The Jizzard of Oz

maybe it's her middle name, but it was in. It was going to be an homage to Judy Garland because I had a deep, abiding childhood love of the Wizard of Oz. It was probably the thing that, more than any Disney movie, more than any like cartoon, I was obsessed with and like formed a big chunk of my personality. Low and Behold. I grew up and I learned that that's true for like most queer people. And so today we're gonna be talking about the Wizard of Oz and

all of the Oz inspired media that has spun off from. Yeah, the many many many different pieces of tangential I p that have a crewed over a time. Yeah, because this is like a virgin the show where we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes, I'm ros Damo and I'm fran Torado. And before we click our heels three times, let's talk about what's going on in Kansas. In Kansas, probably something transphobic. Was any of the Dropouts set in Kansas? I feel

like maybe there might have been a scene there. Well. I mean, I feel like large corporations, especially very corrupt ones, love to like put their bases in random states like that because they know they can get away with more, either tax wise or just like the government doesn't pay attention to or that's where they test people. But I think in the Dropout there, we're actually testing people in Arizona, R right. And on that point, the finale was excellent.

What an incredible season of television, A closed loop, incredible performance by Amanda Saford, literally so consistent, like virtually, I don't I don't have any notes, Like I think it's almost difficult to talk about because it was such a

wonderful kind of like piece of television. I think it's my favorite show of the years so far, maybe aside from like Euphoria If but like I just like the thing to me is in comparison to all the other scammer shows that are kind of making the rounds right now because they must be compared, Like this was the show to pull off what was a very human performance that like based absolute absurd. It'st like scammery into a

reality that you didn't even know existed. Um, I just thought it was so well done, especially now that the Wee crashed kind of like, uh, we crashed. It has not low key fallen off for me, it has high key fallen off. It fell off the top of a whee crashed. I'm just not interested in the why of how this all happened with the dropout, Like I want to know how Elizabeth Holmes scammed everyone, and I'm really interested in her as a character despite her being so

obviously evil and psychotic. With We Crashed, I don't care about any of that. Yeah, and with these scammer shows, like they all made the kind of choice to center a lot of the scammer around a romance that you're kind of made to root for. And the thing about like Amandacy Freed's character, are you meant to root for either of them? And We Crashed? I think they're definitely

farming for empathy. If you have meat cutes, you have like, you know, moments where they're like sobbing together because they're losing billions of dollars. It's just like, I don't know. I actually think it goes a very out of its way to spotlight how toxic they are and how from their very first interaction he was such a douche bag, but she like needed purpose so badly that she latched onto him. There's a scene in the most recent episode that you haven't watched that kind of like backs my

argument a little more. But my point is with um Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny, like I felt that their relationship which is very weird and very bizarre and very hard to root for at the beginning, the big At the beginning, you're like, this is weird and think it's hard to root for the whole time. See no, see I I was like, this is uncomfortable and I don't really know how how these two characters are going to find chemistry.

And then by the by the end when they're like scamming together, you're kind of like, this feels this, this was very real. There was I think, this is what I'm actually trying to say, there was realism in the romance that exists in the dropout that did not exist

and we crash her other gam shows. I believed in their relationship because because I think, um, it's a very good depiction of a word that I think gets thrown around a lot right now culturally, which is grooming, and she, I think very clearly was groomed by him, at least in the way that the facts were presented in the show.

And I actually thought it was like, one of the best scenes in the finale was that scene where they are it's either in the office or at their house, where they're kind of like making these threats without actually making them, and she says something like, you know, I was so young when we met. How old was I? Do you remember? And it's just it's all right there.

She knows exactly what she's doing, she knows she's weaponizing their past against him, um, and it's it's just so brilliant, so brilliantly written, acted directed everything, And also the chilling moment when she turns to her mom and she's like it bad, um if I can't remember, Like what's the truth and what's a lie? Like is it my fault? If I can't even remember? And you see almost briefly, like a person who has lied to themselves so much, but her mother exactly and and and that it was

what she was taught to do. Just all of the different layers of the show worked. Um, I have to ask you one thing before we finally hopefully never talked about we crashed ever again. Do you think that Anne Hathaway is wearing the wrong blush on purpose, as like a character choice, or do you think that the makeup artist is just bad because the blush is orange? I haven't noticed. Okay, it's so orange, and I really I can't look at anything else and I don't even notice

stuff like that. Maybe it's just because I'm starting to wear like, you know, makeup and blush and stuff. But like I just I felt like it was maybe a character choice. I feel like, I'm know, I feel like she doesn't do ship like that, especially because of how much everyone's talking about Jared Letto and his method acting right now. I don't think she cares. I think she's like,

just you know, do whatever. I would have thought that too if it weren't for an Anne Hathaway's also bizarre choice to like slightly lower her voice, which I think is very unnecessary. But yeah, but at least she's not wearing prosthetic teeth. At least she's not wearing prosthetic teeth and an anti Semitic like kind of prosthetic nose question mark, Like, has anyone ever talked about that? I mean, I don't even know. It's all it's all drag, which does quite nicely.

We're all born naked and the rest is Jared Letto is what you're going to say. It does bring us quite nicely to what I want to briefly touch on. I want to give us like a minute tops to talk about drag race. I knew as soon as this episode started we were getting a five person finale. I did throw my TV out the window when it happened. Um, both willow Hill and who was the other one Anigeria? They both were bad. They were both bad in that

lip sync double elimination. I love willow Hill, but honestly, she has not been eating recently, and that lip sync was a travesty considering the song that they had. It was a disgrace against Lady Gaga and Beyonce. I don't know if you've heard of them. I agree with the with ellipsync Tank. I think that you know, we as a community have been waiting for that song to be a lip sync for a very long time, and they both boofed it. I don't think that, you know, Willow

has necessarily let me down. I just think that this wasn't a very strong episode for me. Even the mouse gown I thought good. It felt like a look she brought for something else. It was the only thing she had left to wear. I loved the concept. I just thought that it lacked a little bit of polish. And the thing is, there's just no one else to route for like Camden is, just like Camden has like that would suck so hard. I think she's gonna win. I

think she's been getting the winners edit. I think she's honestly to me. To my mind, the top two Camden and Dia because Data has a very good story of how she was eliminated. She's grown so much. She had that like breakthrough a moment halfway during the season. Now

she has the diabetes plot line. Well. I loved in this episode the part where they invite them all to the TikTok lunch to be like, okay, so tell us about your tra trauma and one thing I did appreciate was that I guess Rue isn't dead naming the Queens anymore. Them their childhood photos when they you know, when they did got Mick that that season, they were like, we have asked your permission to use this photo or whatever, which is like you can tell that they're putting better

people on the team. But um, to me, Okay, Camden being a winner or even being in the finale, it's just like her place is deserved. It's just she doesn't have anything distinctive or ownable about her. It's kind of like a Courtney Act problem where it's like, yeah, you're just kind of like hitting all the marks and you can clearly afford really nice costumes and you're a triple threat. But that's like beyond that when you take all of

that away, like what's left? And I think that when you think about, you know, the pillars of the show and like charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, it's like Camden to me lacks like the charisma and the uniqueness. I think she has the nerve, and I think she has the talent, but I just I don't think she has the first half of like what's required of a star.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. Well, I'm very excited to see Phoebe waller Bridge um win Tracker um by which I mean Lady Camden looks like literally exactly like her. Unfortunately, Phoebe waller Bridge is not taking home one hundred thousand dollars for the Killing Eve Dollar. There's the money, but have you seen the swirl of controversy that is around the Killing E finale, which, by the way, I didn't even know Killing Eve was airing,

had no idea. I knew it was airing, I didn't know that it had ended, but I did see people talking about it on Instagram today and just how awful the finale. The girls are mad, mad, things are abundant. Okay, I'm staying far away from a pink news is today. The girls are down bad queer blames. They're like, we'll

talk about we'll talk about lesbian's one day a year. Absolutely. Um. I have to say, the function of art and how we make it is not to make you feel safe inside of this, Like like, if you don't feel safe, if you don't like watching things that don't make you feel safe, you don't have to watch it to tell compelling stories, and so it's like to me, it's like if you're going to like calling attempt critique as you say, like, you're not going to sit here and say this is

how like this made me feel and it betrayed me personally and therefore is bad. You can say that, but it just doesn't hold much weight. You should be critiquing it because the finale was just bad, you know what I mean, Like find ways to talk about how the Barrier Gaze trope is like bad because it's repetitive and unoriginal, not because you feel betrayed. I also don't think you can say that the main character of a TV show dying in the last episode of before season show a

character who was an assassin, is Barrier Gaze. It's not you can't just say any queer character who dies is Barrier Gaze because what if you're watching a horror movie that is literally the function of horror movies just to kill people for entertainment. This is a serial murderer thriller, Like that is like what I can't I can't I get that the I get that the esbians are down bad, you know, Find another show, find something, Go read a book,

go touch grass. Please go outside, go outside, find some other queer people in real life and talk to them. Go to a community center. Go I don't know, learn

to knit. I don't do something. Okay, that's true. As our producer just said, Lesbian, I just mean, take all that energy you use telling people, telling like directors and like actors online to kill themselves, and put it towards actual queer liberation what whatever, whatever way you can find that that is because I'm I am so apologetic to tell you that you will never find queer liberation in a TV show ever, period. And I have to say, if you want to feel liberated, you should go and

see everything everywhere, all at once. Oh my god, for Angela, I I have not had that kind of emotional, cathartic moment in a movie, and I like six months it was so in at least six the last time I watched Frozen, Oh my god, that show. That movie, Like, I mean, it exceeded my already impossibly high expectations. Like I'm gonna say, better multiverse movie than Spider Man, No Home. The new Doctor Strange movie has you know, it's work cut out for it, because Michelle, y'all really just it's

the Scarlet Witch. Oh my god, I would watch that movie. I mean the clip circulating right now she is in Marvel, yes, exactly, But I think, honestly, I'm thinking about that about her role in Marvel as a character that kind of can is just one of the many characters that has let her down as an actress and and and has failed to show her versatility um, despite the fact that she

has very badass and chan chi. But like, my this the clip that's circulating right now of Michelle Yaw kind of tearing up and talking about how when she read the script she felt that this was the first time

someone could finally see what she was. But it's so true and like this film, which you know, no spoilers, but like the premises, it's like Michelle Yaw owns the laundromat um with her family and discovers that she belongs to a multiverse that she is kind of like the chosen one to like save basically, um, it sounds crazy, but like you buy into the movie really quickly, which I think is honestly. The complexity of the universe that they build is so actually quickly understood, which is so

hard to do. You know, what I mean, Like I get so lost in plots like that, and like you just understand or the rather you click into it so immediately, all of the action, all of the comedy, all of the kind of like emotional like resonance of like each of these performances just like stuck the landing in every way. Like what were your favorite parts from this? Well? I thought it was so funny. I laughed so much while watching it. Um, the parts that made me the most

emotional were the rocks. Oh you know, you have to it. It was so good, I think. Um, her husband, who's played by Kahai Kwon, was so great, and I found him very sexy. He was in the scene the universe and where he was in the suit where she was a singer so hot. Um, and all of these actors ability to play so many different selves, like so many different versions of the same character, Like the actor. I

thought her daughter was really good. I, Um, she's in Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and I've always thought she was pretty good in that as well. Jamie Curtis and Jamie Curtis,

Oh my god, the Hot Talkends Universe, so goody. It's such a such a good movie and I think like, and you know we're after this, I want to talk about Severance because we both started watching Severance this weekend, and I do think like there's something linking these two things together because they both do what really good science fiction is supposed to do, which is take something that's really grounded in reality and really human and blow it

out through science and technology, like like create a universe and that is very like our own, except like humans have figured out how to do one thing and here like and everything everywhere all at once. It's like this central idea of what if, Like what if I had made this choice? What if my life had gone this way? And that is a very relatable feeling. I think we

all feel like that from time to time. And on that note, like in terms of like the sci fi the world building of it all, like we have to champion original films because the only things popping off right now are like exactly Marvel movies, reboots, sequels, like and this is such an annoying and cliche like kind of like thing to say, but it's so true, and like this is a movie that we as a culture like wait for in terms of like a completely novel originality

that is entirely like like entirely in its own right, like beautiful and stunning and like flawless, like I don't use that word lightly, even though that's so uninteresting to say. Also, Jenny Slate was so good to see, and with the dog so good. I don't think I will say I

don't think it's a perfect movie. There were parts of it that I thought, like, I think the end is like very the the emotionality like almost becomes a little sacharin um, And I think like some of the things are wrapped up a little too tidily, but it kind of doesn't matter because the strokes are so broad yet the emotions are so specific that it all just really works.

I just, on a taste level, tend to enjoy more saccharin things, but regardless, like you and I did sob through the last like third thirty minutes at least, and then and I saw this movie alone. We both saw. I left afterwards, went down to the parking garage, sat in my car and cried more because I was thinking about my mom. And the movie hits you multiple times because there's so many layers to it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful film. A movie that and you were talking about

the last time you cried. I just want to quickly sneak in um the fact that like this, Uh. I watched this movie the day after I saw Coda, which was a movie that I quickly discovered was not Belfast. I was like, I think I had conflated the two in my head as like the white contenders for the Academy, you know when, for Best Motion Picture. And so when I sat down to watch it, because it was this year's Best Picture winner, I had a very emotional experience

to it. The logline is like a girl is the only hearing member of a deaf family, and she really loves to sing, and so she is basically deciding whether at the end of high school, whether she's going to pursue singing as a dream or whether she's going to stay with her family to support them because she's the only one that can hear. And so, like another movie that I like, sobbed through the last thirty minutes of actually like a movie that, like I I started crying

and then like just kind of continually cried. But I was also trying to like eat um, like the barbecue that I had ordered, and so like, my nose is really stuffed up. And then another crying moment happened, and so I was like, because my nose was stuffed up, I started like sobbing and then choking on my own food. Like wow, I was crying. A very visceral experience. Yeah, it was, but it definitely, definitely, definitely see that movie.

I think it's worth, you know, a month of Apple Apple TV Plus if you subscribe, So I pay for Apple TV Plus. It's um, And so it was very easy for me to once I saw that everyone was talking about the show Severance, to decide to give it give it a go um, which actually is like a very hard thing for me to do because I do not just like try out new TV shows without feeling

pretty confident that I'm going to like them. And I was kind of, I guess, the way the people were talking about it and some of the like stills I was seeing on Twitter, I was kind of expecting a succession vibe for some reasons. I guess I thought like, oh, this is Apple TV's succession and it's so not. It

is okay to give you the logline. Severance takes place in a world where people can have a procedure done called severance, where when they go to work they completely forget their outside lives and become this blank slate persona, and when they leave work, they can't remember ever anything that happened there. So it's essentially like bifurcating these people and like kind of lobotomizing them literally. It's it's starring Adam Scott, Patricia arquette Um and directed by Ben Mark.

He's been working on it for like five or six years or yeah, and it's really creepy. I think the cinematography is really beautiful and the show, if you watch the trailer, the trailer very succinctly kind of shows you a little bit of what you're trying to sign up for. And I thought that it would maybe be more ham fisted in its critique of, like, you know, the workforce, or in its critique on like capital and our relationships

to like our work. But I actually feel like what the show tries to say about work is not too heavy because it prioritizes the suspended tention totally. It's much more about the storytelling that about any sort of like think PC metaphors. Yes, to be totally honest, this show is maybe not as much to my taste, because the suspended attention is something that like, I feel like I need a buddy while I'm watching it. It is actually

very very spooky, It's very tense. The show reminds me a little bit of how you experience wand division in that when you go into it for a lot of the a lot of time you're kind of like, what am I watching? Like you spend a lot of time trying to figure out the world a lot of cogs or in your if and if you don't have context, it's like you're kind of just along for the ride. You kind of concede yourself to these the TV makers And obviously they're very different shows. But I'll be interested

to see how severance pays off. Yes, I really want to know what's coming at the end. One of my earliest childhood memories is tying an afghan that my grandma had made me around my body, like like you would a towel, you know, like to like a feminizing of Cowe moment as queers, I want to do to I want to swap themselves in fabric of some kind um and I would, you know, imagine myself wearing a blue

and white and gingham dress. Because all I wanted when I was a little child, childer neutral charm um was to be Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. Of course, I mean she's she is the archetype. Um. I also feel like I really wanted to be Dorothy. This is an interesting episode of both of us, and that neither of us are virgins, but this was very formative to us personally and therefore is worth talking. And that's our podcast and will do whatever the funk we want, do

whatever the we want. Um, you know, on the note quickly of queer swath I slapping themselves in fabric, I think, like, what is that? What? Why is it a queer right of passage to wear a blanket as a dress or to like pull it over as a cable you just send a staircase to like you know, let it fill, or like yeah, exactly exactly, Um, but yeah no similarly, um, the Wizard of Oz was just one of the most prominent things of my childhood. I read the book over and over and over again in like, I don't know,

what when do you read those books? Like first or second grade? I was more of a movie girl. It was about the movie. For me, it was Judy Garland Margaret Hamilton's Down, you know, the girls were girling. I would I probably watched The Wizard of Oz every day when I was a kid. I had a book that had the script and also lots of like photos and behind the scenes stuff, and I would page through it as I watched the movie, and I would like color in it and make notes. It was The Wizard of

Oz was my whole life. I was obsessed with it. There there were these porcelain dolls that were sold at do you remember the Franklin Mint. There's a store in the mall that sold collectibles, and they had a um a line of Wizard of Oz porcelain dolls and like that sounds haunting, and I needed to have them. And like obviously, like I was a and dolls were like not were frowned upon, but I like kicked and screamed so much that I have the Dorothy one and I

had the Wicked Witch one. I and I might have made them kiss one of my of course, of course, as we always do. One of my earliest Halloween costumes was the Tin Man and my cousin was Dorothy, and I remember being like just see the jealousy that I had to be this ugly, asked him, men with this ugly ass mask. Um, maybe I think this is finally the year that I'm Dorothy for Halloween because now my dog looks like Toto. Oh my god, Rose, I didn't even think about that component. Thank god it's April. I

don't have to think about Halloween. But can the dress be like, you know, like' or something. We're going classic? Come on, you're not gonna do it like Harry Style is doing that Gucci Dorothy dress as we say, as we say in the industry megap However, his single oh Yeah, we didn't talk about it as it was we are

we are newly we are newly radicalized Harry Styles. I've never listened to a Harry Styles album before, but I was, like, I have been listening to this over and over because it's so short and has like it's one of those TikTok songs that has no actual emotional, like cathartic payoff, so you have to listen to it seventy two times

in order to feel because the catharsis um. But I was, I was, you know, taking a late night trip to Sweet Green as I often do picking up my Sweet Green and the Harry Styles song played, and I thought of you, and it was anyway, it's going to go back to oz. Um. I okay, So Wizard of Oz the thing I loved most as a child, come come to find out as a queer adult that it's like the gayest thing in the world. Oh, I thought you were. I thought you were going to say that the entire

production was curse. Oh yeah, we I think we all know that. Okay, good, that's what I thought. I feel like people that know the Wizard of ozin no, we all know about like the guy hanging in the cornfield, which apparently wasn't a real thing that wasn't real was an ostrich. I'm sure there's a YouTube video you can watch about it. Honestly, if you just watched Duty starring

m Rene's what's her name, sorry, Renee's Alwigger. Like, I do actually think that contextualizes a lot of the really horrible things that happened on set, which like we'll get into the duty of it all. But what about the movie, So you said, like, um, you were talking about how like maybe it's this innate kind of gaines queerness that is in the movie like if I don't know, I don't know if it's about like the any like subtext or metaphors. I think I just loved the fantasy. I

loved the story. I wanted to go away to the magical land of Oz and really I wanted to be Dorothy. She was it. She was to me, Judy Garland, Dorothy Gale, the pinnacle of feminine beauty that like I, as a little burgeoning tranny, wanted to inhabit. And the thing about that, and we on this podcast firmly believed that the word

camp is overused and often misused all the time. But Judy's Dorothy is the definition and the beginning of like an era of like women in film that would do a kind of camp performance, an emotionality that is like over the top and yet like deeply unaware of, like you know, how much it goes. I don't know that I agree with that. I mean, I've I think I feel like I've read so many like you know whatever.

I know, I think there's an argument to be made either way, and like, certainly this podcast is not about debating what is camping, But I think I see it more as like she understood the movie she was in and like a big well did she like big MGM spectacles of the time, Like that was the kind of heightened like the kind of heightened performance that she needed to give. I think it's actually like pretty self aware. I and she also was like being plied with like

pills um you know. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. She definitely I don't think that. Then in that case, I don't think there's self awareness. And I don't think she knew what movies she wasn't, you know? She was my point. So here's the thing. I know why you're resistant to like even talking to even talking about Duty and Alexa kind of camp. But I think that because she predated resistant to talking about Judy. I'm talking resistant to having

a conversation about what is camp or not? But I think I think the reason and I agree, I also just don't really care about it. But I think the reason I bring it up is because a lot of camp that exists today is deeply aware of itself. It's it's part of a camp factory or the manufacturing of camp, and like Judy's performance is camp in its purest form,

you know what I mean? She didn't know that the way she would make her eyes all gooey, or the way she would like wall like every time something was wrong, or the way her eyes are really good, always on the brink of tears, which always Judy was going through literally and she was being tortured on that can you

imagine this movie? She was fighting for her life? And I don't And I mean that both joking way in a literal way, but like it couldn't have been anyone else, Like could you have imagined this movie if Shirley Temple was Dorothy and stud which like like can you imagine?

But that's but I love I love her drink. I think the point I would like to order what I feel like I was responding to a kind of a kind of emotional self that I really wanted, you know what I mean, Like I think that we're you know, we're often taught to be like ashamed of like our emotions and like how we react to the world. And like Judy was so you know, inordinately herself. But that I mean, the movie is is fucking gay, Like it is the source material is gay. I actually like I

didn't read the Oz books as a kid. I recently found out because of a TikTok that I sent you. I don't know if you watched it. Um about how Ozma, who is one of the rulers of oz is canonically trans. Wait, how so she is um put in the body of a boy because like some kind of royal shenanigans um and then like discovers her and her woman. But it's it's like it is cannon that she is trans That's amazing and honestly, like it makes so I read UM. I think that like at least two, if not three

of the books, I don't remember anything. I just remember loving them as a kid, and I do know that like they were all very dark and very violent. They got um. I think initial criticism found the books actually too violent, and so they actually like waned in violence as he started making more and more literally murder someone

and Dorothy murders two people. Yes, And well, I think that's also the magic of the film is the film is able to render something that's actually really violent as like you know, fantastical and silient, like you know, the way the Witch of the East has these you know, striped stockings on that make it fierce fierce um. And so I think that, you know, the movie um renders all of that darkness and violence in a very pristine

MGM way. And so I think it's interesting to see things like Returned to Oz or the Whiz adaptation of the movie that really leaned into the original L. Frank Baum like kind of vision, which was darkness violence like kids can handle. Oh yeah, because you have only experienced Return to Oz for the first time today. For me, Returned to Oz was one of the most formative pieces of media in my childhood. UM. So, Returned to Oz

came out starring for a ball. It's it's about Dorothy going back to Oz and Oz is all fucked up, and it is an incredibly dark, twisted, beautiful fantasy. Um it's so weird. It has one of I think one of the most iconic villains of all time, Queen Mombi, who is a which who is a hall of women's severed that she keeps so that she can wear a

new head every time. She's like feeling herself, which also feels very trans to me, very trans. The movie opens with Dorothy's um and uncle being so like shook about her, talking about, you know, like her visit to Oz, that they commit her to a mental institution where she received where she almost undergoes shock therapy. Can I I this is not this is not a drag. I watched the movie specifically because you told me how formative it was

to you. And within the first five minutes of this film, I understood everything about what you know because there is something. I mean, it is somehow very archetypal, but also like it's so so dark two wheelers, the guys who have wheels for hands. No, but I mean, I'm so scary, so very scary. But I'm talking about the act and the talking chicken also sucked up. The actual conceit of the movie is like like to to be and it is like on paper it was trying to be a

sequel to Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz. Like they had to pay but it's not a musical. They had to pay MGM, like an inordinate amount of money just for the rights to say the word like ruby slippers, because that was original to the movie. Wasn't in the books, um and the like. But to have to start a movie that's like and M and all the people people you love don't believe that entire thing that happened to you. They think you're crazy. They think you are crazy, the committed.

They have you committed for electronic shock therapy. And here you are trying to tell people about like your friends and this like kind of traumatic thing that you went to the and it went through, and they're all telling you that it's not believe you. Um, and you get sent to a magical fantasy land with your talking chicken and a woman wants to cut your head off so

she can wear it. Yeah. But my point in that is, like the fact that these were trying to be more true to the darkness of the al frank Baum's Bomb books was something that I really appreciated as an O G lover of the books, and like I uh did a little google about like when these books came out, and he like al frank Baum was trying to kind

of change children's books a little bit. He like loved kind of Hans Christian Anderson books, but he thought that the fact that they taught kids like lessons and morals was really unnecessary. Like he didn't see the function of that, even though like The Wizard of Oz is filled with

these like populist allegories. Um. But the uh the within a decade span when The Wizard of Oz came out, the books that also came out were like Beatrix Potters, like you know, Peter Rabbit or whatever, all of Jack London's books, The Little Princess, and of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan like all of these was this boom h yeah, the boom and children, all of these people trying to kind of turn and revolutionize and change the kind of story on kids books.

I think is very interesting in the context of like The Wizard of Oz, because it really was trying to make kids feel more like adults or rather, or rather it wasn't trying to pander to kids. It was it felt like kids could handle the level of fear, because I think it explores in a really um profound way

the terror of being a child. Ah. That is such a good way of because being a child is terrifying, terrifying, It's terrifying and wonderful and equal measure, and I think that's something the Wizard of Oz and any good Oz property understands. And I actually liked in Return to Oz that Dorothy was younger that she had been in the Wizard of Oz because it makes more sense for the story.

Al Frank Balm al Frank bam Road two editorials asserting that like the only way like to like white victory was like for the wholesale genocide of like native people in this country in the nine literally. I mean, nothing's about that is surprising, But as I always say, it's just like, you know, let history stick to create the creators of the things that you love. Um, did you ever watch The Whiz? Like the movie adaptation? I have watched The Whiz. I've also seen, you know, a production

of it. I've always wanted. Was when I was in high school my freshman year, thought was our musical for the year. Oh, I thought you meant a real production? I was also, I was. I was in The Whiz in my predominantly white high school. I was in a production of The Whiz as um one of the you know, one of the bricks in the Yellow Brick Road. It's not I will say it's not one of my favorite musicals.

I mean there's some great songs in it. Um. You know, I have seen at probably every theater competition or like audition I've gone to, I've seen someone try to do home. Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect song. I The Whiz is one of my favorite musicals, and I think that's part of the reason why I actually don't love a lot

of the movie. Um, but what I was going to say to your earlier point is that something that I did really like about the film adaptation was that they kind of, you know, made Dorothy, I think, a thirty year old like school teacher who lived in Harlem, and the the kind of Kinsey is like she's never you know, been south of Harlem and and all of a sudden she's in Oz, which I think is like a really smart and adult way to to kind of update the

story of The Whiz. Although it's like sad to know that the reason they did that is because like Dana Ross was just like too old to play Dorothy by the time they hired her, but she had just campaign for the movie. Apparently the movie really would not have gotten made of Diana Ross hadn't, I guess, fought so hard for it and they really wanted to replace her with Stephanie Mills the o G. But I guess she

just like had a big, big power play. But I watched it recently because I had read an interview where Molina Mitsukas had said that she had floated the idea of a Whiz adaptation to Solange, which, like Milina Mitzukaus is like one of my favor kind of like visual artists, creative director people, and I think Solange in The Whiz would be her kind of like Mini Ripperton, kind of like voice would lend itself so well to like the musical stylings of this film, and like, I honestly think

that was a part of why I'm curious to hear what you thought about The Whiz, because I felt like the music is kind of the best part of this entity, and the music was not really championed in the movie outside of like can You Feel Brand New Day, which I think is really well done, and also Home obviously was well done. But I don't think the musical lends itself to Diana's voice as much as I wanted it to at that stage career. I mean, I have to be honest, I'm just kind of ambivalent about The Whiz.

I don't have a lot of emotional stakes in it. I think the music is fine for the most part, um I don't think a lot of it's very memorable at least for me. Um, Yeah, it just doesn't do it for me. It's okay, I will I will do all of the Whiz standing for us because it meant I think it meant a lot to my high school career. It was something that I just really loved. Um. But I guess another reason why the movie. Well, first of all, I have to say that Diana Ross is home like

in this movie. When I watched it for the first time recently, I was like, this is the precedent, like the predecessor, or maybe even the reference for Anne Hathaway's I Dreamed a Dream because she does that move the Cheeta does that song all one take on like a black screen behind her with a very tight close up on her face. Yeah, and Diana Russ did the exact same thing, which is extremely difficult to do as an actor and even more difficult to do as like someone

who's singing and acting. You know what I mean. I think that those parts of the movie are things that I loved. But um, the Whiz was like famously, like the movie was famously a huge flop, because huge mega

flop do Docaca because it was so amped up. I think it was an I p that's obviously so culturally beloved, and I think that having all these stars set up in the movie did not really give the audience what they wanted because all of the stars are covered in prospect extent and like you can't really see Michael Jackson in this like Scarecrow, Like you can't really and and also again the movie really leaned into like L. Frank Baum's kind of like darknesses, um And I felt like

that was off putting to a lot of audiences at the time. But I think that creative director, in terms of the creative direction of the movie, it is much like Return to Oz, very brilliant and very adult and very ahead of its time. You know, it is so weird and polarizing and like, um, uncomfortable at times, and I felt like that was a strength of the film overall, that is not necessarily commercially viable, and honestly reminded me a lot of um, did you see that where the

Wild Things are? Adaptation the Dave Eggers one. It reminded me a lot of that because here you have like a filmmaker taking a globally beloved I P, like an i P that is like so important to a lot of people from a children's perspective that if you do a single thing to cross it, it's a betrayal, you know, to to go back to an earlier theme and so what and then for the filmmaker to take this and to kind of warp into like a weird, dark existential movie that has a lot of like adult themes and

some great music by Karen O and some great music by Karen Oh. Like, both the films kind of delivered something that the audiences didn't sign up for. But that's not a fault of the filmmaker or even the audience, you know what I mean. It's just kind of was like a disconnect and how the film maybe the films were either marketed or like kind of ramped up where the wild things are. And also the Whiz just basically made like a big, like a weird, long, scary arthouse film.

But something that was extremely commercially successful and continues to be continues to be until we die is Wicked the Musical, which we have talked about on this podcast before. Yes, um too much. According to producer Phoebe, well, you know what, I I drink my coffee out of my Wicked the Musical mug every morning. Phoebe's in the booth right now,

hurling tomatoes at us stage. You know, I think every generation it has its Wizard of Oz retelling, and that's just like a um that's just like a hallmark of culture now because it now is public domain, because it's public domain. So that's why we see it reinterpreted in so many ways over and over again. And I think, you know, we've seen so many versions of it through many different lenses, like through like different cultures, through different

like musical styles. And I think the reason why Wicked is so successful is because the framing of it is just like through it started this whole craze of wanting to give like a villain origin story like Wicked, I think is the originally not not just the musical, but the book by Gregory McGuire, which which the musical is based on, and like is much more it's much weirder

and like more political and gayer than the musical. Before I even knew it was going to be musical, I read the book because I saw it in like Borders or Barnes and Noble, and like, of course I was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz and like especially the Wicked Witch of the West, which is I think like an interesting dichotomy on buying personality. Is as much as I was obsessed with Dorothy when I was a kid, I was just as obsessed with the Witch. Oh yeah,

of course, because I'm a bad girl. I was really scared of her as a kid and fell in love with her through Wicked. If we were to place ourselves in time during the Wicked craze of two thousand three, I can remember it so vividly. What are some things you remember? I I know I was in UM show choir and then musicals at the time, so everyone in my show choir was obsessed with it. Like we even sang a song from it um I think for our teacher, as like our our senior song. Long but obviously Okay,

let me tell you where I was. So I was. I went to it an art school. I was a theater major. I was like the my whole life revolved around theater when we heard about Wicked the Musical, because like, we were very up to date on what was happening in theater. Immediately, I was on the Wicked the Musical website every day, listening over and over to the snippets they had of the song oh my God, not this,

and then the snippets and I had them memorized. And then it transferred to Broadway and I would go on Broadway dot com or maybe it was like Broadway World dot com and I would watch the like clip packages that they had that had footage from the show over

and over and over again. And then for my sixteenth birthday, my birthday trip was a trip with me, my friend Angelina, and my mom to go to New York City and see Wicked the Musical and I saw it on Kristen China with enormalate Leobutts his last performance, and it was iconic. I was obsessed with it because I was a fag, but I wasn't in the fandom the way you were. Well, let's be honest about it. The music is not great.

There are some of it. There's some of it that's good, but Stephen Schwartz is like very hit or miss um. It has not aged well. I don't mean that in that it's like problematic or doesn't hold up. I mean it's literally been running too long. My friend Ryan and I saw it a couple of years ago. We won the lottery and as we were leaving, we're like, Okay, this needs to close, and then like a new production of it can open as a revival six months later,

but we need to change things up again. But then, like a month ago, I went to see a touring production of it in Costa Mesa, and what you talked about on the pod, which I did talk about on the podcast, but it did revide my love for Wicked. For I didn't mean to cut off your thought. I'm sorry. I don't think it's a good musical, but it's a great musical. You you don't think it's you don't think I said what I said. You don't know, I said,

I don't. It does not need any further explanation. I don't think it's a good musical, but I think it's a great musical. I I actually understand innately what you're trying to say. What is my favorite song? You asked, cutting me off, Um, I would say my favorite song or either the bridge in Thank Goodness where where um

Glinda has her little moment. That's why I couldn't be happri um or I mean the Wizard and I obviously you know that's the moment that's that's the moment that when I was, you know, a sophomore in high school, my friend and I would put the Wicked CD into the D player in her Honda Civic and we would both scream the words too, and we would be like, you're a pitchy, you're a flat I hope you're happy. Um, And she'd be like, and we would like get to as long as your mind to be like, you have

to do the boy parts. Oh of course, wow, that is the fatal that is honestly such a funk you. Um. I My favorite song was Popular, which like perfectly popular is the most fun. It also like just perfectly set up the dichotomy between these two characters. But also I just see myself in Glinda so innately. Well, when it comes to this podcast, You're the Glinda, I'm the alphabet.

We all know this to be true. I feel like every queer relationship has like a well, okay, have you ever heard that, Like every gay relationship has a C three P O and an R two D two? Have never heard that? Okay, Well, it's true, like I'm you Well, I was, well, I was gonna say that, like I do, I do believe that to be true, I think every gay relationship has an R T D two and C three b O. But I think like maybe like every like T for T relationship has an alphabet, and Glinda

like I think that relationship has an alphabetic. Oh, that makes much more sense because they are gay. But but Glinda, as you've said before, is like a little trans like has a slightly trans is born into something that she didn't choose and but everyone demonizes her for it. Also in the book, alphabet is possibly intersects. Yeah, um, there's it's a whole thing. Okay. But of the Wizard of Oz characters, who are we I think I am? This

is I mean, I'm not the cowardly Lion. I think I'm either the tin man or the scare I'm the scarecrow. I'm kind of an idiot and I love life because of that, you know, like I I really actually, um for the most part, like blissed out when I choose not to kind of subscribe to a certain termoil or problematizing of things. Okay, And who am I I mean? I think I mean if you're no, actually I think if you're not Dorothy, I do think you're the cowardly Lion.

I think that's I think never even considered that. I think I would. I think I would. So I have male energy, is what you're saying. Well, you know the Cowardly Lion. Do they really have a gender because in the movie when she's getting listen within the movie, when she's getting buffed and puffed, honey, when she is like in OZ and she's getting her nails done, she's getting her main done, she's like sitting down that little she's

like having her you know, her self care day. Like I remember as a child, not adult, I remember as a child, as a tourist child like looking at that image and being like that has to be so amazing. Like I love the makeover montage when they go to the Emerald City. Okay, wait, one thing we do know for sure is while Dorothy was like asleep when they were on the Yellow A Road, the tin Man, the

Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow were sucking and sucking. They were gonna exaust Well, I think maybe it started out as just being the tin Man and the scarecrow, and then the Cowardly Lion like woke up one night and was like, what's going on? And they were like, all right, coming actually dissect the dynamic between these four characters, because it is actually really weird. The movie, like kind of the movie kind of leads you to believe that Dorothy

thinks the Scarecrow is like her faith. There's a there's a romantic undertone and there should not be. Well, I mean when she's saying goodbye and she's like I'm gonna miss you most of all, and the other ones are like, excuse me, what a fuck you? What a fucking bit? That's actually like that. It was right here, girl, your balloon has been taken off yet like text her later, girl, like, don't say that in front of these other girls. I was trying to figure out. But they're dynamic to them.

For the three of them is like so interesting. It's supposed to be kind of like three stoog z. Yeah, like a band of of underdogs kind of moment. And they all all each of them possess skill sets that the others lack, which I think is like, you know, the mix of like really good like character dynamics. Okay, of their three, whose song would you cut? I immediately thought of the Whiz unfortunately, and how the Tin Men's song is so subpar um. But going off the MGM movie,

off of the MGM, I would cut the tin Man's again. Yeah, because the scarecrows if I only had a brain is cannon now. And it even informs like you know, euphemisms, like things that we say in culture, like if I only had a brain, And the cowardly line, like his line delivery of courage, you know what I mean, is phenomenal, Like, I think that's an amazing character. If I could cut one song, it would be the Cowardly Lion song. Why I hate it? It comes to in the movie because

it happens when they're at the Emerald City. It does and like, baby, we're past the whole thing where we're talking about what we need, like yeah, we gotta we gotta go kill this witch. Let's get moving. But that's a movie structure problem. I think the song, actually, I think the songs I don't even know. See, well that's the other thing. Okay, here's that thing actually is it's

not even really a song. It's this actor kind of doing very very specific character choices that I think are totally like original, Like who like for him to be like, yeah, I'm gonna go in and like gargle, like my lines, like for him to do the kind of you know what I'm talking about? How he was how yeah, yeah exactly. How you know when we when I go home from here, I'm gonna look up ten Man Scarecrow fan fiction. Oh don't do that, and you know what, there's gonna be

a lot of it, and it's gonna be It's gonna be. Okay. So, as I said earlier, like L. Frank Baum like did not want to learn lessons in this movie, or rather learn lessons from his books, but the movie does try to teach you a lot of things. I feel, Okay, what did you learn from it? Well, I was going to ask you that, like what I just asked you,

So you have to go first, Okay. I feel like with all four of the kind of heroes, the movie is trying to show you that you are in and of yourself like a whole person, Like you possess everything you need to love and accomplish like your life, and are kind of tendency to see everything that we don't have makes us feel not like whole people and like we can't do what we need to do, when in reality we fully can't do what we need to do.

What do you think I The Wizard of Oz made me transh that's my answer, and I don't have a deeper answer than that. It's just the Wizard of Oz is absolutely the thing that made me realize that like I was or wanted to be a girl when I was little. Is there You said, you don't have a deeper answer to that, And yeah, I am farming for a deeper answer. What other good luck we've we've alluded to to um trans subtext in The Wizard of Oz?

I p in general, like what what what do you think you saw in the story or in the characters where you were like I understand this to be or rather I'm trance because of this, I just wanted to be Judy Garland. I mean, she is the perfect archetype of a very specific kind of femininity that I wanted to be and loving that movie helped me access it. A pure heroine. And and what's interesting about the character of Dorothy is she's not interesting like she on paper.

Now she has a plint with upon other things. And and they say, you know, obviously, like these um metrics didn't exist at the dawn of filmmaking. Which The Wizard of Oz is largely kind of like seen as this like the dawn of contemporary Yeah, um, even though this didn't exist. Like they always say, like a bad bad character writing is when characters don't make any decisions and things just happen to them. And that is exactly Dorothy, like she doesn't know her what she wants drives the

entire movie. She wants to go home, but she doesn't make any decisions. That's not true. She decides to go to the Emerald City. No, the Witch tells her to do it. Dorothy says, I want to go home, and the and Glinda says, well, then you have to go see the Wizard. Dorothy's if desire to go home drives the entire plot of the movie. If I may fin is my point, which I think you will actually agree with.

Things really do just happen to her, And that is in a lot of like screenwriting considered bad writing or whatever. And yet Judy Garland's performance like is so like magnanimous and sucks up like every single kind of like moment that you it doesn't even matter that plot wise, she really isn't doing anything because the emotional steaks are in every scene. I unfortunately fundamentally disagree with you because I think she has the most class. I mean, it's somewhere

over the rainbow. So there's a thing in musical it's called the I Want song, and it's at the beginning of a musical where the lead sings a song that tells you what it is they want. And somewhere over the rainbow, what Dorothy wants is she wants to get out of her life and like find something more magical than it. And she gets that, and then she realizes that she wants to go home. And she spends the rest of the movie doing everything she can, literally murdering

people so she can achieve what she wants. She didn't murder, but but she she didn't murder either of the witches. Pose no, but she does what she has to do to get what she wants. So I I will, respectfully, but she does. The movie is driven by her desire. Is that the desire is not an action, So what is this is so stupid? But like, what are the actions that she takes? She follows the Yellow Brick Road. There's literally a song about it because Glinda told her to.

She didn't make that decision but she still makes the action she could have not. I'm not even nagging the movie. I'm actually giving, like Judy Garland a huge compliment. I think that what I'm not saying, you're nagging the movie. I just think we have you have different viewpoints on this. My point is, and I think it's very clearly laid out in like the song lyrics and the text of the movie, that Dorothy makes decisions. I think we were

I think we're potentially both right. Um. I and I feel like I see what you mean about her being very reactive, like I didn't mean to kill her, my house fell on her. Like Dorothy is placed in circumstances and and without like trying to be but based on the circumstances, she makes decisions and actions that drive the plot forward. And I and I disagree, but I but I I think my my point is that that none

of that matters. And I think that it's a testament how brilliant the film is that a character that is so flatly written still has emotional stakes and like every single component of the film because of the performance and because of the music, and because of all of the things that make the Wizard. I mean, how could she have action? When the Witch gets set on fire, she throws a thing of water on her and kills her on But she doesn't do it, she doesn't do it

on purpose. But still it's still an action that she takes. You. It's not a decision to say she actually tries to save her life. You are, you are? You are actually sit show telling the Virgins. I think this actually conversation is perfect and it says a lot about both of us as people. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm I'm but I am saying that I'm also right. I think

they can both be true. And I think that's the wonderful thing about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is that it came out almost a hundred years ago and we can still have this kind of discussion about it. And that's amazing and that's our show. But so I'm going to click my heels three times and We're going to go back to Los Angeles. We were in Oz this whole time. We were Why it wasn't I warned? We'll be back next week to talk about the horny gay Dumbledore movie that is going to be the best queer

representation on screen. Get this sty so excited. Let's let's keep the expectations are real high. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So if you want to go see, uh, you know, the Secrets of Dumbledore, please do. If you want to pirate it and not give jk Rowling your money, do that. If you don't want to do any of them and you just want to hear us talk about it, that's fine too. Tell us what you want us to talk about next, whether it's a show, a book, a cultural

phenomenon we want to hear from you. You can call to confess at three to three pennants. That's three to three seven three six two six two three. Leave us a review on Apple podcast It helps us a lot, even if it's a little spicy. I'm your co host, Rose domn You. You can find me online at Rose Domin I've rander Otta. You can find me at friends,

squish co anywhere you want. You can subscribe to Like a Virgin anywhere you listen to podcasts, and please leave us a rating on Spotify and a review on Apple Podcasts. Like a Virgin is an I Heart radio production. Our producers BB with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane, chitch and Nikki etre until next week. See you later for Rgins made Somewhare Gonna Rimba