The Wizard of Oz, adapted from L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, was released in 1939 (AMC). This timeless film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas who lives with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry. The film starts with Dorothy’s dog, Toto, biting Miss Gulch, a neighbor, who then brings a notice to Dorothy’s family saying they must surrender the dog. Auntie Em and Uncle Henry give her the dog, it gets away, and Dorothy and Toto run away. They meet Professor Marvel who deceives Dorothy into thinking Auntie Em is in trouble because she ran away. She heads home, in the path of a twister, cannot get into the storm cellar, and falls unconscious after being hit with debris. She wakes up to her house landing, unknowingly
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The film has been viewed by people across the globe, and gave them a good look into some aspects of how life was in the United States at the time. Dorothy’s life was most likely similar to a good portion of the U.S. population. They were still feeling the effects of the Great Depression and felt distrust in people in power, especially men. According to Psychology Today, the Wizard of Oz shattered the common belief that only men could have power, saying “men’s power is illusory, whereas women’s power is real” (Shrira). In the Wizard of Oz, there are male characters, but none of which have power. Dorothy is loved by everyone is Munchkinland because she “had the power” to kill the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping a house on her. Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West have magical powers. On the other hand, the men in the movie are portrayed without a brain, heart, or courage. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz turns out to not be “Wonderful” after all. The movie portrays women as having the power and men being insignificant. This gender role reversal of power could parallel with the time the movie was adapted. As previously stated, the United States was rocked by the stock market crash, leading to the Great Depression, in …show more content…
While in her home, in Kansas, she is not very well liked, or so she thinks. Miss Gulch does not like her because she let Toto bite her, and Auntie Em believes that Dorothy gets into trouble too often. When she is placed in Oz, the scene is all-of-a-sudden extremely colorful and she was well liked. She receives instant praise from The Munchkins for killing the Witch of the East, and everyone she meets, with the exception of the Wicked Witch of the West, is grateful for her presence in their city. Even the Wicked Witch’s guards and flying monkeys appreciate her after she kills the Witch with a bucket of water. Even though Dorothy seemingly enjoys her time in Oz, from the beginning, her main goal is to get back home. She is describing her experience in Oz to her family, and relating it to her real life, when she says, “if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t here, I never really lost it to begin with” (Baum). This is powerful because she realizes that family, and home, were the most important things in her life, and she wanted to give them up for the bigger and better things she dreamed about. This is incredibly contradicting to the message of Dorothy wanting to escape her current situation to find something greater. While the movie does make both interpretations plausible, how it is received is
The film has been viewed by people across the globe, and gave them a good look into some aspects of how life was in the United States at the time. Dorothy’s life was most likely similar to a good portion of the U.S. population. They were still feeling the effects of the Great Depression and felt distrust in people in power, especially men. According to Psychology Today, the Wizard of Oz shattered the common belief that only men could have power, saying “men’s power is illusory, whereas women’s power is real” (Shrira). In the Wizard of Oz, there are male characters, but none of which have power. Dorothy is loved by everyone is Munchkinland because she “had the power” to kill the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping a house on her. Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West have magical powers. On the other hand, the men in the movie are portrayed without a brain, heart, or courage. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz turns out to not be “Wonderful” after all. The movie portrays women as having the power and men being insignificant. This gender role reversal of power could parallel with the time the movie was adapted. As previously stated, the United States was rocked by the stock market crash, leading to the Great Depression, in …show more content…
While in her home, in Kansas, she is not very well liked, or so she thinks. Miss Gulch does not like her because she let Toto bite her, and Auntie Em believes that Dorothy gets into trouble too often. When she is placed in Oz, the scene is all-of-a-sudden extremely colorful and she was well liked. She receives instant praise from The Munchkins for killing the Witch of the East, and everyone she meets, with the exception of the Wicked Witch of the West, is grateful for her presence in their city. Even the Wicked Witch’s guards and flying monkeys appreciate her after she kills the Witch with a bucket of water. Even though Dorothy seemingly enjoys her time in Oz, from the beginning, her main goal is to get back home. She is describing her experience in Oz to her family, and relating it to her real life, when she says, “if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t here, I never really lost it to begin with” (Baum). This is powerful because she realizes that family, and home, were the most important things in her life, and she wanted to give them up for the bigger and better things she dreamed about. This is incredibly contradicting to the message of Dorothy wanting to escape her current situation to find something greater. While the movie does make both interpretations plausible, how it is received is