read about the original novel being an extended allegory about the Gold Standard or the Corn Tax, but I don't really buy it. First, Baum published a lot of children's stories about magical lands, like "Dot and Tot in MerryLand" and "The LIfe of Santa Claus," plus 14 Oz books, so why would only that one book be an allegory? Second, the details pointed to in allegorical interpretations are incidental to the plot or taken out of context. There is a lot of satire of early 20th century society in the books, but nothing with the one-to-one correspondence of an allegory.
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