What Wicked Can Teach Us About Good vs. Bad
As a trans woman, I always saw myself reflected in Elphaba’s story. Last year, watching the first movie, I was struck by how much of myself I saw in Dr. Dillamond’s story…
For me, the central thesis of Wicked has always been exploring the binary of thinking people are either good or bad. Wicked challenged what it means when we try to label a person with one of those words, but also what it means to be “good“ on your own.
When I was in college I planned couples costumes with the guy I was seeing. We joked about Glinda and Elphaba because he was a pretty blonde guy who people always thought the best of and was assumed to be a sweetheart because he was pretty. I was a prickly young non-binary person who was known for ruffling feathers and speaking my mind. The joke being that people assumed goodness in him even though his intentions were often selfish, but people assumed the worst from me even though I was often standing up for what I thought to be right.
Notice I’m not actually saying I’m always “good.” Because I don’t believe that. In recent years I’ve really divested from the idea of good and stopped trying to or wanting to be “good.” I don’t actually consider myself a good person. I think that I’m a person who holds care, and that is often interpreted as good. But good and bad are also highly subjective.
Just look at the state of politics in the United States Empire right now. As a trans woman I’m often assumed to be bad by a lot of people. I’m assumed to be a monster and a terror. But at the same time, there are a lot of people who believe that the work that I do and the impact I have on my communities is good. I know what it’s like to hear government officials broadcasting a message about you being a monster, warning people to stay away from you. Branding you as bad or evil, even if you were trying to do good.
With Elphaba we see a woman who is fighting for what she believes to be right. And honestly, I agree with her most of the time. She see injustice and she wants it to end. That is what many people think of as noble, or good. But because she goes up against the people in power, because she won’t be complicit, she gets labeled as wicked. Meanwhile you have Glinda who is so hyperfocused on being seen as good that she doesn’t stand for what she believes in. Glinda doesn’t fight like Elphbaba fights for the animals and other people around them that are struggling. Glinda has her own interests in mind, not community care. Glinda cares about what’s good for Glinda. Elphaba cares about what’s good for others.
What if we stopped worrying about good and bad? Instead of worrying about the ways other people are thinking about us or if other people see us as good or bad. What if we just listened to the people in front of us and tried to hold care? I think we’d all be better off. Worrying about your ego and your perception in this dichotomy of good and bad is often interrupting us from actual positive impacts we could be having. There are things that are objectively bad, like the ways that animals are treated in Wicked, and the ways that marginalized people are treated in real life. There are plenty of people who will disagree with that, but that is because of propaganda and public perception.
A person can do good and bad. Many of us do. In fact, I think all of us at some point in our lives do things that would be seen as good and we do things that would be seen as bad. I also believe that many of those things would be seen differently by different people. And that’s because all of this conversation is a matter of perspective. Some people think that rising in power makes you good. Climbing the ladder, be it social, corporate, political, is the goal for many, and so they see others who are successful as doing good. Those are people who will honestly trust people in power because they look up to them. They trust and assume that those people are “good.“ And on the flip side, then, people who push against those leaders but also the system that grants that power, are seen as bad. Even if in their hearts those “bad“ people are fighting for what they think of as good.
