Unwilling Discernment

*Warning: this post may or may not contain spoilers regarding Oz the Great and Powerful. Read at your own risk*

Now, I don't usually write movie reviews because:
1. I have terrible taste in movies. I giggle my way through explosions and one-liners, snark my way through rom-com sentimentality, and weep through animated films (Up, The Lion King, and Tangled are particular weaknesses of mine. I won't even see Toy Story 3 for fear of irrevocably damaging my psyche). I don't trust my own taste in films.
2. Discernment. Blech. See, I go to movies to be entertained. I am the poster child for the generation of short-attention spans. I pay to be entertained, not to embroil myself in philosophical debates. If I wanted to be entertained and think at the same time, I'd read a book.
3. If I get a whiff of pretension, that's it. I'm done. I'm out of the story and wondering what I'm going to bake over the weekend instead. Or if I remembered to turn off my flatiron.
4. I tend not to pick up on things if I'm completely tuned into the story. For instance, I didn't notices the lens flares in Star Trek until everyone and their second cousin started jawing about it online. I didn't notice the blue filter in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix until my brother complained about it.

So I just proved why I'm not to be trusted as a film critic. But I'm going to do it anyways. You see, my wonderful boyfriend (who's happens to be studying film production) and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to see Oz the Great and Powerful. He'd remembered my desire to see it, and yesterday had been a rather rough day for me. So he was sweet enough to sacrifice some of his precious sleep and cheer me up with what promised to be a light-hearted, CGI-filled celebration of movie magic.

Beautiful.

As previously stated, I'm pretty easily pleased on the movie front, so neither of us expected what happened next.

The story is that of the Wizard of Wizard of Oz fame, of how the man stepped behind the curtain and into our collective imaginations. Despite limitations placed by rights issues, (i.e. no ruby slippers or music), the movie holds a lot of promise. Stunning CGI-work. Talented cast. Beloved franchise. A Hollywood budget that could support me in a comfortable lifestyle until my inevitable death under an avalanche of hoarded books.

James Franco stars as Oz. This casting choice alone made me a little hesitant. I don't really care for his work. Whether or not it's residual sympathy for Anne Hathaway for leaving her out to dry when hosting the Oscars, I can't say. But it made me nervous for someone who seems (to me) to be an unlikable guy to be cast as an unlikable character. I already knew I was going to have a hard time believing any character growth.

He begins the movie as a charlatan and stereotypical selfish jerk--playing pretty women, insulting his loyal assistant, and generally thinking very highly of himself. His only redeeming(?) quality is his ambition: he wants to be the next Edison. (Which could speak volumes about his character, depending on where you stand in the Edison/Tesla debate.) He hops into his hot air balloon to escape a former squeeze's strongman boyfriend and promptly gets sucked into a tornado that he somehow fails to notice. Maybe sepia tones make them harder to spot.

In the tornado, he makes a deal with an unnamed Power that Is. Given lack of further evidence, I'll consider his Santa Claus-meets-genie deity to be his amorphous (and so Hollywood) idea of the Judeo-Christian God. If he survives, Oz pleads, he'll do something great with his life. He promptly lands in the technicolor, CGI splendor of the land of Oz. And into the lap of Mila Kunis.

Mila Kunis plays Theodora the Good, a witch who wears pants tight enough to have been nicked from the closet of David Bowie's Goblin King. Playboy Oz, of course, is more than ready to take advantage of a smoking hot-yet-innocent young woman. She is the perfect mark, if one doesn't take her claims to be a witch too seriously. Seduced by Oz's facial hair, (and, yes, because he seems to be the fulfillment of a rather important prophecy) she promptly waltzes with the stranger and takes him home to meet the family--her sister Evanora, dressed in a suspiciously dark and slinky wardrobe.

Long story short, Theodora and Evanora aren't who they appear to be. I'm not sure if this can count as a spoiler--I mean, you have two brunette witch sisters in Oz. If you can't guess who they are (or rather, who they become), you're even less perceptive than I am. Let's just say that, by the end, Theodora looks like she went to a St. Patrick's Day-themed tanning parlor, and Evanora is about to get creative with her sock choices.

But no worries, Oz gathers to him some inexplicably loyal companions, joins forces with Glinda, has his heel-face turn, and becomes the wise (and, according to Glinda, good) savior of Oz. Theodora and Evanora are banished from the Emerald City, and there is much rejoicing.

But wait! You ask. How did Theodora, the beautiful, innocent, GOOD witch Oz seduced in the beginning, fall from grace?

Rejection. Oz saw just another mark. But she fell in love. So when he left her (purposefully without saying goodbye) and began showering attention on her enemy, Glinda, she was heartbroken. Now, in Kansas, a jilted woman was only dangerous if she had a male protector angry enough to confront Oz. But Toto, Oz wasn't in Kansas anymore. Theodora didn't need anyone to get angry for her. With a little push in the wicked direction from Evanora, she took matters into her own hands. She became the Wicked Witch.

If that doesn't ring any alarm bells for you, let me recast the story a little: Boy meets girl. Boy flirts with girl. Girl falls in love. Boy dumps girl. Girl is heartbroken. Boy moves on. Girl turns into an ugly, psychotic b****.

Yes, the Wicked Witch of Oz the Great and Powerful is the crazy ex-girlfriend.

It's not a new stereotype. After all, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." And yes, there are crazy exes out there of both genders, so it's not entirely baseless. But this particular shade of "crazy ex," in my understanding, almost exclusively applies to women. How many rom-coms, comedies, and sit-coms (not to mention memes and YouTube videos) feauture neurotic girlfriends and stalker ex-girlfriends? (This, for the record, is one of the many reasons why I prefer action movies.)

To turn the Wicked Witch, one of the most formidable villains in pop culture, into a crazy ex is demeaning and disgusting. In the original Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch wants to avenge the death of her sister (and, may I add, the theft of sentimentally valuable shoes from her sister's corpse). It's a motive that works equally well for villains of both genders--the Gruber brothers, anyone? It's simple and believable. It works.

Disbelief, soon to be followed by "Oh hell no!"

Last January, my interim group got the chance to meet Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked. While we sat in his living room (me with my jaw on the floor in true fangirl fashion), he explained how his narrative came to be. The book started as an exercise to work out the problem of evil. He wanted to know why evil people became evil. He wanted to understand why people would commit terrible crimes and inflict pain on others. He toyed with a few iconic villains, finally settling on the Wicked Witch. The result was a narrative of isolation, rejection, and depth, and that gritty, sympathetic backstory for Elphaba became a bestselling book and a ridiculously famous Broadway musical.

Credit to Playbill Vault

I know that the writers of Oz the Great and Powerful were trying to be original. I know that they didn't want to draw even more comparisons between their movie and the pop-culture juggernauts that came before. But how did they expect their narrative and their characters to hold up against The Wizard of Oz and Wicked when they turned the Wicked Witch into a demeaning cliche?

Before I stepped foot into the theater, I knew I was going to have trouble sympathizing with Oz. And I was right. He broke an innocent girl's heart. While the responsibility for Theodora's descent into darkness doesn't entirely rest on him--it took a little nudging from Evanora--some of it does. And does the newly-good Oz take any of that responsibility?

In the end, after Oz's grand plan successful expels the witches, Oz turns to Theodora. I'll try to paraphrase this as closely as possible: "I know this evil doesn't come from within you," he says. A promising start. But then: "If you ever wish to return to the Emerald City, I will welcome you." This is the perfect chance to acknowledge his fault, to apologize for his role in her downfall. But no: he lays the blame squarely on Evanora and magnanimously offers his forgiveness--yet seeking none for himself.

So when Theodora screams "NEVER!!!", who can blame her?

In discussions I've had since seeing the movie, I've faced my own flawed thinking head-on:

1. I'm biased. As a woman who has been wronged herself, I automatically sympathize with Theodora. This, combined with my previous antipathy towards James Franco, made me predisposed me to certain opinions on their relative characters. 
2. I'm hindered by my automatic choice to take the movie on its own terms. Despite promising distance from The Wizard of Oz, it's still a prequel to the iconic movie. My boyfriend (gently) pointed out that of course Oz doesn't have complete character development--he's still a selfish con man in the 1939 classic.

Those two things greatly influenced my perspective on the movie in an obviously big (and rather negative) way. Was it entertaining? Yes. Visually stunning? Yes. Were the supporting characters adorable? Yes. But what kind of message are we sending when we take an iconic, female villain--one who is often taken as an example of a woman in power in media--and turn her into a scorned woman?

It was troubling enough to take me, usually an unwilling participant in such endeavors, into the realm of discernment.