Early in Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of Wicked there’s a shot of Elphaba and Glinda sitting in a poppy field. Glinda looks on fondly as Elphaba places her signature black hat on her head. The image is clearly a flashback, a memory, that springs to Glinda’s mind as she speaks with the rejoicing citizens of Munchkinland, but unlike the others that appear in this sequence, we don’t see this scene later in the film. It feels private, as if the depths of Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship go deeper than what the viewer understands.   

Chu spent much of the film’s press run emphasizing the fraught friendship between the film’s two leads that reigns supreme. His adaptation splits the film into two parts. The first, out this fall and winner of five Oscars, ends at the show’s act break as Elphaba flies off on her broom, singing “Defying Gravity.” Chu spends two hours and 40 minutes on what runs for ninety minutes in the stage show, using that extra time to develop the relationship between the two leads. 

Yet, when we left our showing of Wicked on a drizzly November evening, my husband and I did not talk about the relationship between the two leads at all. We talked about politics. We weren’t alone — Reddit threads were abuzz with comparisons between the film’s characters and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and conversations about the film’s prophetic politics. Many expressed surprise that this pink and poppy musical had political undertones. 

Wicked, and the broader Oz universe, has long been political. Critics read L. Frank Baum’s novel as an allegory about populism and monetary policy in the 1890s. When Wicked first premiered in 2003, creators Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz cited both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as inspiration for their Wizard. The Wizard of Oz has long been a mutable figure. His showman-like qualities and desire to dampen economic discontent by scapegoating vulnerable groups have led people to compare him to presidents from William McKinley to Donald Trump. 

Many treat Oz’s political resonances as second-tier to the fairytale. In Wicked’s case, fans of the musical have long favored the loving/loathing relationship between Glinda and Elphaba to the show’s political undertones. Part of what helps the political allegory land in Chu’s adaptation is that he understands that it’s not ancillary to the friendship plot. Elphaba and Glinda’s differences are rooted in their desires to break free from or work within Oz’s existing power structures. 

Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship, and their journey in the first half of the stage show can be summed up like this: popular girl befriends social outcast and together they work to achieve their goals. Glinda’s growth is from a shallow, privileged and naive bully into someone who is more understanding and willing to help others. Elphaba transforms from an insecure young woman into one who is confident about her powers and passionate enough to use them to protect others from torment — in part because no one was there to protect her. Already, it’s easy to see how this friendship could have political undertones. The other Ozians react in horror and discriminate against Elphaba because of the color of her skin. Glinda’s privilege aligns her with Oz’s existing power structures. 

All of the material is there, the film just takes time to emphasize it. In Chu’s hands, the film explores Elphaba’s experiences with discrimination and it develops her relationships with the talking animals — who get much more screen time than they do stage time. He treats Glinda as someone who isn’t naive about her privilege, but one who wields it as a weapon to get what she wants. 

Consider Elphaba’s expanded role for a moment. The film, like the musical, emphasizes how Ozians react to Elphaba’s green skin with horror and discomfort. When Madame Morrible gets on Oz’s radio system to announce to the country that Elphaba is the enemy she uses her green skin to villainize her. But Elphaba isn’t the only vulnerable character in Oz. In Chu’s expansion, she spends much more time with the country’s talking animals, who the Wizard is targeting and trying to silence. In these early scenes, her nanny, Dulcibear, a talking bear, is the only one to care for her as she promised she would immediately after Elphaba’s birth, when her father rejects her. Later, after her father scolds young Elphaba for inadvertently using her powers to startle school yard bullies and upsetting Nessa, Dulcibear tells her, “he shouldn’t have blamed you,” a sentiment Glinda will echo later in the film when Elphaba speaks of her mother’s death. Talking animals were some of the first citizens of Oz to accept Elphaba, so when she sees that they too are being discriminated against it feels personal. 

The threat against the animals looms throughout the film. It’s not limited to scenes where Dr. Dillamond appears as it is in the stage show and it affects more characters. Early on, when Elphaba first arrives at Shiz University and her magic powers send the courtyard furniture flying, a bench knocks into the store building’s facade. It cracks a decorative shield, revealing that the stone was put up to cover a mural of animals. In the stage production, Dr. Dillamond is the only major animal character. Others appear briefly, like the goat that delivers Elphaba, but they don’t have dialogue. When Doctor Dillamond sings “Something Bad,” which details how Oz’s government is rounding up and silencing animals, he sings it just to Elphaba. In the film, he sings it with a group of other animals who are concerned about their rights. Elphaba overhears their concerns. As she watches, she’s overwhelmed by her own memories and visions from her past and of Oz’s future — her father screeching “take it away” at her birth, the chalkboard in Dr. Dillamond’s classroom is defaced with the message “animals should be seen and not heard” — and a vision of the future where Dillamond is in a cage, unable to speak. Chu links Elphaba’s experiences with hate to the discrimination the animals are facing in Oz in these moments and in doing so helps the reader see why she’s invested in their future. 

Elphaba’s visions, too, play a more prominent role in the film, as does the development of her magic powers. Elphaba’s magic is tied to her emotions. Before she learns to control it, we see it manifest when she wants to protect her sister, Nessa, or when she feels strong emotions. In one training scene, Madame Morrible uses Elphaba’s passion for the animals as a means of drawing out her powers. Morrible asks how Elphaba felt seeing the defaced chalkboard and, as Elphaba grows angry on behalf of the animals, she sends a coin flying. Her dialogue, “no one should be scorned, or laughed at, or looked down upon,” recalls how other Ozians have treated her. Her empathy links to the animals and unlocks her power. By giving her a more personal motivation for standing up for the animals, Chu strengthens the arc her character takes in the musical and emphasizes that Elphaba has always been a political character. 

It’s with Glinda’s development that Chu truly deviates from the stage show. While the film’s additional focus on Elphaba’s backstory enriches her character arc, its treatment of Glinda transforms her from a silly, naive, privileged girl into someone who understands the machinations of power. Glinda’s over-the-top emotional responses — dramatic hair flips, weeping over Fiyero — are played for laughs in the stage show. She’s a silly girl, overly invested in her crushes and social standing, without a real understanding of the social and political power her popularity brings. In Grande’s performance, gone are the shrieks and giggles of a little girl. Her dialed back demeanor makes all of her actions seem carefully calculated. From their first scene as roommates she’s asking Elphaba to help her get into Madame Morrible’s sorcery seminar. She isn’t just spun into the Emerald City with Elphaba via the magic of set design; she leaps onto the in-motion train and says, “I’m coming.” When she sings that world leaders didn’t have “brains or knowledge,” but popularity, the audience doesn’t burst out laughing because here Glinda doesn’t seem frivolous. She seems prescient.  

Glinda’s careful calculus is most clearly seen in the film’s rendition of “Dancing Through Life.”  Ahead of Fiyero’s arrival at Shiz, we see her plot her outfit, purloin a book from a fellow student to seem smarter, and fib once he arrives, saying she is supposed to give him a tour. Her efforts to bewitch him are much more involved than in the musical, where she simply walks up to him and introduces herself. Her manipulations continue throughout the song. She knocks another woman out of the way when Fiyero says “find the prettiest girl, give her a whirl.” She sets up Bok and Elphaba’s sister Nessa Rose — it’s implied because she hopes, in part, it will lead Elphaba to recommend her to Morrible. She manipulates those around her to increase her social standing and get closer to her ultimate goal: enrolling in the sorcery seminar so she can gain favor with the Wizard. When she joins Elphaba in taking a stand for animals — by changing her name — after state officials remove Dr. Dillamond from Shiz, it feels like she’s doing it to impress Fiyero, not because she actually cares about the issues. It’s performative, the equivalent of a pussy hat. 

The tension between Elphaba’s activism and Glinda’s quest for power comes to a head in “Defying Gravity.” A mere eight minutes in the show, Chu stretches the number into a half hour, multi-beat sequence, beginning when Madame Morrible orders Glinda to bring Elphaba back, “if you want to do yourself some good.” This line is a departure from the musical, where Glinda runs after her friend of her own accord, and it clarifies her intent as she petitions Elphaba to remain in Oz. She’s not begging a friend to stay; she’s trying to increase her own power. I’m not saying that Glinda is only using Elphaba to increase her standing; I believe the girls genuinely care for one another, but Glinda is unable to sacrifice proximity to power for the sake of their friendship. 

That’s part of what makes “Defying Gravity”’s penultimate moments so painful. I know Glinda will be remaining in Oz with the Wizard, even as Elphaba begs her to join her cause. Proximity to power trumps their friendship. Chu shoots the moment in close ups, cutting between the two women so we can see Elphaba’s hope her friend will join her juxtaposed against Glinda’s tight-lipped certainty that she will remain. As the number goes on, Chu cuts from these tight close ups to a rotating medium shot, a departure from the musical, whose blocking moves them closer together, suggesting Glinda might go. When Glinda leaves the shot to get Elphaba’s signature black cloak, we return to a close up, putting Elphaba’s devastation on full display. Glinda chooses the power she can gain working with the Wizard and Madame Morrible over her friend. Their political perspectives are part of what makes the scene heartbreaking. 

I saw Wicked in November, weeks after the 2024 election. After losing the presidential election, Democrats found themselves at a crossroads: would they stand with vulnerable groups — as Elphaba does in Wicked — the people of color, immigrants, transgender people and others who Trump has maligned? Or would they try to play the blame game, scapegoating whole populations to try to seize power, as Glinda ultimately does in Wicked. 

Democrats, in the immediate aftermath of the election, scrambled to make the case for either stringent opposition to Trump or embracing working with him. These arguments didn’t split across internal party lines. More moderate Democrats like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear joined party progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in saying Democrats can’t “play the blame game” and can stand up for values like supporting the LGBTQ+ and still win elections. Some progressives, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, said they’d be willing to work with Trump on populist policies. Others blamed the party’s stance on trans rights for the loss, advocated for shifting to the right on border policies, 

Chu could not have known that his decision to emphasize the political choices Glinda and Elphaba make would make Wicked still feel politically relevant more than a month into Trump’s second term. But as Democrats have largely refused to embrace a clear path forward for the party under the new administration, many feel in limbo. 

Different Democratic politicians are jockeying for power, taking stances based on what they think will advance their personal careers. California Governor Gavin Newsom said that “it’s deeply unfair” for transgender women to compete in women’s sports. Maine’s Governor Janet Mills vowed to defend the rights of trans athletes to compete in the sports that align with their gender, despite Trump’s threats to pull funding from the state.

Just like Glinda and Elphaba at the end of Wicked, Democrats have failed to come together to put forth a unified vision that counters the politics and actions of the ruling party. We’re stuck in a tower in the Emerald City’s castle with Glinda and Elphaba, as one girl begs the other to choose between staying behind and increasing her personal power or working together to mount a resistance. They can’t decide whether it’s more important to try to change the system from within or to usher in a whole new system of government in Oz. 

What’s more: in the moment when Glinda and Elphaba should be figuring out how to consolidate their own power to counter the Wizard and Madame Morrible, they instead attack one another. Glinda tells Elphaba early in “Defying Gravity,” “I hope you’re happy how you’ve hurt your cause forever. I hope you think you’re clever.” Elphaba counters: “I hope you’re proud how you would grovel in submission, to feed your own ambition.” It’s reminiscent of Democratic infighting — how the party has always failed to coalesce behind its platform, even when they’re in power, whereas Republicans fall in line. 

In the movie, the girls’ failure to work together leads to devastating consequences for the talking animals. The Wizard continues to vilify them and many lose their rights to speak. In real life, immigrants and the LGBTQ community, and trans people in particular are in the crosshairs, left vulnerable to attacks both from the right and their supposed allies on the left. It’s uncertain if anyone will stand up for them — and if they do, will they receive support from the broader Democratic party? Or will the leaders decide to sacrifice vulnerable populations to win elections? We’ve already seen this happen in countries like the UK, where both the Conservative and the Labour party have attacked trans rights and shifted right on immigration. 

Unlike in real life, we know how the story of Wicked ends. Glinda aligns herself with the Wizard and Madame Morrible, catapulting herself into the most powerful position in the fictional country. Elphaba fakes her death and flees Oz. The girls both end up okay in the end, but in the interim the Wizard continues to attack the rights of the talking animals. They lose their ability to speak and many have to flee Oz. The first film may have captured the political uncertainty of our current moment — and the choice Democrats are faced with, but I suspect Chu’s second installment will feel equally politically prescient when it’s out next fall. It will serve as an augury for what will happen if Democrats fail to create a unified opposition.