33: Wicked Lore is AMAZING? (from a sheltered non-theatre kid persepctive)

Hey guys!! I loved wicked with all my heart. it makes me happy. SO go down learning lane with me from 1900-present. I legitmately had no idea about its ties to Wizard of Oz & general history of Broadway. So, enjoy my childlike wonder today.

Transcript

Hey guys :) Welcome back!!! I just watched Wicked like everybody else right and usually when I finish a movie I have this ritual right where I immediately Google it and everything that has to do with it and I have to know everything about every actor just all of the juicy goss and drama and everything and when I went to do that after watching this movie how did I never know that the history of wicked and all this Wizard of Oz business is the most salacious juicy drama I've ever heard??? okay. that might sound really really dumb to some people but I wasn't a theater kid I wasn't even allowed to watch Harry Potter y'all okay strict Christian family here. I had no idea that the origins of this movie were so awesome so it starts from like 1900 when Wizard of Oz was originally written to a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz written in 1993, until we get to what we have now the Wicked musical! And so I'm just going to take you guys through that Adventure so welcome back you guys this is Reese FGrey Analyzes and I'm Reese on Reese gray Analyzes we look at creations and experiences in art media music and even video games to uncover why we think the way we think question what we believe and learn something new and I'm always doing that when I Google my my freaking movies okay. So you're probably like that's the biggest red flag that you have no idea what Wicked is but you really wanted to watch this movie and let me explain so I haven't read Hunger Games I never read Harry Potter as I explained anything like that but I am just so obsessed with watching the movies of it especially since like I got into adulthood and I can choose what I want and I actually loved Les Mis too I know that's a red flag too cuz a lot of my theater friends and stuff didn't like the singing in Le Mis they hated Russell Crow and whatever but when I found out that there was live singing in this movie too just like in Le Mis I was like oh cool I have to see that because everyone knows Ariana Grande can hold it down right and so I was just like so excited to see this with the live singing and everything for that reason I booked my tickets like two weeks in advance too I was like I have to be one of the first people to see it I have to and it was yay! so it was like researching where Wicked came from and then I guess it's based off of The Wizard of Oz which has 14 books written in 1900 and the Wicked Witch of the West??? East??? the wicked witch is in only one of the books the first book of Wizard of Oz right? And then The Wizard of Oz did have an original play on Broadway in 1903 so I Look to like see if I could like figure out like what that looks like right and basically it's like lost media which makes complete sense cuz it was a play in 1903 so I couldn't figure out anything about that but what I did figure out Broadway existed in New York before the United States was even like founded so one of the first Broadway style theaters opened in 1732 the US declared independence from Britain in 1776 did you guys know that did you guys let me know in the comments and then we also had a silent film as well before the 1939 movie with Judy Garland so arguably the most famous piece of Wizard of Oz media to till that time right so then we had 1939 Wizard of Oz in movie form right The Wizard of Oz originally didn't do super well in theaters which was so surprising because it was one of the first movies that was in Technicolor so Technicolor was basically how people started making movies in color right and so these Technicolor cameras would be the biggest chunkiest cameras in the world to film and then there's like tons of Lights in the background like there's red green and blue lights going on which like shine down on the actors causing tons of this heat drama from all the lighting and even the guy who played the lion in the 1939 film he W--- like this is a quote that he suffered from continual heat stroke was like the quote from the article that I read I was like he continually would have like ailments from passing out this movie is known to be like cursed because so much horrible stuff went on during the filming of this the original wicked witch during one of the pyrotechnic scenes where she like disappears into flames there was an issue with the trap door and she got stuck and she got third degree burns that affected her for the rest of her life and then she refused to do any more pyrotechnic stunts which is so like of course I I would too and then her stunt doubles broomstick exploded I was just like what in the world so I guess in 1939 too there were actually multiple directors for the 1939 film and there were like tons of arguments about creative Direction and I guess the creative direction of that film isn't super clear but what made it so popular is that it was like a movie to TV special right so they released it on TV and during the time in 1939 everyone was watching black and white television and the movie also came on only once a year so people were like obsessed with it cuz I guess A Christmas Carol too people were like obsessed with watching that movie once a year you know like it would be like a tradition and that's how the Wizard of Oz came came about because people would make it their tradition to like all gather around and watch this really cool Technicolor movie and there were other Technicolor movies at the same time period which was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and also Robin Hood too but I looked up pictures of all of them and just how much effort was put into like just showing off the different colors that they could make possible in The Wizard of Oz film like they killed it they did so well with just like showing off what they could do in Wizard of Oz and then in 2022 too during that one we don't have like drama that's as like salacious and honestly you don't want something horrible to happen to like people on set but there were some like icky things that did happen because there's like some kind of SAG-AFTRA strike and they had to put off filming for that and then when they did start filming it they filmed it a lot in like Open Fields out in the UK I guess during like while they were filming I missed all this Paparazzi business or whatever because they would have GoPros on drones to like get behind the scenes footage and like they would even like record audio too so they can like get like sneak peeks of the songs and like sneak peeks of the visuals of like the outfits and the set designs and that's just a lot like I can't believe that they flew drones the paparazzi was probably paid a lot for those photos so I mean that's probably why they did it and then I think the like biggest piece of drama that everyone knows even if they never plan on like seeing Wicked and don't care about the wizard of Oz at all I think that everybody knows about that like drama with Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande too which I won't go super into because it's like not super shocking that Ariana Grande like cheated while she was married and then decided to be with someone else cuz this has happened multiple times I did listened to Naya Rivera's um audio book and she says that she found her in like Big Sean's house like while they were dating and then Pete Davidson's ex-girlfriend came forward too and was all like Pete Davidson broke up with me through a text and then I find out a few hours later through Instagram that he's dating Ariana Grande like I mean you know I'm not shocked but what's more interesting than infidelity from a woman who seemingly has some low self-esteem and an unstable sense of self the biggest shock to me was that this new set of books Wicked was written by like someone completely different and by someone who wanted to reimagine children's stories so this dude Gregory Maguire like there can be a whole video just on this man he is very very very interesting individual bothered him that the bad guys in these children stories were just meant to be bad but he wanted to make them more complicated and realistic and have more like adult themes in these stories so he was really inspired by the wicked witch Elphaba because he wanted to humanize her and make her seem more complicated and have her own motivations and I know it's fiction but usually authors have these like deep needs to want to tell a story because of things that are happening in their own lives and there is something that parallels Maguire's life of why he was so passionate about this Elphaba character and I found that he was he actually grew up in a deeply Catholic family and that shaped his views on like morality and faith and like societal judgments right and so he saw Elphaba's Journey as like a metaphor for the marginalized identities that like Catholicism and Christianity automatically look down on people's Lifestyles for being a part of and how those people in those marginalized like communities navigate the world that is quick to judge them as wicked without understanding the actual person and so this really resonated with Maguire and his interest for like challenging these binary Notions of like good and evil and it kind of made her an emblem for like resistance against societal Conformity and Injustice but it's not like it has a happy ending either because I looked up like about the book and Galinda and Elphaba don't like come together you know and have like a resolution like the wicked which dies at the end and I really like how it brought us to the notion of like are people born Wicked or is wickedness thrust upon them and are they more likely to make certain decisions because they'll always be misunderstood anyway like are they pushed to a point and that's just very beautiful and Gregory Maguire like as a person is is so interesting I'm really really doubt people want a full video on that but if you made it this far and you do let me know but he's a really really interesting person and people liked this rendition of The Wizard of Oz of wicked so much that when the book came out it wasn't like a Smash Hit book but people did want to make it into a movie like as soon as they read it and like in the 90s like Demi Moore signed on to be a part of it and it wasn't actually originally a musical until someone named Steven Schwartz composed this musical out of his books and had it released uh in 2003 finally and then we finally get to like the the Musical part of wicked that we know and love um today but there was a lot of drama with that as well because like there was issues with the rights of Wizard of Oz and they had to like rewrite the screenplay a lot because they couldn't actually mention Dorothy or any of the characters but they could allude to it with like the red shoes and the yellow Brick Road and stuff like that but like couldn't say say anything and I guess it was really upsetting to like the Galinda character I think something Chenowith character like she played her and she's like really iconic and stuff and I guess she was written out of a lot of the scenes and was upset about that and then the original Broadway actress who like plays alphaba in the 2003 Musical Idina Menzel she was like the first person to audition and like she wore this like green blush to the audition too and went in with like dirty hair that was like all frizzy like a witch and stuff and then cracked her note when she was singing her like note in her audition song and then yelled like [ __ ] and then she got the part because they loved her for that they loved her for it and I think that's one of my favorite little tidbits and then that Wicked 2003 Musical kind of breaks that curse of like people not caring at first for anything that had to do with the Wizard of Oz or these Wicked books cuz it was basically like a smash hit off the off the bat cuz I saw that like by 2019 they surpassed a billion dollars in like Broadway alone which is so crazy and it was really really financially successful it had been performed in 16 countries translated into six languages and then we are led to the movie that we have today and that is just a lot can you believe that that is just like so dense cuz I I didn't know as a non- theater kid non-drama kid whatever I didn't even know when Broadway was created and all of this was just news to me and I hope that you guys learned something about this cuz I was mega mega mega shook to my core with that you guys let let me know if you guys have any like suggestions of like shows or books to read um because I really like this like character Arc of Elphaba I might actually read like the original like '90s like Maguire books cuz like those probably go really hard honestly well with that I leave you guys with this okay love you byeeeeee