Pop Culture Happy Hour - Wicked And What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

The musical Wicked is a bold, revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz. It imagines that back in college, the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande) were best friends. The sprawling film delivers lavish spectacle, costumes, music, and choreography. But does the long-awaited film live up to the hype? Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Well, it's finally here. The musical Wicked is hitting movie screens across the world. It's a bold revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz, which imagines that back in college, the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch of the North, were best friends. Eventually... The sprawling film delivers lavish spectacle, costumes, music, choreography, and performances from Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Wicked on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is Waylon Wong.

She's the co-host of NPR's Daily Economics Podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. Hey, Waylon. Hello. Hello. Also with us is NPR producer, Mallory. Hey, Mallory. Hey, Glenn.

Well, let's get to it. It has been more than 20 years since Wiggott premiered. It became one of the highest grossing musicals in Broadway history. It's based on the novel by Gregory McGuire with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holtzman, who created this series My So Called Life. Did you all know that? I did not know that. It makes sense, though. It does make a certain amount of sense.

We'll get to that. The movie out today delivers only half the story, though, just the first act of the Broadway musical. You're going to have to wait till next year for Act 2. Wicked at Heart is a prequel, a revisionist one told from the point of view of the green-skinned Elphaba before she becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West. She's played by Cynthia Arrivo.

She becomes college roommates with the beautiful and privileged Gullinda, played by Ariana Grande. At first, they loathe each other, as Elfaba's natural magical abilities make her the star pupil of the sorceress Madame Morrible, who's played by Michelle Yew. But Elfaba has caused to be jealous, too, because Oz's favorite F-boy, Prince Fiero, takes a shine to Galinda instead of her. He's played by Jonathan Bailey and some very tight pants. All this takes place against a dark political movement that demonizes and scapegoats. See what I did there. Oz's talking animals, which outrages.

Elvaba and sets her on a path toward a fateful meeting with the Wizard of Oz himself, played by Jeff Goldblum. The movie is directed by John M. Chu, who made In the Heights and Crazy Rich Asians. It's in theaters now, but you don't need to know that. You have been run over by this juggernaut of marketing, as we all have. So, Waylon, let me start with you. What you make of it? You know, I have been training for this day. I have seen the musical three times. I did read the novel all the way back in high school when it came out as well. I love this musical. I bought the advent calendar already. I bought the Stanley Cup from Target. You know, I was really excited for this movie and I had a really good time. I think that I was thinking, what do I want out of

a movie version, right? Because I don't just want this flat recreation of the stage musical. You want something that expands the world. Absolutely. Gives you a lot of razzle-dazzle, takes advantage of the medium of film to expand the story and add something to it. And I feel like this movie gave it to me in these like huge, glorious set pieces. It also, because this is a movie, the actors can have, you know, more subtlety in their facial expressions. And I thought the performances were beautiful.

Like Ariana Grande, Cynthia Rivo, Jonathan Bailey. I love the performances. I was honestly enthralled by a lot of the musical numbers. So I think most of this movie worked for me. If you're a Wicked fan, this is going to check off a lot of your boxes, I think. Interesting. Yeah, you make some great points there. Mallory, what did you think?

I feel pretty similarly to Wayland. Wicked was one of my formative musicals in high school. And it's kind of like, finally, it's getting a movie adaptation. Like, we've been wanting one for 20 years. And I was a little skeptical because when you have had 20 years of fandom going into something and you've, like, seen all the fan art and, like, watched fan animations, like, it can feel sort of like your own expectations are insurmountable in a way. But I also really enjoyed myself.

I will still always have an emotional response to The Wizard and I. And Cynthia Arrivo's voice is just so beautiful. It's like a clear bell. Once I'm with the Wizard, my whole life will change. Because once you're with the Wizard, no one thinks you're strange. The production design and everything about the Wizard. this movie is really pretty to look at. And I really loved that there were certain stunts and certain moments that were done practically rather than in like CGI. I have to give a special shout

out to Michelle Yo's updo because I couldn't stop staring at it. And like Waylon said, I didn't have as much of a problem with the runtime and with the sort of part one and part two as I normally would because it expanded on the world. And I am. overall curious what the next one will be like. Okay. Yeah. We'll talk about that, too, what the next one's going to be like. Aisha, I have not read your review yet because it has not gone up as we're taping this.

I'm desperately curious. What do you think? It's me. Yes. Okay. Next. I am the girly who, not to be the one who says I saw the original show with Edina Mansell and Christian Chenoweth. But I did.

Slide in here. Oh, jealous. This is a very, one of the formative musicals of my high school era. You know, I went into this very excited. I've forgotten how I just pretty much know all of the words to every song in Act 1, and so it was very hard to contain myself while watching it. But this is fun. This is a movie where, to me, the biggest reason this works above anything else

is these central performances of Cynthia Irivo and Ariana Grande. They are pros. They are theater people who are also also know how to work in front of the camera. And so they are able to go big when they need to go big and they're able to, you know, take it in when you need to take it in. And they are just so perfectly cast, despite the fact that I'm sure by the end of this publicity tour that is probably going to go on for another year or so, they will be sick of each other on screen. They have so much chemistry. And I believe them when they are enemies and I believe them when they are friends. Pain goes good with grain. It goes well with green. It so does. So I just really appreciated that as well as the attention to detail with the choreography, Christopher Scott's choreography, it moves and the camera moves with it. It just feels like we are learning about these characters through the choreography, especially popular. Popular, you're going to be popular.

I'll teach you the proper boys when you talk to boys. There's so many little moments in there. And the costumes are just also very great. I love the moment where there's a heel that pops out. Like, surprise, it goes from a flat to a heel. I'm like, I want that. Like, that's great. We have options.

Alphabet's glasses are just like so frigging cool. Like I, Warby Parker, let's get on this. Make them. So yeah, it was fun, but I also have some caveats. And I'm sure we will get into that. But Glenn, I am so curious to hear your thoughts. I'll just come out and say it. I come at this purely from the book perspective.

I love the novel. I am a wicked skeptic, though. I have seen the classic Tony performances both at home and in gay bars across this land of ours in D.C. and Philly, and New York and Chicago, well, because they are staples. I have never seen the musical, but I have heard the cast album and hearing the cast album is one of the reasons I have never seen the musical. Okay, I'm just going to say it. I'm the one who was out here saying, why are they dividing this up, this musical with real talk people, three good

songs. Popular, Define Gravity for good, that's it. You heard it. That's me. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Controversial. I love this. But having seen it, I am prepared to change my stance. I mean, something has changed within me. Something is not

the same. Four good songs, I will say. I like the song about loathing. I like what is this feeling now? I didn't like it before. Yes. Great song. What is this feeling so sudden and new? I felt the moment I as on you. My pulse is rushing.

My head is reeling. Well, my face is flushing. What is this feeling? The fervid eyes of flame. Does it have a name? I mean, here's the thing. I think this ended up doing exactly what it needs to do. Wayland, it's exactly what you said.

You add without subtracting, right? This has to justify itself as a movie by staring into what movies do that theater doesn't. Go big budget, go Hollywood spectacle, add effects. build out this world. But at the same time, as you also mentioned, Whelan, you also have to do what movies can do that theater can't, which is to get up in their faces. There's a lot of close-ups in this movie,

so we can see the emotions underneath the surface. So that's a very complicated job description, right? Go bigger in terms of spectacle, but get more intimate at exactly the same time. I think this thing threaded that needle admirably with one huge, big exception, which is the one moment. This movie needed to nail, and I think it completely beefed it.

We'll get to that. In the meantime. Oh, I'm in suspense. I know, right. We've got to keep people listening. Talk to me, though, more about Arietta Grande. I think she's going to surprise some people. Some people who don't know what approach she is,

that she's got these Nickelodeon comedy chops. I think she's got great comic timing. And, again, we see the first stirrings of empathy on her face. You know, that's a moment that really stands out for me in this movie. Talk to me about Ariana. the Ariana of it all. Okay, I'll just come out and say that I wasn't a huge fan of Ariana Grande going into this. I've just not really been, you know, big on her voice and her public persona. And maybe that's just kind of like my own bias. Like I'm just too online and have seen too many memes. But I do have to say that her performance as Galinda really won me over. I think she does such a good job at being this. mean girl that you have this knee-jerk reaction to hate, but also you want to watch her because she's so fun. Everything that she is doing is pitch perfect for this character. And you can tell

that she really, really thought about her Galinda and like all of the fun little quirks that her Galinda specifically has, besides the hair tossing and everything. Are you looking for something or someone? One of my favorite Ariana moments, which is actually like a dual favorite moment between the two leads, is in the Oz Dust ballroom scene when they finally have their big friendship breakthrough. And Elfabah is doing this quirky dance. She's like the Elaine Bennis of Shiz University. She's doing this quirky dance. And the kids are making fun of her.

And then Galinda steps forward and does the dance with her in order to include her and show her solidarity and to show her. her friendship. And in the musical, the times that I've seen it, I feel like it's played a little broad, the mirror dancing scene and probably out of necessity because it's a stage production. And it's still a little bit played for laughs, I would say. And they, it's so earnest in the movie. It's so sincere. I literally cried. I mean, I cried within the first like five minutes, whatever. So I was already weeping at this point. But I was really moved by it. You know what I mean? And when they touch hands, I just thought it was really beautiful. and I thought Ariana and Cynthia really, really sold that moment to me

in a way that it wasn't sold to me as effectively in the stage version. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, my first thought when Glenda first starts singing in the movie, I was like, oh man, I'm so glad Ariana finally learned to enunciate. And let's be real. I say this as a fan, and she has gotten better in the last few years. Granted, she has done musical theater before.

This is not her first time. She is a theater kid, just like Cynthia Arriva is. they both are. It's funny because the way you felt Mallory about like going into it with your feelings about Ariana, I have about Cynthia Revo. Okay. Say more. Well, I mean, she has

she's a problematic public figure. We can talk about, we'll just talk about the thing that is like directly related to this movie, which is like there is a little kerfuffle where she got upset about a fan recreating the wicked poster and altering it to

make it look more like the Broadway poster version as opposed to the movie version. And Cynthia seemed to take it as like somewhat, I don't want to say racist, but like she was just like, this is offensive. And come on, girl. Like, she is very self-serious. Kind of Leah Michelleish is the vibe I get from her. Shots fired. But for all of that, she is a damn good performer.

And I cannot take that away from her. And that scene where she is dancing at the Oz's ballroom. Like the arm movements. There's just something really special about it. That earnestness, it feels real and it feels musical theatery, but like in the best way possible. It is very notable to have a black woman in this role because only one black woman, as far as I know, has played it in one of the productions full time. It was in the London West End production, which is crazy because it's absolutely an allegory for like persecuted minorities, whether it's queer. black, like, and green skin, come on.

So I think casting her makes it, like, those allegories that much more potent. And, like, you can't look away from it. Like, she has microbreeds. She has, like, and it's her face. It's Cynthia Revo. Like, I just had to point that out. Why is it you're always causing some sort of commotion? I don't cause commotions.

I am one. Yeah, well, that's for sure. So you think I should just keep my mouth shut? Is that what you're saying? What? No. No, I'm saying... You think I want to be this way?

You think I want to care this much? I mean... I know that my life would be much easier if I didn't care about it. Do you ever let anyone else talk? Now, Jonathan Bailey, S. Fierro, he was filming this while he was filming fellow travelers, in which he plays a character who is so wildly uncomfortable in their skin and ashamed of their sexuality and just going... Somebody who's going through it, that is not this guy.

That is rage. There is no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely. self-absorbed and deeply shallow. I really loved dancing through life. I loved the choreo. It was amazing. And I also really, really appreciated how there were moments where even though Wicked is not outwardly queer, there are ostensibly straight love interests.

I would say that Jonathan Bailey's Fierro is less straight than you might think. And I really liked seeing him like caress one of the other male students' faces. and how queer all the background actors looked and how they were styled. It just added another flavor to this musical that I've always loved. And it's like, oh, that's why I love this musical and that's why I love this character. Do you all have any standout song, any moments in the film? I mean, for me, it was popular. I thought that was the best part of the film.

Yeah. I mean, I also think that the final song, Defying Gravity, I think it lives. up to its stature. Instead of it being just on stage, it is a film, we are moving in different rooms. You have Elphaba flying out. There's a really kind of powerful moment where she's falling and she sees her younger self. Like, it adds a little bit of a layer to it that, like, you can't get on the stage. And the other thing I just love about this show, that Defying Gravity is about Elphabah's

like, I'm turning radical moment after being disappointed by the whiz and the fact that the wizz is actually like evil. While the book, Gregory McGuire's book, is way, way, way more like dark and talking about fascist movements and resisting fascist movements. Like the show, even though it's diluted a lot and there's like the plot is very, very different. Characters die in the book that don't hear. Even without all of that, this movie and the show still has the spirit of good versus evil and about who's complacent and who's not. And considering the times we are living in now, it felt very relevant. It felt very much like even though we had to wait 20 years for this movie to come, like it actually couldn't have arrived at a more perfect moment. Like there are lines out of here that

could have been plucked out and put into the newspaper. So I just appreciate that spirit and defying gravity kind of like is the culmination of all of that. It's just. It's just, just feels like, again, a satisfying end, but also a weirdly not satisfying end because now we know there's a whole other act that's not isn't as good, you know? Yeah. The song is just so powerful. It's always going to, you know, cause an emotional response. But I felt like having had to watch many of the wicked trailers that that moment felt really diluted for me. Like I really wish that movie trailers could stop showing us some of the most pivotal moments of the movie. You know, there's this moment where Elfabah first flies up into the air.

And I was like, wow, this would feel so much more impactful and emotional if I hadn't already been seeing it in the trailers. I think what you're reacting to is what I'm reacting to. And y'all fell into my elaborately set trap. It is defying gravity that totally beeps it. It is so woefully over edited. It is chopped all to hell. It doesn't trust the power of the performance.

That is a moment when we should be focused on her. It needs to be a three-step journey for her. She needs to come to realization, then determination, then renunciation. It is a declaration of war, right? And it starts out with, you know, she's addressing Linda at this point. It ends with her addressing those who would oppose her. So we got to stay with her. It is a moment of this kind of intimacy that I would.

was hoping the movie would get to. Intimacy, not spectacle. What the movie does instead is it trades emotional power for visual spectacle. We see her flying around like she's Henry Cabell and Man of Steel. We see her break the sound barrier. I don't care if the witch had whipped in the West breaks the damn sound barrier. That is not the vibe. Women and stem.

She keeps flying around this tower. She's flying away. Then she flies back. Then she rotates around it. And crucially, and I think this is really what's not working here, is that the wizard and Morrible and Glinda are all in separate places. So every time we get any reaction shot to them, it is them isolated. It has to be her addressing them collectively.

It diffuses the effect. They got to be in the same shot, which is why. This is the temptation I think the movie falls into where it wants to go bigger. It avails itself of all the cinematic things it can do. But you're totally sapping the power of that most iconic moment in this damn thing, which the theater delivers much better. That is a moment that just hits so much harder than it does without all this little. little CGI nonsense. Glenn, I actually agree with you on this point.

I say this tentatively. I don't think Defying Gravity was like totally beefed it. I think it lightly beefed it. Is that a term? I don't know. What scale am I using? And my big complaint with the way they stage Define Gravity is they try to make it into a big action sequence.

And you know what? It's not. And I, as an action movie, a Fiscianato, I need an action sequence to make logical sense and to make narrative sense. Okay. I see your points. And yes, the CGI was egregious. But I, it worked for me, in part because I think, yeah, stay with Alphabet, but it's hard to do that unless you change the song, because the song still has Alphaba and Glinda now, still has the two of them sort of having these moments together. I feel like you can't just stay with her. It's about Alphabet, but it's also about Elphaba

trying to convince Glinda to join her and then having a realization, like, we are not on the same side anymore. I guess I was just like at that point, I was just like so caught up in all of it. And I started crying. It was just like, it won it over for me. And I was just like, oh, man, this is the way to end it. We don't need anymore. I know what happens. Well, Anne, we know that, well, I don't, I'm not going to say this as if it's like fact. This is just my opinion. The second half of Wicked is not as strong. as the first. No, it's pretty objective. I'm pretty objective. Objective truth. I don't know if this is the part where we now get out all of our anxieties

about the second one, but I, how much I enjoyed the first one and how pleasantly surprised I was by it makes me dread the second one immensely because I'm like, now they're going to pat out the second one. The first one, this one, not as padded as I thought it would be. It was pretty padded. It was pretty padded. None of the other relationships outside of Glinda and Alphabar really expanded upon. It's like, Fierro, he's there. Bach, he's there. Nessa, none of the characterization

and none of the lore from McGuire's book is really incorporated. So I was like, how did we get two hours and 40 minutes into this? And like, all the songs are the same. And it's just like a lot more like visual stuff was added than like actual narrative stuff was added. But then think how much worse it's going to be for the second half because the stage musical, the second half, is only an hour.

So I'm like, are you going to make the second movie like, a tight 90? What is even going to happen? I think they're going to lean into the Dorothy of it all. Oh, no, thank you. That's my thinking. Like, they're going to bring in Dorothy and we're going to see more of like Fiero. I agree that the second act is weaker objectively. But there are, it does include some of my personal favorite songs in the musical. I love for good. Me too. No Godita is a really powerful moment for me in the second act. And I'm very excited to kind of see that play out. I will be very upset if the second one is longer than part one. Please, please, please, please, please. Evil, I, evil, I, evil, evil, evil, evil, I. Well, you know, we all came at this from different perspectives.

We all also came at this thing at the end of the day. It surprised us how much a good time we had in this film. So tell us what you think about Wicked. Look, I know the marketing is inescapable, but you just got to push past that. Check this out. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash p C-H and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description.

Up next, what is making us happy this week? Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Waylon, kick us off. What is making you happy this week. What's making me happy is this TikTok account. It's at some Ben-F-F-E-N. B-E-N-F-E-N.

It belongs to a British actor and playwright named Ben Fensum. And he's been doing this thing called Budget Pride and Prejudice, where he lip-sync scenes from the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice. I know this guy, yes. I'm obsessed with this version of Pride and Prejudice. It's my favorite one. I like it over the Joe Wright version by a nose. And so it lives in my bones.

Having him act out these scenes with very light homespun costuming, like he'll pin his t-shirt to make like a square neck when he's playing the ladies and he'll put, you know, kind of like a tablecloth on his head to play Lady Catherine to Burke and stuff. It's so good. It's so funny. And so I'm now watching Pride and Prejudice out of order in like little chunks done by this one guy. It's like a one-man show in TikTok. It's so good. So his TikTok account is at some Ben Fen. Thank you so much.

Waylon. Mallory, what is making you happy this week? So what is making me happy this week is that personally it has been a very good time for me to be a K-pop fan. Because not only do my current favorite groups, A.Ts and straight kids have new comebacks out, but one of my OG faves, like from back when I was in college, G Dragon has released a new song called Power and a corresponding MV. And I have maybe watched this music video, which is filmed in one continuous shot, an embarrassing number of times. And the song itself has, like, lived in my head. It's catchy and strong, and it's just so quintessentially G-Dragon. If you don't know who he is, he's a rapper, songwriter.

He was the leader of the hugely influential K-pop group Big Bang, which was the group that got me into K-pop. That's the song Power by G-Dragon, and that's what's making me happy this week. That's a great pick. Thank you very much, Mallory. Aisha, what is making you happy this week? Well, every once in a while, Disney, the machine, machine that it is will put out a compilation album made up of covers that are performed by an extremely

random assortment of musical artists. One of the most recent ones is probably my new favorite. It is called A Whole New Sound. It is the alt-rock emo version of these Disney compilation albums. So if you're a millennial, a lot of these band names will sound familiar. You've got simple plan doing Can You Feel the Love Tonight? You've gotten newfound glory doing part of your world. But the best song by far on this album is Magnolia Park's cover of Eye to Eye from a goofy movie. Whoa. Yes. This is just fun. It gets into all the, like, emo feels. This album just hits in a different way, and it just makes me feel young again. So that is a whole new sound, and it is streaming on Spotify

and anywhere else you can probably stream music. tell it's a great pick because of just the way the faces on this Zoom call lit up at every part of it. If this is representative of our listenership, and I think it is, that is a great pick. Okay, so what's making me happy this week? Astrobot, two words. It's a game for the PS5. It's a platformer.

It's got boss battles. I hate both those things. I'm not good at them, but this is so forgiving. So if you like me have no hand-eye coordination and you hate platformers and you suck it, boss battles, check this out. the complaints about this. It's a Mario rip-off. It is. It's just marketing for PlayStation, which it is. I think it transcends those complaints because, yeah, you're a little robot. You visit little planets to rescue other robots like you. Many of those robots turn out to

be just references to other PlayStation games on the long history of PlayStation. Fine. The thing about this game that makes it work for me is that you're never lost. If you miss some collectibles in a level, which you always will, you can go through that level again with a little robot bird that's going to point you to where all the collectibles are. And then, and here's the important thing, you don't have to complete the level. You don't have to go through the whole damn level again and fight the boss again. As soon as you get the thing, you can piece out and you get credit for just dipping your toe back in. It makes all the difference in the world.

I want to be challenged. I do not want to be frustrated. This walks that line effortlessly. That is Astrobot for the PS5. And that is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus more recommendations. sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter, and that brings us to the end of our show.

Mallory You, Waylon Wong, Aisha Harris. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Always fun to be here again. Until installment number two. Watch this space. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katzeth,

and Elel will come in provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Wilden, and we'll see you all next week.