ANEW: Wicked: Part 1 (The Movie) – A (Self-)Love Story
Originally published on Medium's Praise Song For the Day
John Chu’s Wicked: Part One (The Film), a Universal feature film (2024), opens with what looks like an outtake from the 1939 movie version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and the gang barrel toward Emerald City down the Yellow Brick Road, presumably to see the Wizard. After the opening number, we learn that the woman known as the Wicked Witch of the East is now dead — thanks to Dorothy, a bucket, and some water. Dead witch. Happy ending.
Not so fast. The story of Wicked is about so much more than a backstory from a novel, another movie, or even another play with the same or a similar name. More than anything, Wicked is about self-love. This theme is illuminated by bell hooks’ seminal work, All About Love, particularly Chapter Four, “Commitment: Let Love Be Love in Me.” As hooks writes:
One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet, I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn’t it, that I would dream of someone offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim “You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself” made clear sense. And I add, “Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.”
In an ideal world, we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting out our sunshine. If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born — waiting to see the light. (hooks, 67–8)
Elphaba, the so-called Wicked one in the movie, embodies what so many people try to change or rearrange about themselves. She stands as more than an anti-hero protagonist. She is a lover of knowledge, kind to her ungrateful and scared sister, and dutiful to her Munchkin father. Elphaba knows what love feels like because she has accepted herself exactly as she is, even with the concomitant hubris that often accompanies such radical acceptance. This hubris, ultimately, will contribute to her downfall.
Of course, there is always a love interest. In Wicked, that love interest, like so many, must learn to love himself before he can truly love another. Initially callow and shallow, he cares only about having a grand time at Shiz University. His journey toward self-awareness mirrors Elphaba’s steadfast commitment to her own values and identity.
Elphaba and hooks teach us that the power to be great stems from self-awareness and dedication to the things we care about deeply. Even when such dedication comes with a cost, it is a path worth taking. Their stories remind us that self-love is not merely an act of indulgence but a foundation for the kind of greatness that can endure — even in the face of ruin.
Curated Listening:
I don’t know about you, but I love a great movie musical. Listen to “Defying Gravity” (From Wicked The Soundtrack) HERE.