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The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz
- andyv 7y agoI can't remember the book now, but it was about a 1984-like state. There was a passing reference to their revision of "The Wizard of Oz" in which the Wizard gave Dorothy, Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow tools (weapons) they needed to defeat the wicked witch. Until then, I'd taken the Wizard of Oz at face value.
- dekhn 7y agothe book series is interesting. one of the main characters (Ozma, the queen of oz) spends her childhood as a boy and then is transformed back to a girl.
- decebalus1 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_T... is an interesting read
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- rabidrat 7y agoFrom "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies for the movement was debtors: particularly, Midwestern farm families such as Dorothy’s, who had been facing a massive wave of foreclosures during the severe recession of the 1890s. According to the Populist reading, the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent the East and West Coast bankers (promoters of and benefactors from the tight money supply), the Scarecrow represented the farmers (who didn’t have the brains to avoid the debt trap), the Tin Woodsman [sic] was the industrial proletariat (who didn’t have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers), the Cowardly Lion represented the political class (who didn’t have the courage to intervene). The yellow brick road, silver slippers, emerald city, and hapless Wizard presumably speak for themselves. “Oz” is of course the standard abbreviation for “ounce.”
- EGreg 7y agoI always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?
- davidw 7y ago"Oz-tray-lee-ah" Edited to reflect a pronunciation, not necessarily a correct or accurate one, from which it's easy to derive 'oz'.
- jaredlightman 7y agoNobody says it with a z sound, always an s.
- Supermancho 7y ago...and nobody says "oz" when they mean to say "ounce". These are literal liberties, which fit either way, I think.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoThey do say it with a /z/ sound. That's why it gets spelled Oz. Compare Aussie, which is also pronounced with a /z/.
- jaredlightman 7y agoI've never heard anyone pronounce 'Australia' as 'Auztralia'. 'Aussie' as 'ozzie' yes, but never Australia.
- msclrhd 7y agoVoicing s as /z/ is widely variational. For example, I voice the s in "us", and "Muslim", while others don't. While I don't voice the s in Australia (/ɒ.ˈstreɪ̯.li.jə/ ~ /ə.ˈstreɪ̯.li.jə/), I do in Oslo (pronouncing it /ˈɒz.loʊ̯/).
- noja 7y agoIs it though? There are a hundred different interpretations of Hotel California too, but in the end it was about the excesses on the music industry.
- not2b 7y agoOne think I didn't realize until my daughter and I read the book together: in the book there were two good witches, the witch of the North (the first one Dorothy meets after landing on the witch of the East), and the witch of the South (the one that tells her she can use the shoes to get home). The movie combined the two characters. Then they had to come up with a reason why the good witch didn't immediately tell Dorothy to click her heels together and go home. In the book, only the Witch of the South knew this.
- justinator 7y agoHmm, that is kinda of strange - especially since there's two evil witches, right? She kills the first one in the begging of Act 2.
- clarkcox3 7y ago"Hidden"?
- tardo99 7y agoHow does all of this connect with The Dark Side Of The Moon?
- cat199 7y agoMoney, get away Get a good job with good pay and you're okay Money, it's a gas Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash New car, caviar, four star daydream Think I'll buy me a football team Money, get back I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack Money, it's a hit Don't give me that do goody good bullshit I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set And I think I need a Lear jet Money, it's a crime Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie Money, so they say Is the root of all evil today But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're Giving none away, away, away
- wowandflutter 7y agoGive a listen to “Dub Side of the Moon” by Easy Star All-Stars. Brilliant!
- Jaruzel 7y agoWatch Wizard of Oz with the sound off. Just as the MGM lion finishes roaring, drop the needle[1] onto the Dark Side of the Moon LP, and watch as the songs sync up to the imagery. -- [1] Or un-pause the CD/MP3 etc.
- benj111 7y ago"Pink Floyd band members have repeatedly said that the reputed phenomenon is coincidence" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow
- Jaruzel 7y agoI was neither agreeing or disagreeing with the concept, merely pointing out how it's done. Also even as a life long Floyd fan, I have never done it.
- krustyburger 7y agoI’ve always meant to go through and read the entire Oz series by Baum. I’ve heard that it’s surprisingly enjoyable from start to finish, given the number of books.
- mttjj 7y agoI've read them all but it's been years. I want to go back to them. They are great books. Silly, goofy, and weird but very enjoyable. The world of Oz books is surprisingly complicated[1] but I would say the original series penned by Baum is definitely worth checking out. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books
- dekhn 7y agoYes, the later books about ozma and the underground kingdom are fantastic.
- rmidthun 7y agoIt also gets pretty macabre in parts. Specifically The Tin-Woodsman of Oz where the title character wonders whatever happened to the girl that was the reason he was cursed. You see, he fell in love with a girl who was enslaved to a witch, so the witch enchanted his axe to chop parts of him off every time he swung it. Eventually, there was nothing left but the tin replacements. And if that isn't enough, it is established that nothing in Oz ever dies. Including all his chopped off parts...
- pronoiac 7y agoThey're public domain now; a few years ago I made a list of links for reading them on Project Gutenberg and Open Library - https://www.metafilter.com/125680/I-dont-think-were-in-Kansas-anymore#4859360 https://www.metafilter.com/125680/I-dont-think-were-in-Kansa...
- ourmandave 7y agoI love the Oz books growing up. I tried to read the 2nd one The Marvelous Land of Oz to my then young daughter after we'd watched the movie, but Old Mombi turned out to be bit to hard core. Planning to turn Tip into a statue and the threat of beating him black and blue made it a non-starter.
- jfengel 7y agoMocking people in power is a time-honored tradition. It's not even really all that subversive: they were playing with well-worn, easily recognizable tropes. It's all part of the film's pretty conventional message: believe in yourself.
- Causality1 7y agoThis kind of thing is why I love that JRR Tolkien spent a whole introduction page lambasting people who read too much into symbolism in books and stating explicitly that Lord of the Rings was written as an exercise in long-form storytelling with no hidden meaning.
- benj111 7y agoThat just sounds like a (very) elaborate troll. Write a three part book stuffed full of symbolism and then write an essay complaining how people read into the symbolism. And surely what the reader sees in a work is at least as valid as what the author intended. If I see Mordor as Stalinist Russia, isnt that my prerogative? Its selling the art form short if the only possible interpretation is the authors own. /rant (against a dead guy)
- Causality1 7y ago>And surely what the reader sees in a work is at least as valid as what the author intended. I'm going to have to agree to disagree with you on that one.
- benj111 7y agoIn the entire concept, or just the degree of importance? Lets take the example of Farenheit 451, wikipedia [1] suggests an evolution (at least) in Bradbury's own interpretation of his own book: "In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature." So which is right? And neither of those seem to match up with the popular interpretation of it being against state surveillance and censorship. If that's what it says to so many people, if that's why it's so popular it seems strange to discount that interpretation. Then we look at older works where the cultural nuance passes us by. Should we not be allowed to enjoy Shakespeare on our cultural terms instead of (always) through the prism of Elizabethan culture? Then you've got things like Anne Franks diary. I suppose half the point is getting inside her head, but on the other hand you're reading it knowing what's going to happen, and interpreting it as the author intended is, impossible? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
- nitwit005 7y agoI suspect for most of this, they were just trying to be funny or weird rather than intending this symbolism/meaning to come across to the audience. One of my economics textbooks contained an explanation of the theory that the yellow brick road was a reference to monetary policy (gold standard), but that theory seems to have been heavily challenged (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_T...).
- jihadjihad 7y agoPerhaps we had the same textbook, because that's also where I heard that from. Krugman and Obstfeld, International Economics?
- wodenokoto 7y agoI read that interpretation via Krugman as well.
- nitwit005 7y agoYou're probably right. I've forgotten at this point, even thought I apparently remember the content.
- chasontherobot 7y agoWhy would you suspect that, when so many of the metaphors are so very blatant? When people create things, they usually put thought into them and meaning doesn't generally happen by accident.
- feedbeef 7y agoThis documentary seems relevant: Bill Still: The Secret of Oz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI
- joker3 7y agoI've heard that the Cowardly Lion was played according to pretty much every gay stereotype of the day. That seems to fit the thesis of this article very well.
- timw4mail 7y agoWhile there may be political or allegorical undertones, I generally try to enjoy things like movies at face value. Reading into the story like this ruins the escapism.
- joshuaheard 7y agoFunny TV Guide description: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
- joegahona 7y agoI sometimes wonder if those TV Guide descriptions were intentionally funny and deranged like that because they had such little space to summarize an entire movie. The TV Guide description for the 1985 Cher / Eric Stoltz movie MASK was "A teenage boy has a wild mom and a misshapen face."
- asabjorn 7y agoThe real hidden promise is the promise of a portal (rabbit hole) that will turn your normal grey daily life into technicolor, and that you can bring what you find through this portal back to enrich your own little house in the prairie.
- TomMckenny 7y agoAlso interesting are the jokes that were removed and added. The Lion gets his courage from a bottle in the original (the joke being a reference to a common joke at the time that some people get their courage from a bottle of liquor) But 1939 was so close to the prohibition fiasco, it seems the producers did not like this joke. Likewise, the scene in the field of (presumably opium) poppies that put everyone to sleep was only added in 1939. It's hard to imagine that joke being added in, say, the time of height of the war on drugs: could Bart Simpson play with opium poppies and pass out to audience laughter 1980's?
- byproxy 7y ago"The Simpsons" are a bad example for your point, I think. I've been watching episodes again and they often put the kids in morally questionable scenarios (much to my laughter). Lisa got drunk at Duff Land (a theme park devoted to beer), for example.
- danzig13 7y agoOne realization I had about the movie: the witch writes a message to Oz to send Dorothy. He immediately tricks her into going there; presumably to her death. Not a very good man.
- chengiz 7y agoThis kind of analysis is the more intellectual equivalent of finding hidden messages in the Bible.
- JJMcJ 7y agoFor the bimetallic - Oz of course is an abbreviation for ounce which was how the precious metals were priced.
- anotherevan 7y agoI always enjoyed Peter David's review of The Wizard of Oz. https://www.peterdavid.net/2002/07/25/bid-3-pay-no-attention-to-that-fan-behind-the-curtain-aug-10-1990/ https://www.peterdavid.net/2002/07/25/bid-3-pay-no-attention...
- anonymousiam 7y ago"The message is that people will march behind any authority figure who makes a splash, however undeserving they may be" Funny how BBC's view remains true whether it's 2019 or 2009.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoA detail of history connected to The Wizard of Oz that I particularly like, is that when the US Navy heard about 'Friends of Dorothy', they set up an investigation to try and catch Dorothy, to find out what she knew about gays in the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy#Military_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy#Military_inv...
- drdaeman 7y agoI've read the comments and wanted to write another, but then remembered that a smarter man had written a better one already. > “I don't understand this at all. I don't understand any of this. Why does a story have to be socio-anything? Politics... culture... history... aren't those natural ingredients in any story, if it's told well? I mean...' [...] 'I mean... can't you guys just let a story be a story?” > - Stephen King, "It"