Smile So They Love You: Wicked: For Good and the Vilification of Female Rage
- Kami Steffenauer
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Every sibling rivalry needs a popular culture phenomenon to cosplay their relationship, allowing their deep-seated love and loathing to flourish. For my sister and I’s preteen selves, we found our perfect counterparts in the Tony-winning musical Wicked’s leading ladies, Glinda and Elphaba. I chose Glinda, delighted that my sister made an excellent target for throwing my dozens of low-pump heels, while my sister selected Elphaba, leaping off the couch and directly onto me as a recreation of Act I’s “Defying Gravity.”
Yet as I sat in the darkened theater beside my sister this past winter, watching the second half of our childhood staple’s screen adaptation, it suddenly occurred to me that sisters aren’t the only ones who feel enraged by the patriarchal structures that force us to play by the rules of their game. Although my younger self was bespelled by the magic of friendship and forgiveness in Wicked, my adult self saw something much deeper watching Wicked: For Good. The theme connecting the movie’s three witches – Elphaba, Nessarose, and Glinda – was not their magic, but rather their rage. Unraveling the threads of female rage woven throughout the Broadway production, director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked: For Good simultaneously highlights the ways in which women express their anger and the ways society shapes, constrains, and vilifies such rage.
Upon hearing any reference to women’s anger in Wicked: For Good, most critics and moviegoers assume the comment is directed towards Elphaba Thropp, more commonly known as the Wicked Witch of the West. Early in the film, Elphaba, played by the electric Cynthia Erivo, is led by Chistery, one of the Wizard’s imprisoned winged monkeys, into the Wizard’s secret dungeon, where the Wizard has imprisoned hundreds of animals. When he discovers that Elphaba has found her beloved Shiz professor and mentor, Doctor Dillamond, caged and unable to speak, the Wizard, played by a well-cast Jeff Goldblum, approaches Elphaba slowly, hands clasped as he pleads, “Elphaba, try to understand… I’m not a bad man.”
Her response is immediate: “Yes, you are. You are a very bad man.” As she speaks, the locks on the animals’ cages begin to rattle, becoming a thundering roar. There is no secret where her anger lies, and she makes no apologies for her rage as she spews through gritted teeth, “You once asked me what my heart’s desire was: and that is to fight you until the day I die!” In the shadowed interior of the animals’ prison, Elphaba is finally able to release her anger at the person who deserves it most: the white, powerful man creating a twisted web of lies whose only purpose is to ensnare her in the hopes of solidifying his own power. But the Ozians do not see this; they only see the flyers smeared across Oz, Elphaba’s features exaggerated and embellished to show her as an unstable witch, only capable of crime and thus deserving of punishment.
Such negative portrayal of women’s rage, particularly Black women’s rage, is sadly not fictitious in U.S. society. From Serena Williams to Michelle Obama, Black women’s righteous indignation of injustice is oftentimes viewed by popular media as unbridled anger. Such perceptions label Black women’s righteous indignation as having no basis in reality, for Black women’s reality is not seen as valid by wider systems of white supremacy and patriarchy. Notably, despite the fact that the Broadway production has always emphasized the hatred she faces is due to her skin tone, Black actors only played Elphaba as understudies or on tours during the show’s first two decades —the first full-time Black actor cast as Elphaba, Lencia Kebede, started her residency in 2025 following the first Wicked movie’s release. By setting Elphaba’s direct confrontation with the Wizard in this dark, secluded space, away from the prying eyes of the public, Chu highlights how Black women’s rage is demonized as dangerous and irrational by broader society, while simultaneously emphasizing that such notions of Black women’s rage are themselves irrational.
Elphaba is not the only woman who’s angry in the film, as her sister, Nessarose, played by Marissa Bode, also earns a wicked title: the Wicked Witch of the East. Forced to act as Governor of Munchkin Land after the death of their father, Nessa’s heart longs for comfort and compassion and finds both in Boq, her sweetheart during their time at Shiz University. Yet Boq remains madly in love with Glinda, desperate to stop her pending nuptials to Fiyero. As soon as Nessa hears Boq’s plea to leave her for the Emerald City, she passes a new law throughout Munchkinland, banning all munchkins from leaving the region without her written permission. Although both sisters are given the title of wicked, it is Nessa who is assumed to be worthy of the name in the film, due to her perceived selfishness and disregard for Boq’s feelings.
When discussing her character’s development in Wicked: For Good, Bode remarked that she could relate to Nessa’s attitude as a disabled woman: “I’ve experienced it before in my life… having people be nice to you from a distance, but it’s not always genuine. A lot of the time, it’s self-righteous rather than actually caring about my personhood or fully seeing me as a person.” Nessa’s anger is one of the few callbacks to the first Wicked film, where Boq asks Nessa out for the sole purpose of pleasing Glinda, lying to and leading Nessa on for the duration of the film. Her rage asks non-disabled audience members to consider how disabled people are societally deemed ‘charity cases,’ disregarding their hurt, devastation, and anger they experience because of the deceptive treatment they receive, which ableist ideologies label as acceptable and admirable on the part of non-disabled individuals.
Interestingly, the only witch assumed to never show rage in the film is the only witch defined as good: Glinda the Good, performed by an impressive Ariana Grande. Despite the fact that Glinda does not scream like Elphaba or over-restrict her lover’s movement like Nessa, she certainly experiences anger throughout the film. When Madame Morrible, played by Michelle Yeoh, shows Glinda her new mode of transportation – a pink bubble generated by a hidden motor – Glinda eagerly steps inside, allured by the device’s shininess. However, her smile fades as Madame Morrible begins explaining her rationale for giving Glinda this gift: “This invention will disguise your deficiency. The Bubble’s mechanism is cleverly concealed. People will assume that you are causing it to float through your own witchly powers. So just let them assume.” As Madam Morrible delivers her demoralizing speech, she circles Glinda, who is shown looking downwards, face solemn, while the camera turns away from her disappointment and follows Madame Morrible all the way around the Bubble. Chu’s choice to have the camera show glimpses, but never the entirety, of Glinda’s disappointment and anger, reveals how Glinda is able to maintain the title of ‘good’ while Elphaba and Nessa are not: Glinda has chosen to hide her anger, her disappointment and desires, and simply, as her mother tells her, smile, for everyone loves her. This scene emphasizes the way women are able to maintain power in patriarchal societies: by denying their own anger at the poor treatment they receive and pretending they are permanently content, especially when they are far from it.
On the drive home from the theater, I glanced at my sister in the passenger seat, the soundtrack blaring from my speakers. For much of my life, I felt like I was always a Glinda: bubbly, full of joy, and always ready to smile over any disappointment. The more life I’ve lived, the more I see myself in Elphaba and Nessa, and the more I see Glinda and Nessa in my sister. Unfortunately, in misogynistic societies such as ours, women are repeatedly told we cannot show our anger, for anger in women is viewed with suspicion, anxiety, and, most of all, fear. As women such as Karoline Leavitt continue to rise under the second Trump administration by remaining submissive and silent in the face of massive oppression, we must continue to speak our anger into existence at the injustice running rampant in our world. For if there is no place like home, we must do everything in our power to protect ours, which includes turning our gut-wrenching grief into empowering rage.
Kami Steffenauer is a senior in the College studying Anthropology and Women’s & Gender Studies. She is still mad at her sister for growing an extra inch during high school, thus winning their decade long who’s-taller competition.