The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Some movies need no spoiler warnings at all, and I’m confident that the famous 1939 MGM Technicolor musical The Wizard of Oz is one of them. It is that well ingrained into American pop culture and Old Hollywood nostalgia and overall public consciousness. I mean, Star Wars is pretty famous too, but you hear of people who don’t know which characters are which, or what the major plot twists are, or get the references. But I have yet to hear of someone who doesn’t know the context of “I’m melting!” or “We’re not in Kansas anymore!” or “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” or tapping ruby slippers together.

As a kid, I knew the plot of the film well before I ever sat and watched it through. And I’d seen The Wizard of Oz a few times (okay, the majority of those were probably that thing where you play Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album on repeat in lieu of the real soundtrack) before reading the actual L. Frank Baum novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900.

For a film that is routinely listed as one of the greatest of all time, it didn’t turn a profit for a while due to its huge budget, and the original production was all over the place. The main director was Victor Fleming, but the Internet Movie Database also mentions George Cukor, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, and King Vidor. Screenwriters were Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf, along with a bunch of uncredited contributors. The Academy Award-winning score was by Herbert Stothart.

While Baum’s original 1900 novel is in public domain, the 1939 film is not. Warner Brothers, the current intellectual property owner, is famously protective of the copyright. Anyone can make their own adaptation of the novel — which is totally weird at some points and would be both fun and possible nowadays to make a straightforward faithful adaptation of — but one has to be careful about well-known plot elements that were actually created for the movie. The “silver shoes” being replaced by glamorous sparkly “ruby slippers” to showcase the Technicolor visuals, is one famous example.

Another example I didn’t realize was new to the 1939 film, was the Wicked Witch of the West and the Winkies having green skin. (They are yellow-themed in the original book.) However, Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked and its subsequent stage and film adaptations were able to use the green skin concept.

The transition from sepia-toned Kansas to full color Munchkinland was a such a great touch in the movie. This is a nod to the original book, where Kansas is described as gray, before Dorothy is dropped off in the blue-themed Munchkin Country. The original illustrations by R. R. Denslow emphasize different colors for different regions in the Land of Oz — the central Emerald City is obviously in green, the western Winkie Country is yellow, and the deadly poppy fields and the southern Quadling Country are red.

But I’m not mainly here to parse out the technical differences — it’s the thematic ones that were the most interesting to me.

One striking thing the movie did was adding the entire first act — the extended sequence showing Dorothy’s sepia-toned life in Kansas and wanting to get away.

In the original Baum novel, rural Kansas is described as dreary and gray (again, single tone colors are emphasized in the book), but Dorothy herself has no complaints about where she lives with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry. The tornado happens immediately, transporting her and her dog Toto to a strange new country, and Dorothy just wants to find her way to her home and family as any normal kid would in that situation. The protagonist has a predicament foisted upon her, and then has to find her way out of it.

The musical movie, however, adds this whole extra inner conflict about belonging and coming of age (on top of somewhat neutering the fantasy elements by making the entire Land of Oz sequence a dream while she was knocked out). Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) is frustrated that her Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin) and Auntie Em (Clara Blandick) are preoccupied with farm work and don’t immediately listen to her problems. Namely, that her nasty neighbor Almira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton) is after her dog Toto, has struck him with a rake, and wants him put down. Margaret Hamilton, of course, also plays The Wicked Witch of the West in the main technicolor sequence — totally foreshadowed as Miss Gulch herself is called a (metaphorical) witch. The Wicked Witch is often cited as a one-dimensional villain who is mean for no reason at all, and when you’re seeing the movie as a kid that’s what it feels like.

Yet something that hits different watching as an adult is… there’s actually more nuance than the movie gets credit for? Almira Gulch actually has some legitimate grievances? Dorothy herself admits Toto gets into Miss Gulch’s garden and chases her “nasty old cat” every day. Dorothy phrases it like the cat was asking for it, but a later scene in the film shows Toto chasing after a well-behaved cat unprovoked and causing a distraught Dorothy to miss her ride home. So, on one hand, Miss Gulch wants to enjoy her property away from trespassing dogs, protect her work in her garden (it is work!) and protect her cat the way Dorothy wants to protect Toto. Oh, and Toto bit her too… again, on her own property… not a trivial thing in 1900 before antibiotics were in use. (And it is 1900, not 1939, in the story. Judging by the Edwardian fashion and lack of technology, the film was a period piece set at the time of the original novel.)

And yet… Almira Gulch is just plain mean in ways that go beyond the legitimate grievance, has a reputation for using her wealth to bully everyone in the county, and seems like a Nurse Ratched type who uses a socially acceptable excuse to be cruel. She enjoys overreacting and pretends there is no middle ground between going nuclear and just putting up with it — for example, she rejects Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s offer to tie up the dog and keep him out of her property. She doesn’t want to solve a problem — she wants for somebody to hurt. She wants nothing short of Toto getting killed.

Dorothy takes some solace that the farmhands Hunk (Ray Bolger), Hickory (Jack Haley), and Zeke (Bert Lahr), are nice to her. Hunk, whose Land of Oz lookalike is The Scarecrow, advises Dorothy to use her brains and just not go by Miss Gulch’s home when she’s out with Toto. “Your head ain’t made of straw, you know!” Zeke, whose lookalike will be The Cowardly Lion, tells her to have courage. Hickory, whose doppelganger will be the Tin Man, brags that he will have a statue in his likeness. Auntie Em tells Dorothy to find a place where she won’t get into any trouble.

Instead of taking personal responsibility and maybe just not going with Toto into Miss Gulch’s property, Dorothy assumes such a wonderful place without trouble is “somewhere over the rainbow,” cue the famous song. There’s the difference between internal locus of control, where the story is later headed toward, and external locus of control, which is being expressed right now. It’s a classic coming-of-age trope and totally understandable for a kid her age. Relatable for adults too — a similar lesson learned by Holly Golightly and Don Draper that changing your external surroundings won’t take you away from your internal problems.

The Wizard of Oz is rich with archetypes. Dorothy is the classic Hero, although commentators give her flack for her damsel-like fragility and not being a modern empowered action girl. Yeah, sometimes Dorothy just sits down and cries, but… so do her older male friends! It’s part of the theatrics! And Dorothy Gale’s tempestuous emotionality goes both ways. With Judy Garland’s memorable performance, Dorothy is the clear leader of the group, she’s feisty, she has a bold streak, and if a powerful person is being mean or obstructive, she won’t hesitate to speak up and give them a piece of her mind.

Miss Gulch / The Wicked Witch of the West is the Shadow, which you can think of as a dark reflection of the Hero’s own worst traits. Again, Miss Gulch is not just mean out of nowhere — she is provoked by circumstances that reasonable people would get mad about. Like Dorothy, she too wants to be in a world without trouble — but she doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process. Miss Gulch’s strident behavior — black-and-white thinking, being unable to handle conflict in a rational and proportional way, aiming to hurt rather than to solve a problem — is what happens when someone never really grows up or gains a sense of their own self-control. The Wicked Witch’s death — melting from having water inadvertently thrown on her — indicates someone too fragile to handle life itself. It’s a coming-of-age story, and Dorothy needs to cultivate her best traits and grow up not like that. The trope is invoked in Munchkin Country when, to Dorothy’s confusion, she is asked whether she is a good witch or a bad witch.

Other characters reflect different aspects of the Hero, and Toto is the trope of the animal sidekick who is like an extension of the main character’s personality — not always, but often, an exaggerated, uninhibited, and more impulsive version of them. See Holly Golightly’s cat with no name in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Ichigo Kurosaki’s uncontrollable sidekick Kon in Bleach, the entire premise of Ted, and most of the Disney animated catalogue. The Wizard of Oz was aiming for this trope quite deliberately — such as the scene where Uncle Henry pretends not to know whether Dorothy or the dog bit Miss Gulch’s leg, and Dorothy gets exasperated with Miss Gulch and says “Oh, I’ll bite you myself!”

When Dorothy starts on her journey through the Land of Oz while dreaming and meets the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, they pursue a common goal to see to the Wizard of Oz hoping he will give them what they believe they are missing in themselves. The Scarecrow wants a brain — but while he lacks a literal brain, he is obviously smart and a great problem-solver. The Tin Man wants a heart — but while he lacks a literal heart, he obviously has emotion and compassion and nobility. The Lion wants courage — but while he is frightened easily, he finds it in himself to do what needs to be done anyway. These characters, pursuing a common goal side by side with the Hero, are what screenwriter Chris Vogler calls the Allies archetype. But they also fit Carl Jung’s idea of the Animus, aspects of a woman’s personality represented by different types of male figures appearing in dreams.

In one scene, Dorothy says she feels like she has known her three travel companions for a long time. The most obvious interpretation of this is that they look like the three farm workers back home. But in a deeper thematic sense, they are aspects of her own self that the same farm workers had encouraged her to cultivate at the beginning of the movie. Hunk (the Scarecrow) tells her to use her brains, and Zeke (the Lion) tells her to find her courage. Hickory (the Tin Man) doesn’t have any direct advice, but he has the line about being made into a statue — the potential for nobility and greatness.

If the mysterious wizard Oz himself (Frank Morgan) is another potential animus figure — after all, he also appeared in the real-life Kansas sequence as Professor Marvel pretending to use a crystal ball to give some actually decent advice — then that roughly maps onto Jung’s four Animus stages: the first is physical power (Cowardly Lion), the second is a spirited and romantic figure of planned action (Tin Man), the third is a scholarly man of words (Scarecrow), and the fourth is wisdom and spiritual meaning (Oz).

In completing Oz’s dangerous assignment to kill the Wicked Witch of the West, the group goes through the “Atonement With the Father” and “Apotheosis” stages of the Joseph Campbell Hero’s Journey.

But here is where the archetype gets complicated and somewhat subversive — because of course Oz turns out to be a fraud and a scammer. He was never an actual wizard, just some guy from Omaha who was good at creating illusions. But there is a real-life point being made there — the authority figures, experts, and institutions we are asked to revere as all-knowing and powerful, may be fraudulent and not have our best interests in mind. Or, a more charitable interpretation is they are just normal people who are doing their best, making it up as they go along and faking it ‘til they make it. The movie leans toward this second interpretation, as Oz is sheepish rather than vengeful about being found out, gives Dorothy’s friends the tokens and advice they want, and attempts to help Dorothy return home.

Going back to Dorothy’s potential for greatness — a character who already has arrived at greatness is Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke), who matches up with Joseph Campbell’s “Crone” or “Wise Old Woman” archetype. She is the genuine article, she has real magic, and she is the one who meets the protagonist at the beginning of the Special World and gives her the objects needed to make the journey — her supernatural protection and the magical ruby slippers.

At the end of the movie, the wise mentor figure Glinda meets Dorothy again and reveals the slippers always had the power to return her to Kansas. The Scarecrow asks why Glinda never told Dorothy before, and Glinda replies that Dorothy would not have believed her and she had to learn it for herself. She responds that it was not enough to literally want go home to her aunt and uncle, but in her own inner life:

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, then I never really lost it to begin with.”

Again, the point isn’t that Dorothy needed to appreciate her home — while there’s a “be careful what you wish for” element absent from the original L. Frank Baum novel, Dorothy does want to return home right away. There is no indication that she wanted to remain in the exotic land once she actually got there. In context of the movie, Dorothy’s “own back yard” is a metaphor referring to her own ability to handle life’s problems, and not run away from them.

Dorothy’s internal journey has a lot of similarities to that of Peter Gibbons in Office Space. (Office Space makes an explicit Wizard of Oz reference, with “We’re Not In Kansas Any More!” and ruby slippers on a flair button.) Both Dorothy Gale and Peter Gibbons clash with a real-life petty bully — Miss Gulch and Mr. Lumbergh — and hope to fix their problems by unrealistically changing their circumstances. But at the end, as the protagonists realize the change they need is internal, the antagonists become irrelevant and just drop out of the story. (I’ve read that in cut scenes and / or earlier drafts, Miss Gulch and Mr. Lumbergh died in the tornado and the office fire, respectively.)

The Wicked Witch of the West became irrelevant after she melted, and was not Dorothy’s main problem — the main problem was being led on a wild goose chase for external help that was never going to be real. Miss Gulch is also irrelevant, and whether she died or survived to go after Toto again, Dorothy now has the internal power to deal with trouble (or avoid it to begin with).

Again, the addition of the extended scene in Kansas and the addition of real-world counterparts to the Land of Oz characters, all change the theme of the film adaptation drastically from the original novel.

Dorothy Gale does not have an intense internal transformation in the original book, but like James Bond in Doctor No, it is not the kind of story that requires it. The adventure and the extensive worldbuilding make it interesting. There are decades of credible theories that these details add up to a political allegory of the time period — the year 1900 was late in the Gilded Age and early in the Progressive Era, and Kansas had been a hotbed of populist political movements. However, there is no consensus on what exactly the details and characters are supposed to be allegories of.

In the book, the beginning scene of Kansas is very short. There is no indication that Dorothy is running away from something, or discontent with her home, or tempting fate with a song about wishing to be far away, or needing to take responsibility for her own role in a dispute with a nasty neighbor, or needing to learn personal agency in general. The film version of Dorothy was also never in real danger besides the initial tornado, with the entire main part of the movie being just a dream for stuff her unconscious needed to work out.

The original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is just about a random farm kid in the wrong place at the wrong time when the tornado transports her to a strange land in real life, with real dangers. Just an ordinary person who has to test her mettle and overcome all these obstacles she never asked for, and find new friends to make the perilous journey with. Importantly, it is the Good Witch of the North — not Glinda of the South — who sets Dorothy on her way with the silver shoes.

While the 1939 MGM film was a faithful adaptation by the standards of its time period, the book is still very tonally different from the movie. Having been in public domain for a long time, someone could totally make an even more faithful adaptation of the novel with surrealist animation in the vein of Yellow Submarine or Fantastic Planet.

The basic characterization is kept from novel to film: the Scarecrow wants a brain but doesn’t realize how intelligent he already is, the Tin Man wants a heart but doesn’t realize how sensitive and compassionate he already is, and the Lion wants courage but doesn’t realize how brave he already is. Dorothy wants to go home and doesn’t realize how easy it could have been — more on that later.

But at 104 minutes long, including extended musical sequences, the movie had to cut a lot of adventure and peril from the book. In the film, the “journey” was a delightful song-filled stroll through a short, paved hiking trail — interrupted once or twice by the Wicked Witch’s threats. In the book, the journey to Emerald City was definitely more Oregon Trail than vaudeville musical. There were rivers to ford, dangerous terrain to cross, dwindling food supplies to be worried about — so, so much worry over food and water. Since the Land of Oz is canonical and not just a dream in the original book, Dorothy’s friends have their own backstories that have to deal with their own mortality or lack thereof.

“To be sure neither the Woodman nor the Scarecrow ever ate anything, but [Dorothy] was not made of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed.”

Mortality and physical vulnerability are major themes in the book. The novel’s version of the “no place like home” line happens early, as Dorothy tells the Scarecrow, “No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.” This is in the context of the Scarecrow sharing his backstory, being very recently created by Munchkin farmers. Having a stuffed body means he cannot get hurt, and he has no physical needs for sleeping and eating and drinking, but he believes those inconveniences would be worth it for the ability to think.

The Tin Man, on the other hand, is a cyborg who used to be a mortal man. In his previous life, a witch went after him and caused all his body parts to be chopped off and replaced with metal one by one like a Ship of Theseus — so he ended up with an artificial body that is more physically resilient except for rust. Having a tin torso, he is missing his heart, and missed his chance at love. The Tin Man is actually very conscientious and careful to not so much as hurt a bug. His logic is that people with hearts automatically know how to act around others — but without one, he has to be careful and err on the side of caution and manually figure out what to do.

When they meet the Lion, the latter asks whether Dorothy’s dog Toto is made of tin or stuffed, and Dorothy stutters back that he is a “meat dog.” The Lion is strong and has a major role in getting the team past physical obstacles. But as a mortal, the Lion is vulnerable to the Deadly Poppy Field and, unlike Dorothy and Toto, too heavy for the Tin Man and Scarecrow to carry. Fortunately, he is saved by the Tin Man’s ability to find allies, and the Scarecrow’s ingenuity.

In the original novel, the Oz character is a lot less sympathetic. He meets Dorothy’s party one by one, instead of as a group, and repeatedly preaches and guilts and manipulates them about their need to do a (difficult, dangerous, morally injurious) favor for him, in exchange for his (ostensibly easy) favors for them. Out of desperation, they agree to the quest to somehow assassinate the Wicked Witch of the West who — as evil as she was — was actually out of the picture and minding her own business, rather than trying to kill them like in the movie. Of course, Oz never had the ability to give them what they wanted in exchange for risking their lives and committing murder for him, so all his preaching about “everyone must pay for everything he gets” was super hypocritical.

The small group of adventurers put up a great fight against the Wicked Witch’s massive forces, but Dorothy ends up captured anyway and brought with Toto to the villain’s lair. The Wicked Witch seems to have lost some of her mortal traits:

“Once the Witch struck Toto a blow with her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg, in return. The Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before.”

Dorothy ends up killing the witch by accident, throwing water on her in frustration.

“Didn’t you know water would be the end of me?” asked the Witch, in a wailing, despairing voice.

“Of course not,” answered Dorothy; “how should I?”

It’s another theme of the story — Dorothy has no idea what’s going on, she is just a normal person doing her best with what she knows.

When the main characters liberate Winkie Country, return to Emerald City, and figure out Oz’s scam, the latter to his credit does give Dorothy’s friends some encouraging words and the physical tokens they wish for — just like in the film. He also offers Dorothy a ride back home on his hot air balloon, although he is rather nonchalant when she accidentally misses the ride.

In more action left out of the movie, the group has to take a whole extra journey to the southern quadrant to find the Good Witch of the South for Dorothy’s sake. The good witch Glinda appears for the first time here in the original novel — so there were two different Good Witches, not one withholding information from Dorothy as a test of character. Glinda lets her know that the silver shoes could have taken her home to Kansas any time she wanted, if she had only known their real power. But Dorothy’s friends speak up about how she had helped them on the otherwise unnecessary journey: she saved the Scarecrow from a boring life stuck in the cornfield, she saved the Tin Man from being frozen in place and rusted indefinitely, and she saved the Lion from a life of cowardice. So all that time and peril was not wasted.

“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule beside, I think I should like to go back to Kansas.”

This shows a different theme compared to Dorothy’s film line about looking for her heart’s desire. The original novel emphasized the bonds of friendship and experience, overcoming hardships together, an ordinary person rising up and doing her best in unexpected circumstances, sort of the idea that “the journey is the destination.” While the movie was an internal character transformation accomplished via dream sequence, the book was about overcoming physical peril through friendship, cooperation, and resourcefulness. Emphasis is on the physical — a recurring theme is the paradox that flesh-and-blood mortality is both a burden and a gift.

Comparing the 1900 novel and the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz is a great study in writing and how the basic plot beats of a story can be kept intact, but a little added first-act sequence can dramatically transform the core themes of that same story.

The Wiz (1978) is an underrated contemporary (for the time) adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with an all-black cast including Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow, and Richard Pryor as Oz. Based on the 1974 stage musical of the same name, The Wiz takes place in New York City, with Dorothy as a young adult living with her aunt and uncle. At 24 years old, she is shy, not feeling connected with her extended family’s Thanksgiving gathering, and her aunt encourages her to make a career change and “make a home of your own.” A snowstorm sweeps Dorothy and Toto into the cityscape of Oz and, like the 1939 musical, the journey spurs on internal character development and new confidence as Dorothy helps others and encourages them to recognize their own best traits.

Even though it has a 1970s aesthetic, in some ways The Wiz is actually closer to the L. Frank Baum novel than the 1939 film. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion have their own backstories similar to what is revealed in the book, Dorothy’s shoes are silver, the Munchkins are blue-themed, the wicked witch is not green, and other specific plot points from the book are included. Even as a kid-friendly film, The Wiz has plenty of wonderfully weird and unsettling imagery that fits with the tone of the original story — I especially loved the creepy subway sequence, a precursor to today’s “Backrooms” style horror. The Emerald City sequence with its satire of fashion and analog mass media is also great.

Wicked (2024) is a blockbuster fantasy film based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire and its subsequent 2003 stage musical adaptation. The 1995 novel had more adult content and themes, with Oz as a totalitarian ruler, and Elphaba the so-called “Wicked Witch of the West” as a morally complicated protagonist. The 2024 film and its 2025 follow-up (I have not seen Wicked: For Good yet) are much more kid-friendly, and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is a straight-up hero who is misunderstood and stigmatized.

The 2024 first part film is basically a superhero origin story, with Elphaba starting life rejected for being born with green skin. As an ostracized college-age young adult, she dreams of meeting Oz (Jeff Goldblum) with the belonging and understanding that would mean. She’s actually quite a bit like the 1939 Dorothy: earnest, protective of animals, and her passions are both her greatest strength and the thing that gets her into trouble. Since we already know her idol will turn out to be a fraud at best, Elphaba is of course destined for disappointment. Elphaba enrolls at Shiz University to study sorcery under Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), and develops an unlikely friendship with Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande), popular and preppy in pink. I say this with affection, but it felt somewhat like a high-production-value Harry Potter fanfiction where the canonically heroic kids are transformed into shallow preps and and the canonical bullies like Draco Malfoy were nice, misunderstood goths and nerds. Yet, Wicked actually does have pretty well-presented themes of how scapegoating works.

“And when people are hungry and angry, well then they begin to look for —” “someone to blame.”

“And back where I come from, everybody knows that the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

Some commentators say Wicked is a unfortunate subversion of the L. Frank Baum book — but I see it as more of a tribute to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which already had similar themes of authority figures turning out to be liars and hypocrites. Plus, the tale of the heroic protagonist unfairly blamed for problems, and the subsequent testing of a relationship, is a classic trope seen in movies like The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and The Dark Knight (2008).

There are lots of Wizard of Oz adaptations and other pop culture tributes out there, but The Wiz and Wicked stood out to me as great complements to the famous 1939 classic.

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