The Wizard of Oz (1939)

A bumpkin farmgirl becomes a national hero when she accidently murders two ruthless dictators, and exposes a corrupt and powerless central government. Basically, it’s the template for US foreign policy in the 20th century. Forget critical analysis, forget Citizen Kane, forget high art cinema. The Wizard of Oz is the best known of THE three films that define American culture. Wizard (along with It Happened One Night and The Ten Commandments) is etched into our psyche from annual television showings that become family events. Oz shaped our childhoods and changed our speech. There’s not a single person who can’t reference “…And your little dog too!” We know every lyric, we’ve all admired SOME piece of Oz memorabelia, and in our dark moments we’ve delighted in schadenfreude to rumors of letcherous circus midgets and poisonous lead make-up — and of course a talented child star who became a pill-popping icon…. Every paradise has snakes, that’s only added to the legend, but do you REALLY know what this beloved musical is about?

L Frank Baum wrote the Oz novels at the dawn of what would become the American century. In Dorothy, the hero of his first book, he shows pure American pioneering spirit. She is polite, sharing, and tries to be nonjudgemental of others. At six years old she perseveres and keeps a cool head, making friends and actually saving Oz from its own evils. Baum creates a world of friendly witches, cowardly lions, and humbug wizards — almost every character seems an oxymoronic puzzle to be approached individually. Contrast her to another little girl Alice whose xenophobic Victorian standards leave her hapless and flustered as she tumbles from one confusing foriegner to the next rude encounter in Through the Looking Glass. Where Alice is overwhelmed by her experiences, Dorothy overcomes, forms lifelong friendships, and (with Glenda’s help) eventually discovers her own path home. In the books, Oz is not a dream. Dorothy flies home using the magic silver slippers (a superweapon of unspecified powers that are lost in the flight because they cannot exist in a place so drab as Kansas). Baum continued to write about Oz’s fantastic characters and magical struggles, but fans insisted he bring back Dorothy. Though Baum insisted she was happiest at home he was forced to make his simple farmgirl an honorary princess of Oz, second only to the lovely transsexual monarch Princess Ozma.

By the time MGM made its definitive musical in 1939, the 15 Oz books had already influenced two generations of American children and its nouveau illustrations were well known. Baum had also diversified his book earnings into silent film and vaudville stage versions, so it’s no surprise that audiences were indifferent to this overpriced disasterpiece. After first-choice child star Shirley Temple was replaced with post-pubescent jazz singer Judy Garland, a parade of well-knowns were attached and detached from the project, 5 directors, 14 screenwriters, and numerous actors and actresses, including Ogden Nash, W. C. Fields, and Buddy Ebsen who was quietly fired while in the hospital recovering from aluminum poisoning from his Tin Woodsman costume. The movie barely recouped its $2,770,000 pricetag.

Despite its tepid beginning, The Wizard of Oz has become the most watched film of all time, spawning countless sequels and inspiring revisionary remakes even a century later, such as the book and Broadway musical Wicked and Disney’s obscure Return to Oz starring Fairuza Balk. To the dismay of all straight people, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” became the theme song for the gay revolution (something about jazz star Judy Garland singing ignomenously in a Kansas barn epitimized the pre-Stonewall era…). Urban legends abound, and although there’s no suicidal Munchkin hanging from a tree (it’s a large bird on loan from the LA Zoo) there are many remarkable coincedences when you play Wizard and Dark Side of the Moon at the same time…. Serious analysis has compared or connected hidden subtexts in Baum’s stories to everything from politics, religion, and economics.

How does a film (or any artwork for that matter) ascend from mundane to mythic? It might have something to do with Baum’s original modern fairytale (in spite of 14 writers the film doesn’t stray far from the source) whose universal appeal sparks imagination in children year after year. Baum admitted that writing for children was much easier than for adults, since adult readers require topicality and sophistication while children’s needs always stay the same. As those children grow up and share Oz with their own children, they discover a layer of tongue-in-cheek camp that makes it fresh all over again.