It’s Time For Us to Be Wicked

Written by Brett Meiselas

*Please note the following contains spoilers for Wicked the movie and musical.

I’ve been on a bit of a Wicked kick lately. I saw the movie starring the talented Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on opening weekend and then caught the live musical at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood on Saturday. For those who don’t know, Wicked serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, told through the lens of the Wicked Witch (Elphaba) and Glinda. The film divides the musical into two parts, with the first movie ending at the intermission point of the stage production. Watching the musical in its entirety on Saturday, I couldn’t help but notice its profound messages, which serve as an allegory for the United States today.

“No one mourns the wicked,” the citizens of Oz sing in the show’s opening number as they celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch. The town is ecstatic. After all, the “enemy” of Oz is gone. “Isn’t it nice to know that good will conquer evil? The truth we all believe will outlive a lie,” sings Glinda. But as the story unfolds, we learn the Wicked Witch was never truly wicked. As Glinda admits in the opening number, it’s not the actual truth that matters—it’s the “truth we all believe.”

Like Trump and his MAGA followers, reality in Oz is subjective. It’s a land of “alternative facts,” where truth is defined by what people are willing to believe. The Wizard knows this all too well—and he knows how to give the people exactly what they want. Through propaganda and populism, he riles up the citizens of Oz, feeding them the lies they crave and uniting them against common enemies. The Wizard believes only he can fix Oz’s problems.

Trump has admitted to employing similar tactics. In a June 2023 speech, Trump told a crowd, “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.” This echoes the Wizard’s words: “The truth is not a thing of fact or reason; the truth is just what everyone agrees on. Where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true: we call it history.”

The line gets a laugh in the theater, but it’s Wicked at its most profound. It encapsulates how autocrats have used populism throughout history to manipulate the public. It also echoes the famous adage: “History is written by the victors.” Trump, like the Wizard, understands this all too well. For nearly a decade, we’ve watched him rewrite history in real time.

Listing all of Trump’s lies would take years, but a few standout examples include his baseless insistence that he won the 2020 election—he doubled down on this as recently as this weekend on Meet the Press, telling host Kristen Welker, “That’s just your opinion”—and his claims that January 6th insurrectionists are “patriots” and “hostages” suffering “political persecution.” Trump has also spread outrageous lies on the campaign trail, such as his false claim that Haitian migrants eat dogs and cats. This inversion of truth and morality is the foundation of both Trump’s and the Wizard’s power. After all, as we come to learn, the Wizard’s power is itself one big illusion.

But lies alone aren’t enough to consolidate power. The Wizard also unites the people by creating common enemies. As he admits, “The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.” It’s the ultimate misdirection of people’s anger—and one Trump masterfully employs. No, it’s not Trump or people like him causing your problems. It’s not the billionaires exploiting you and rigging the system in their favor. No, it’s the migrants you should be mad about! It’s the schools “turning your kids transgender!” It’s the pesky Radical Left!

In the song “Wonderful,” the Wizard outlines how reality is in the eye of the beholder and how he exploits this to manipulate others' beliefs and perceptions:

“A man’s called a traitor, or a liberator.
A rich man’s a thief, or a philanthropist.
Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?
It’s all in which label is able to persist.”

At Shiz University, we meet Dr. Dillamond, a goat professor who warns students that not everything is as it seems in Oz. He recounts a recent history when animals like him held prominent positions in society, only to be systematically persecuted, caged, and shunned, with most losing the ability to speak.

Elphaba becomes another scapegoat after refusing to go along with the Wizard’s schemes. “Believe nothing she says,” proclaims Madam Morrible, the influential headmistress of Shiz, as Elphaba escapes the palace after learning the Wizard’s truth. It’s hard not to hear echoes of Trump’s infamous 2018 statement to his followers: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

The parallels between the Wizard and figures like Trump and Elon Musk are impossible to ignore. After purchasing Twitter (rebranded as X) for $44 billion and turning it into a disinformation machine, Musk often claims, “This is the only place to find the truth.” For autocrats like Trump, Musk, and the Wizard, truth is malleable—something to be reshaped to suit their agenda, as long as enough people believe it.

The story of Wicked challenges us to question the narratives we are presented with, to seek truth in the face of propaganda, and to resist the demonization of those who stand against corruption. In the struggle between good and wicked, it is our responsibility to ensure history is not rewritten by those who would use it as a tool of oppression.

In Wicked, Elphaba stands nearly alone as a voice of dissent. She risks her life, is shunned by society, and is branded “The Wicked Witch.” But she persists. It’s time for us to have the courage of Elphaba. It’s time for us to be unafraid to be “wicked.”

As Elphaba tells Glinda in the song “Defying Gravity,” “It’s the Wizard who should be afraid of me!”

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