Classification: WOKE TRAP

WOKE 31 | TRADITIONAL 16 | Composite -15 WOKE

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⚠️ SPOILER ALERT: This review contains detailed plot analysis and reveals key story elements.

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Opening Hook

Somewhere between the 400 brand partnerships, the Limited Edition pink-and-green Stanley cups, and the church-group holiday matinees, something got lost in translation. Universal sold Wicked as the feel-good movie event of 2024 — a splashy, joyful, family-safe musical spectacle perfect for Thanksgiving weekend. And on a surface level, that's what it is: two hours and forty minutes of lavish production design, powerhouse vocal performances, and enough glitter to fill a Macy's float. What the marketing did not mention — couldn't mention, without breaking the spell — is that this particular story has functioned as a progressive anthem for two decades, that the cast is stacked with openly queer performers, that its director publicly compared his villain to a 2024 presidential candidate, and that casting a Black woman as a character who faces institutionalized discrimination for the color of her skin was, by the filmmakers' own description, a deliberate and meaningful interpretive choice. Wicked is not trying to trick you — not exactly. The ideology is right there in the material, baked in for twenty years. But the packaging says something different. And that gap is worth understanding before the lights go down.

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Plot Summary

In the magical Land of Oz, the news is spreading: the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. The citizens celebrate. But before we join the celebration, the film pulls us back to where it all began — Shiz University, where two young women from entirely different worlds were thrown together as roommates and, somehow, became friends.

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) arrives at Shiz as an outsider twice over: green-skinned by birth, the object of lifelong mockery and discrimination, and fiercely brilliant in a world that isn't looking for brilliance from someone who looks like her. She's escorting her younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode), the family favorite, to school. Glinda (Ariana Grande, née Galinda) arrives as the opposite: pink, popular, socially omnipotent, and blissfully certain that the universe orbits around her. Their forced cohabitation begins with mutual hostility — "What Is This Feeling?" is their mutual anthem of loathing — and slowly transforms into something richer and more complicated.

At Shiz, Elphaba discovers two things: that her magic is extraordinary, and that the Land of Oz is rotting from the inside. Dr. Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage), the gentle Goat professor who becomes her mentor, reveals that the Animals of Oz — sentient beings who once lived alongside humans as equals — are being systematically stripped of their civil rights and, horrifyingly, their ability to speak. Someone in power is orchestrating it. When Elphaba's exceptional gifts catch the attention of the formidable Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the headmistress arranges for her to meet the great and wonderful Wizard of Oz himself (Jeff Goldblum).

Elphaba arrives at the Emerald City believing she's found a powerful ally who shares her concern for the Animals. She's wrong. The Wizard is the architect of their oppression — a charming, charismatic fraud who uses fear and propaganda to maintain his grip on power, and who now wants Elphaba to join him and use her magic in his service. She refuses. In a breathtaking climax, Elphaba escapes the Emerald City on her broomstick, rising above it all while a city that once adored her turns against her — and "Defying Gravity" becomes one of the most electric moments in recent blockbuster filmmaking.

Glinda, caught between loyalty to her friend and the comfortable position the Wizard is offering her, watches Elphaba go. She cannot yet follow. The film ends there — mid-story, mid-fall, mid-flight — as Part One of two.

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Trope Analysis — VVWS Weighted Scoring

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

Authenticity: High (organic to story)=0.7, Moderate=1.0, Low (injected)=1.4 | Centrality: Low=0.5, Moderate=1.0, High=1.8

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity (1–5)	Authenticity	Centrality	Weighted Score
Race Allegory / Race-Conscious Casting as Central Framing	4	Moderate (1.0)	High (1.8)	7.2
"Defying Gravity" as Feminist/LGBTQ+ Liberation Anthem	3	Moderate (1.0)	High (1.8)	5.4
Anti-Authority Ideology as Heroic Framework	4	High (0.7)	High (1.8)	5.0
Minority Rights Allegory (Animals losing civil rights)	4	High (0.7)	High (1.8)	5.0
Queer Ensemble Cast / Bisexual Fiyero / LGBTQ+ Subtext	3	Moderate (1.0)	Moderate (1.0)	3.0
Director's Public Progressive/Anti-Trump Political Framing	2	Low (1.4)	Moderate (1.0)	2.8
Oz as Fascism Allegory / Propaganda / Systemic Oppression	3	High (0.7)	Moderate (1.0)	2.1
WOKE TOTAL	30.5

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity (1–5)	Authenticity	Centrality	Weighted Score
Female Friendship as Narrative Anchor	4	High (0.7)	High (1.8)	5.0
Authenticity / Being True to Yourself Despite Social Cost	4	High (0.7)	High (1.8)	5.0
Moral Courage — Refusing to Collaborate with Injustice	3	High (0.7)	Moderate (1.0)	2.1
Classic Outsider / Coming-of-Age Arc	3	High (0.7)	Moderate (1.0)	2.1
Loyalty Tested and Honored	2	High (0.7)	Moderate (1.0)	1.4
Joy, Spectacle, and Delight as Film's Primary Mode	2	High (0.7)	Low (0.5)	0.7
TRAD TOTAL	16.3

Score Margin: -14 WOKE

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Woke Trap Assessment

⚠️ WOKE TRAP WARNING — Degree: Moderate

Universal's Wicked is a textbook woke trap — but not of the aggressive, manufactured variety. This is something subtler and in some ways more durable: a story that arrived pre-ideologized, wrapped in a century of Oz mythology and two decades of LGBTQ+ community ownership, and sold to mainstream America as a family musical.

The trap has a specific mechanism. Wicked the Broadway show has been one of the LGBTQ+ community's signature anthems since it opened in 2003. Elphaba — the green-skinned outsider who refuses to suppress her true self in order to be accepted — has resonated powerfully with queer audiences for whom "different" has always been weaponized as shame. "Defying Gravity" is not merely a show-stopping climax; it has functioned for years as a cultural battle cry for anyone who was ever told that who they are makes them unacceptable. The LGBTQ+ community didn't retroactively claim Wicked — the text invited them in from the beginning.

Jon M. Chu's film adaptation leans into this legacy while adding its own layer. Casting Cynthia Erivo — a Black, openly queer woman — as Elphaba was not incidental. Variety called Wicked "an allegory for the arbitrary nature of racism and discrimination," and noted that casting Erivo "particularly" amplified that meaning. The filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing: Elphaba's green skin had always been a stand-in for social otherness; casting a Black actress collapses the metaphor into something immediate and specific. Jonathan Bailey, openly gay, plays Fiyero with what reviewers enthusiastically described as "bisexual energy" — he flirts with men and women alike throughout the film. Bowen Yang (gay) plays a supporting role; Marissa Bode (queer) plays Nessarose. Four of the film's leads are openly queer performers, in a story the LGBTQ+ community has claimed for two decades, in a film the director publicly called prophetic in light of Donald Trump's 2024 re-election.

Conservative Christian group One Million Moms launched a boycott, calling the film "dark" and accusing Universal of trading "its usual subtlety for intentionality." For once, that assessment is not entirely unfair.

The degree is "moderate" rather than "severe" for two reasons. First, the LGBTQ+ subtext is subtext — the film contains no explicit gay relationship, no coming-out moment, no direct advocacy. Conservative families can watch it without encountering overt content their children won't be able to process. Second, the traditional elements — female friendship, moral courage, authenticity, the refusal to collaborate with injustice — are not window dressing. They are the story. Wicked works as well as it does emotionally because those themes are genuine, old, and true.

But knowing the full picture before you buy the ticket is exactly what this review is for.

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Creative Team at a Glance

• Director: Jon M. Chu — Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights, G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Consistent identity-politics-oriented filmography. Publicly connected Wicked to anti-Trump/anti-fascist sentiment.
• Writer: Winnie Holzman — Adapted her own Broadway book for the screen. Creator of My So-Called Life. The progressive themes in Wicked are hers; she wrote them twenty years ago.
• Lead Producer: Marc Platt (Universal Pictures) — Long-time Wicked producer, shepherded the property from stage to screen over nearly a decade. Commercially motivated; ideologically aligned with the material.
• Top Cast: Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba), Ariana Grande (Glinda), Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Jeff Goldblum (The Wizard), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible), Ethan Slater (Boq), Bowen Yang (Pfannee), Marissa Bode (Nessarose). Notable: Erivo, Bailey, Yang, and Bode are all openly queer performers.
• Pre-Viewing Prediction: WOKE TRAP — Creative team's ideological alignment and source material's progressive pedigree made outcome highly predictable. Confirmed.
• Fidelity Casting Note: Wicked is an adaptation of a musical that already reimagined L. Frank Baum's Oz. Casting a Black actress as Elphaba is a meaningful interpretive departure from both the novel and original Broadway production — and by the filmmakers' own statements, a deliberate one intended to sharpen the racial allegory. Apply the fidelity standard accordingly: this is not colorblind casting; it is race-conscious casting with a specific ideological argument behind it.

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Director / Writer Track Record

Director: Jon M. Chu

Jon M. Chu is, above all, a craftsman — his films are beautifully constructed, visually dazzling, and emotionally alive in ways that many of his more overtly political contemporaries are not. But his ideological alignment is consistent and increasingly public.

Filmography with ideological assessment:

• G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013): Commercial franchise sequel. No meaningful ideological signal. The outlier in his filmography.
• Crazy Rich Asians (2018): A landmark moment for Asian-American representation in mainstream Hollywood. The film's identity politics are organic to its story — it's about a Chinese-American woman navigating the expectations of a wealthy Singaporean family — and executed with genuine warmth and artistry. It is openly a film about cultural identity and belonging, and makes no secret of it.
• In the Heights (2021): Lin-Manuel Miranda's love letter to the Washington Heights immigrant community. Celebrates Latino culture, family legacy, and the immigrant experience with exuberant sincerity. A film with politics baked into its DNA — and made with enough skill and love that even those who don't share its politics can find something real in it.
• Wicked (2024): His most commercially successful film and his most politically explicit act of public commentary. While the source material's ideology predates his involvement, his casting choices, his public statements connecting the film to the 2024 election, and his decision to film a bisexually flirtatious Fiyero are all directorial interpretations, not inherited facts.

Pattern: Chu consistently gravitates toward stories about people who don't fit the dominant social structure. His films celebrate cultural outsiders, challenge assimilationist pressures, and treat identity as something to be embraced rather than suppressed. This is not incidental — it is the organizing principle of his career. He is genuinely talented and genuinely ideological. Both things are true.

Ideological tendency: PROGRESSIVELY ALIGNED. Identity-politics-focused. Increasingly public about it.

Writer: Winnie Holzman

Winnie Holzman is the rare screenwriter who adapted her own work — she wrote the original Broadway book in 2003 and brought it to the screen herself, ensuring continuity of vision across two decades.

Her television pedigree is important context. My So-Called Life (ABC, 1994) was a critical landmark for its unflinching, progressive depiction of teenage identity, including one of television's first recurring gay teenage characters. The themes she returns to throughout her work — outsiders, authenticity, the cost of social conformity, the cruelty of institutions that demand people be less than they are — are consistent from her TV work to her stage work to this film.

Holzman did not retrofit progressive meaning onto a neutral text when she wrote Wicked: Part One for the screen. She wrote those meanings into the original musical. The film's ideological content is hers — and she stands behind it fully.

Ideological tendency: CONSISTENTLY PROGRESSIVE. Outsider narratives, identity themes, anti-conformity arc are her artistic signatures.

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Adult Viewer Insight

Conservative adults watching Wicked for the first time should know that the movie they're watching has already been claimed, celebrated, and publicly identified by large portions of its creative team as an allegory for discrimination — specifically racial discrimination and LGBTQ+ persecution — for years before the cameras rolled.

What that means practically: The film does not insert a clumsy progressive monologue. It does not lecture you. It does not break the fourth wall to explain its politics. What it does instead is tell a story — beautifully, emotionally, with considerable craft — whose symbolic architecture was designed to resonate with people who have experienced social exclusion based on who they are. If you walk in understanding that, you can appreciate the film on its own terms while identifying where the ideology lives.

Where the ideology lives:

• In Elphaba's green skin, which the film — through its casting — explicitly connects to racial otherness. Variety's framing of the casting as sharpening "an allegory for the arbitrary nature of racism" is not a critic's interpretation. It's what the director said.
• In Fiyero's bisexual flirtation, which is deliberate and performed by an openly gay actor whose sexuality was part of the film's public conversation from the beginning.
• In the director's public statements connecting the Wizard — an authoritarian who uses propaganda to demonize a marginalized group — to the political moment of November 2024.
• In the film's entire anti-conformity thesis: the idea that institutions which demand suppression of authentic identity are unjust by definition.

What's genuinely worth honoring: Wicked works because its traditional themes are real. The friendship between Elphaba and Glinda is one of contemporary cinema's most affecting female friendships. The courage it takes to refuse collaboration with injustice — to say "no" to the powerful when yes would be so much easier — is a theme with ancient moral roots that no ideology owns. Elphaba is not a progressive hero; she is a moral hero, and those are not always the same thing. The film earns its climax. The performances are extraordinary. Cynthia Erivo's "Defying Gravity" is a genuine cinematic event.

The issue is not the quality of the film. The issue is knowing what you're walking into.

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Parental Guidance

Recommended minimum age: 8+ (general family film; content warnings below)

Wicked is rated PG. For most families, the direct content concerns are mild — this is a big-budget musical fantasy, not an action film. There is no graphic violence, no sexuality, and no language. What parents should be aware of is more contextual than content-based.

Content notes:

• Witchcraft and magic: Elphaba is a powerful witch whose magic is central to the story. The film presents magic in a fantastical, fairy-tale register rather than occult context — but families with religious objections to witch narratives should be aware this is not a peripheral element.
• Themes of discrimination and injustice: The film's subplot about Animals losing their civil rights is a clear minority-rights allegory. Children will process this at the level of "unfairness to animals," which is appropriate. Older children may engage with the deeper allegory, which is intentional.
• Queer subtext: The LGBTQ+ subtext between Elphaba and Glinda, and in Fiyero's character, is real but not explicit. Younger children will not notice it. Older children and teenagers may, and parents should be prepared to discuss it.
• Anti-authority themes: The film's central argument is that sometimes the authority is wrong — that defying institutions in service of a higher moral principle is heroic. For most families this is an unremarkable and even admirable theme; for families with strong deference-to-authority values, it's worth knowing this is the story's engine.
• Emotionally intense moments: Elphaba's isolation, public humiliation, and betrayal by someone she trusted are emotionally heavy. Sensitive younger children may find the crowd-turning-against-her moments upsetting.

For parents watching with school-age children: The most powerful entry point is the friendship. What Elphaba and Glinda have — loyalty across difference, the courage to choose a friend over comfort — is genuinely beautiful and worth discussing. The film's message that being who you are is worth more than being liked is universally positive, even if the surrounding ideological architecture is more complicated.

For teenagers: use the film's explicit allegory as a teaching moment. The question of whether the Wizard's persecution of the Animals is analogous to racial discrimination, or LGBTQ+ persecution, or something else entirely, is worth having — and having critically, with eyes open about why filmmakers make the choices they make.

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Race Allegory / Race-Conscious Casting as Central Framing	4	Moderate	High	7.2
"Defying Gravity" as Feminist/LGBTQ+ Liberation Anthem	3	Moderate	High	5.4
Anti-Authority / Anti-Establishment as Heroic Framework	4	High	High	5
Minority Rights Allegory (Animals Losing Civil Rights and Voice)	4	High	High	5
Queer Ensemble Cast / Bisexual Fiyero / LGBTQ+ Subtext	3	Moderate	Moderate	3
Director's Public Progressive / Anti-Trump Political Framing	2	Low	Moderate	2.8
Oz as Fascism Allegory / Propaganda and Systemic Oppression	3	High	Moderate	2.1
TOTAL WOKE				30.5

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Female Friendship as Narrative Anchor	4	High	High	5
Authenticity / Being True to Yourself Despite Social Cost	4	High	High	5
Moral Courage — Refusing to Collaborate with Injustice	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Classic Outsider / Coming-of-Age Arc	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Loyalty Tested and Honored	2	High	Moderate	1.4
Joy, Spectacle, and Delight as Film's Primary Mode	2	High	Low	0.7
TOTAL TRADITIONAL				16.3

Score Margin: -15 WOKE