Just weeks before the release of its highly anticipated sequel, Associated Students hosted a screening of “Wicked” (2024) on Wednesday night. Attendees of the event were treated to food catering and a prize raffle while enjoying the Oscar-winning film.
Adapted from the Broadway smash hit by the same name, “Wicked” was inspired by both the original 1900 novel and the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz.” The musical centers on the relationship between two young women: Galinda Upland, a popular student at Shiz University, and Elphaba Thropp, a social outcast who is ostracized for her unusual green skin. Later in the story, the two would come to be known as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively.
“I really associate the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda with sisterhood and stuff like that. I’m an older sister, so that relationship is a really powerful thing for me,” said Andy Amaya, a first-year environmental studies major.
Alongside the enchanting chemistry between those two characters, many students in attendance on Wednesday seemed to resonate with the film’s themes of marginalization and triumph over adversity.
“I think it’s a pretty fearless exploration of the othering of people who look or sound different, people who aren’t necessarily of the class that people think should be in higher education institutes,” said Shayna Liberotti, a third-year hospitality major who worked the event as a student AV tech. “Also the villifying of [women of color], specifically, I feel is a really big theme.”
During the finale of the film, which represents only the first act of the Broadway musical, Elphaba says a tearful goodbye to Galinda. She confronts a vision of her inner child and, resolving to trust her instincts from then on, mounts her iconic flying broomstick while belting power ballad “Defying Gravity.”
“A lot of people like to label, like to use stereotypes. And I feel like defying gravity is breaking away from those stereotypes: ‘I’m not going to be what you’re telling me to be or what you think I should be, just because that’s what you’ve seen before and that’s what you’re comfortable with,’” said Liberotti.
“To anyone who has thought that they were not good enough for something, literally anything, whether it’s not good enough to have friends, not good enough to get the person they’re interested in, not good enough to be in college. I feel like that’s really big, and you should definitely go see it because it addresses that…You are enough. You are exactly who you’re supposed to be, and you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.”