Things That Make Me Go Hmmm: Wicked

So if you're new to this column of sorts, this is where yer boy Hank here gently (or not so gently) goes off not just on regular things that piss me off that most people agree on, but more likely piss me off that the gay community seems to love. Yeah. It's where I become that crotchety old guy unwilling to bend the knee to popular gay opinions. Strap in guys, cuz this one's gonna shake you to your queer-ass core, and it deals with the recent teaser drop of the second part of Wicked.

Y'all...I hate Wicked. 

There, I came out of the closet with my truth.

I disliked the original novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, in which he throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. And while a lot does indeed stick, a lot of it also sucks. He doesn't just nudge his reader into the satire of modern politics, using a classic tale that demonizes some women by telling the tale from their point of view; he bludgeons one over the head. Oh my gawd, yes, we get it! Elphaba represents any outsider, so of course the gays are gonna be all over this! But hey, unlike the musical creators who manage to suck any dark goodness from the novel and distill it to its most inane, pablum-fuelled nonsense, Maguire at least had the balls to kill off a beloved main character and give the story some real weight and gravitas. Oh yeah, spoiler alert, Prince Fiyero dies in the book.

Which brings me to the musical. When I was a school teacher and ran a high school theater, the show came out, and dear lord, I can't tell you how many students sang these earworms for auditions, for variety shows, and just walking down the halls. They knew I disliked what I was hearing, so one student implored me. "You just have to listen to the whole show!" So she burned me a copy of the CD, which is a thing we did back then. I got threw almost the entire show, and I just couldn't take it anymore, and almost to the end of the last song I ejected it from the car player and threw it out the window. Argh! Such unchallenging, insipid, mainstream pop drek! And it just doesn't make any sense. Like, why am I supposed to be endeared at all to Glinda, the Tulsi Gabbard of musical theater characters, who flipped ranks and sided with the fascists when given the choice!

And now that fucking movie...again! Here's what I posted on Facebook after I finally allowed myself the time to watch part one:

My god, why did no one warn me how unrelentingly boring this was going to be?!

This movie was as subtle as a sledgehammer. Every character, every plot line, every intention, every everything was all so obvious, so chock full of stock characters we’ve seen a thousand times before in any movie dealing with bullying and outsiders, petty power-hungry rulers and sycophants and followers, hierarchies of the haves and have-nots. All painted with the broadest strokes imaginable.

Every message they wanted you to walk away with (and my god there were So! Many! Messages!) were slammed upside your head with an iron-balled fist. Yes! We get it! We got them all! In the first hour!

Zero nuance and subtlety. It wasn’t until the scene with the creation of the flying monkeys did I perk up and pay some attention. And that occurred after almost two hours had dragged by!

And if the treatment of the animals was the driving motivation behind all of this…why do they only get a couple of short scenes? They are the main plot device yet are relegated to the background to make room for the pretty singing people. It’s almost as if this is the Wizard of Oz version of The Help, where the white saviors are centered in a story about Black people.

And don’t even get me started on Bowen Yang’s thoroughly noxious character. What kinda Stepin Fechit morphed with negative bitchy queen bullshit was that? Was that the only way to include gay representation? (Oh no, wait. There were all the queens fawning over Fyiero during his song.) Way to bow and scrape for the straights there, dude. Fucking embarrassing.

Dear lord, with all of this film’s admittedly glorious set pieces and inventive SFX and direction, how is this just so banal and insipid?

I see why the original show was nominated for everything and won almost nothing, and same with the film.

Yes I’ll watch part two sometime after its release, only because I wanna see how angry I’ll get that Fyiro lives in this and isn’t killed off like he is in the book.