S2E15: Defying Evangelicalism: Our Thoughts on Wicked

[00:00:00] This is a Dauntless Media Collective Podcast. Visit dauntless.fm for more content.

[00:00:07] He's clearly heard the criticisms that we have about Christianity, which is that it is incredibly dehumanizing.

[00:00:17] It takes away our own innate goodness, our own innate knowledge of ourselves, our own innate understanding of who we actually are, and it hijacks that and takes that away.

[00:00:30] And so this is where you deeply, deeply remove a person's sense of self, then you can get them to do and follow and obey in any way that you want.

[00:00:40] As ex-evangelicals, we are saying, no thank you, I'm good. I'm going to reclaim self.

[00:00:45] We've all done this in our own ways. We've found ways to reclaim ourselves.

[00:00:50] And for me, this is a hill I will die on. This is the thing that I am ready to burn it all down about.

[00:01:06] Hi, I'm Gail. I'm Nate. And this is Full Mutuality.

[00:01:12] Wicked. What a great movie and what a great conversation we had with our friend Jessica, which we're excited to share with you.

[00:01:19] But before we do, any final conclusions from processing this out loud?

[00:01:23] Did you get a chance to say all the things on your heart?

[00:01:29] Not so sure. On further reflection, I'm not necessarily convinced of what I listed as my top three Broadway musicals.

[00:01:38] They're not canon.

[00:01:39] I'm not sure if I'd keep Dear Evan Hansen or throw in something like Jekyll and Hyde.

[00:01:44] And I do admit, despite my feelings about the musical now, I did have a massive phantom phase.

[00:01:51] Ugh, I can't choose.

[00:01:52] Maybe I shouldn't have a top three.

[00:01:54] You like musicals too much for that.

[00:01:57] Something else I was thinking about though.

[00:02:00] I'm pretty sure we touched on this topic during our conversation with Jessica, but I did want to say it here at the outset a little bit more explicitly.

[00:02:09] One of the major themes in Wicked is how those in power often vilify those who are questioning or challenging their authority, painting a narrative in which they cast the truly benevolent as, quote unquote, the enemy.

[00:02:21] For our purposes, think about how evangelicals and evangelical leaders call anyone sinful for daring to assert their own identity apart from the evangelical framework.

[00:02:34] Yes, good stuff.

[00:02:36] And we get into some of that stuff.

[00:02:38] So this is a little preview of our conversation.

[00:02:40] We wanted to give our unique take on how this lands.

[00:02:43] We had so many thoughts about this movie from a deconstructing and ex-evangelical perspective.

[00:02:49] Last note, for the first 37 minutes, we get into our own context talking about musicals in general and which ones we've seen, which ones we liked, as well as if we've watched Wicked the musical, read the books, seen The Wizard of Oz.

[00:03:03] If you love musical theater, you might find that interesting.

[00:03:06] But if you want to dive right into our conversation on just the movie Wicked, jump ahead and we'll put the exact timestamp in the show notes, but it's about the 37 minute mark.

[00:03:17] And with that, enjoy our conversation with Jessica.

[00:03:26] So today on the podcast, we're just getting together with a good friend of ours.

[00:03:31] She's been on the podcast a number of times.

[00:03:34] You all know her.

[00:03:34] Yep.

[00:03:34] You all know and love her with us, Jessica.

[00:03:37] We were just going to call you and be like, let's talk about Wicked.

[00:03:40] We both saw it last night.

[00:03:42] And as friends, we would have chatted our heads off going back and forth.

[00:03:46] And I was like, no, why don't we do?

[00:03:48] Why don't we podcast together?

[00:03:50] We'll record this one.

[00:03:50] Yeah, let's record this one.

[00:03:51] This would have been our conversation.

[00:03:53] Grab a mic.

[00:03:54] You guys are in on our phone conversation.

[00:03:55] Come listen to us.

[00:03:56] So obviously, if you haven't watched Wicked yet, please don't just stop and come back to us after you've seen the movie.

[00:04:05] Or if you don't care about spoilers.

[00:04:06] If you don't care.

[00:04:07] Sure.

[00:04:08] Or if you never plan to watch it.

[00:04:10] Well, maybe you don't want to go watch it, but you're just like, yeah.

[00:04:14] Tell me about your thoughts on Wicked anyway, then sure.

[00:04:16] But this is going to be chock full of spoilers.

[00:04:18] So that's the why I'm putting this warning.

[00:04:20] So that I mean, if you saw the title, hopefully figure it out.

[00:04:23] If you didn't want any spoilers, not a good idea to listen to this episode.

[00:04:26] But yes, that is where we're going with this.

[00:04:29] Yeah.

[00:04:29] So I guess for the sake of context.

[00:04:35] Yeah.

[00:04:35] Context and our listeners who don't who might not know our connection, not that we have any real connection to this, but like our relationship with the subject matter at hand.

[00:04:46] Let's go into this.

[00:04:47] Yeah.

[00:04:47] You know, what is your relationship to this musical and perhaps musicals?

[00:04:55] I want to know musicals in general.

[00:04:57] How do you feel?

[00:04:58] Are you a musical theater nerd?

[00:04:59] Let's go on that.

[00:05:01] So, yeah.

[00:05:01] Um, I just to finish my introduction.

[00:05:04] I'm Jessica go forth and I do the leaving the village podcast.

[00:05:07] And so I have been.

[00:05:08] Sorry.

[00:05:09] Terrible.

[00:05:10] Terrible introduction for a guest.

[00:05:11] No, it's okay.

[00:05:12] Just for people that are like, this is if you don't know this voice.

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:17] Good.

[00:05:17] Good.

[00:05:18] Good point.

[00:05:20] Can you tell we haven't actually set down and recorded something.

[00:05:23] Hanging out.

[00:05:25] That's true.

[00:05:26] That is true.

[00:05:28] It is true.

[00:05:29] Um, so I grew up around musical theater.

[00:05:32] My mom and was especially really big fan of musicals, mostly musical movies, but I knew that they had theater counterparts.

[00:05:44] Um, and there was a lot of talk about that.

[00:05:47] Like when I was growing up and, um, I remember belting show tunes from as early as I could sing.

[00:05:53] So, um, I was really curious because I know you grew up in ATI.

[00:05:57] I know you were in that gother cult and I know there was a lot of control over what you could and couldn't watch.

[00:06:03] Mm-hmm.

[00:06:03] And like you didn't grow up with the TV and movies and your, so like, how did this, how did, was there an exception for like musicals?

[00:06:10] And how did your, what was the filtering looking like for TV and musicals?

[00:06:14] I'm curious.

[00:06:15] I.

[00:06:15] I think, so TV was such, it is such a huge cultural touchstone that, that like banning it from everybody's houses was next to impossible.

[00:06:26] They did try.

[00:06:27] I remember my parents getting rid of the TV when I was like five.

[00:06:32] Um, and it didn't last long.

[00:06:35] Like the TV was gone maybe a year.

[00:06:37] And then I think my dad got one of these little teeny tiny little like little battery operated TVs that you could sit.

[00:06:43] I mean like it's literally the size of, um, a tiny little plate, like just teeny, teeny weeny.

[00:06:49] Um, and, uh, he would watch TV on that sometimes and pull it out of the closet or whatever.

[00:06:54] And then that, that became annoying more than anything else.

[00:06:57] So we got a TV again when I was like, I don't know, eight, maybe nine.

[00:07:02] And it was just really strict restricted.

[00:07:06] So I remember for a few years before we fully got into the cult and we're back with a TV that we were like watching the Cosby show in the evening and things like that.

[00:07:15] And so, um, and then we would watch VHS tapes.

[00:07:18] Um, and I remember my mom's favorites were like the King and I and, um, all the Rogers and Hammerstein, you know, like, like sound of music and the, um, um, the music man and like all of these.

[00:07:38] And so I knew every single word to all of these songs, you know, and state fair and carousel and Oklahoma.

[00:07:48] And like all of these movies were my, my absolute favorites, um, ever.

[00:07:53] And so, um, as we went into ATI, it was kind of this gray area that wasn't really discussed.

[00:08:00] Theater was not like putting on plays and that type of thing was only for children.

[00:08:05] So we would like little children.

[00:08:06] So you would like do these little skits for kids, but it wasn't like theater at all.

[00:08:12] And they, for the most part, I just remember ATI pretending like theater didn't exist.

[00:08:17] Like theater wasn't a thing.

[00:08:19] You didn't go to watch things at a theater.

[00:08:22] Yeah.

[00:08:23] I guess the reason I was curious is cause I know that culturally you were so isolated.

[00:08:27] Like you had so much cultural isolation from mainstream culture, but when it came to the, so when it comes to musical theater genre, that was like totally a part of your upbringing and was not, you were not left out of that piece.

[00:08:39] Well, and one of the crazy things is one of the absolute favorite of every kid there that all the girls, their favorite musical was seven brides for seven brothers.

[00:08:52] I don't know if you've seen seven brothers.

[00:08:55] Have you seen it?

[00:08:56] I have never heard that one.

[00:08:56] You know that one Nate?

[00:08:57] What?

[00:08:57] I haven't seen it.

[00:08:58] No, but I'm familiar.

[00:08:59] You're familiar.

[00:09:00] Please tell me you're familiar.

[00:09:01] I heard the soundtrack.

[00:09:03] Yes.

[00:09:03] I'd heard the soundtrack.

[00:09:04] I haven't seen it.

[00:09:05] We're sobbing, sobbing, sobbing fit to be tied and bless her beautiful hide wherever she may be.

[00:09:15] It was deeply misogynistic, like, like on a scale that is hard to comprehend and going court and going court and all this stuff was, these are major, major, major.

[00:09:28] It was very, but it took, I think I was 17 or 18 before I finally saw it.

[00:09:36] So everyone's talking about it and it's like seven brides for seven brothers.

[00:09:39] It's the best.

[00:09:40] It's my favorite.

[00:09:41] And so I go to watch it and I'm like, what did I just see?

[00:09:46] Like what is happening?

[00:09:48] So the premise of the story for those that are not, do not know is that these, this man, this backwoods man in the woods, in the mountains of the, the Rocky Mountains comes down into this, this little town.

[00:10:01] And this is in the 1800s, right?

[00:10:03] And he's looking for a bride and he wants a wife to take home that day.

[00:10:08] So he goes and he toodles around town, looking at all the women, checking them all out, singing a whole song about bless her beautiful hide.

[00:10:15] And yeah, he finally picks himself out one, asks her to marry him.

[00:10:20] The girl's like, hey, it's better than doing all this work that I'm doing here, cooking for all these men.

[00:10:24] So she agrees to marry him.

[00:10:25] He takes her home to his house and it is full of his brothers.

[00:10:31] He has six brothers.

[00:10:33] So there's seven brothers total.

[00:10:36] None of them are married.

[00:10:37] They all live in one room in this house, this cabin.

[00:10:40] So she makes it her mission in life to marry them all off, which is this whole process of them.

[00:10:49] And then they, they fall in love with these girls in town, but they decide it's all taking too long.

[00:10:53] So they go kidnap all the girls.

[00:10:55] Oh, lovely.

[00:10:56] Bring them all up into the mountains.

[00:10:58] Then all the girls are kidnapped.

[00:11:00] Yeah.

[00:11:00] And the avalanche snows them all in for the winter.

[00:11:03] And then by the end of the winter, the original bride is having a baby and the fathers all come up to rescue their daughters.

[00:11:12] And the baby has been born and they hear a baby crying and they're all like, whose baby is it?

[00:11:17] And they're all like, mine, so that they can marry the boys because now they're in love with them.

[00:11:22] Wow.

[00:11:23] Wow.

[00:11:24] So it's like Stockholm syndrome on steroids.

[00:11:27] It is a very, very strange story.

[00:11:30] And anyway, so that was, that was the one musical that was allowed in the cult.

[00:11:35] Like that was like amazing.

[00:11:37] Anyway, the cherished musical.

[00:11:39] That's kind of says something.

[00:11:41] That was the popular one.

[00:11:42] Yeah.

[00:11:42] Yeah.

[00:11:43] And they sing a whole song about sobbing women when they go to kidnap the women.

[00:11:47] Them and women were sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, fit to be tied.

[00:11:50] Like this was like.

[00:11:52] So creepy.

[00:11:53] Oh my God.

[00:11:54] I feel like it's interesting psychologically to know that this was a, this was the cult favorite

[00:12:00] of the cult, you know, in terms of, and you're like, oh, there's a lot in here that kind of explains

[00:12:04] why this is a popular.

[00:12:07] Unironically.

[00:12:08] Yeah.

[00:12:08] I mean, I was just like, I remember watching it and even as I'm still in the cult going,

[00:12:13] this is a joke, right?

[00:12:15] Like we're, we're all, we all think this is a joke because when it was made, it was definitely

[00:12:20] intended to be a joke.

[00:12:21] It was all supposed to be tongue in cheek.

[00:12:23] It was supposed to be very funny.

[00:12:24] It's Howard Keel and, um, I forgot her name, Judy, Judy, something.

[00:12:30] Anyway.

[00:12:31] Yeah.

[00:12:31] It was very, very silly.

[00:12:34] It was intended to be very silly.

[00:12:36] You were supposed to laugh and think, oh boy, that was not okay.

[00:12:40] Um, but yeah.

[00:12:41] So apart from, but hang on.

[00:12:43] So, so fundies, fundies interpreted that whole thing as, uh, as literal and exciting and

[00:12:49] instead of tongue in cheek, silly, kind of like the way fundamentalists read Genesis,

[00:12:53] basically talking snake is totally real.

[00:12:56] This is not a joke.

[00:12:57] This is not poetic.

[00:12:58] This is just straightforward how it's supposed to be.

[00:13:01] That's creepy.

[00:13:01] I think that they, I, I, I've really tried to analyze it because the way I was grasping

[00:13:08] it from my friends was this is my favorite movie, not because it is a comedy that of errors,

[00:13:15] you know, like this whole calamity that somehow writes itself at the end in the most unrealistic

[00:13:22] way humanly possible.

[00:13:24] Um, but as this is like our whole dream, like to be just swept up by a handsome backwoodsman

[00:13:33] who just wants to throw you over his shoulder and take you home with them.

[00:13:38] Interesting.

[00:13:39] I think so.

[00:13:40] I really should go back and ask everybody what they're really were getting out of it, but

[00:13:45] that's what I got.

[00:13:45] So anyway, all that is to say, I liked musical theater.

[00:13:48] Once I was married and had my own kids and then I was more and more and more aware of

[00:13:53] Broadway and I still to this day have never been to Broadway to watch a show.

[00:13:58] Oh, Jessica, we got to take care of this.

[00:13:59] Yeah.

[00:14:00] In New York, we're taking care of this problem.

[00:14:02] Absolutely.

[00:14:03] Yeah.

[00:14:04] I wanted to come so bad when the music man was there with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.

[00:14:10] Like I wanted to see that more than words, but yeah.

[00:14:15] Anyway, there's a lot of them I'd love to see.

[00:14:17] I'd love to see anything there.

[00:14:19] So I knew about wicked.

[00:14:20] Okay.

[00:14:20] So to circle all the way around, I knew about wicked as a musician.

[00:14:25] Actually, before we even before you even go go to wicked.

[00:14:28] Um, what are what are maybe a give us maybe your top three.

[00:14:35] What are your top favorite musical three favorite musicals?

[00:14:38] Um, uh, my uh, my fair lady.

[00:14:44] Okay.

[00:14:46] Uh, I know it's so cliche, but, uh, the sound of music.

[00:14:51] Okay.

[00:14:52] And, um, probably.

[00:14:59] Oh shit.

[00:15:00] How do I, how do I guess the next one?

[00:15:02] Um, I wanted to say music man.

[00:15:05] I'd have to say music man.

[00:15:06] Yeah.

[00:15:07] Okay.

[00:15:08] So yeah, my fair lady.

[00:15:10] Yeah.

[00:15:11] Good.

[00:15:11] Sound of music.

[00:15:12] Music man.

[00:15:14] Okay.

[00:15:15] I know every single word to every single song.

[00:15:19] Yeah.

[00:15:21] Yeah.

[00:15:22] Nice.

[00:15:23] In my sleep.

[00:15:24] So, um, let's start with how musical theater.

[00:15:29] Yeah.

[00:15:30] Before we get into, into wicked.

[00:15:31] Yeah.

[00:15:32] All right.

[00:15:32] So me.

[00:15:35] Yeah.

[00:15:36] So, uh, in the fundamentalist world, similarly to your upbringing, um, there, there were certain

[00:15:45] like approved quote unquote musicals.

[00:15:47] Um, the music man was a favorite.

[00:15:49] Um, I had watched that movie a bunch of times before even going to see it.

[00:15:54] Uh, the revival, I forgot who it was that was playing the music man.

[00:15:58] Um, it, it was before Hugh Jackman came back for the revival, but for the re revival.

[00:16:04] But, um, in any case, uh, the music man was, was a popular one, um, in, in those circles.

[00:16:11] Um, I'm pretty sure Annie was, uh, was considered okay.

[00:16:17] Um, like it depended on the church too.

[00:16:20] Each church had their own sets of, you know, standards when it came to that kind of stuff.

[00:16:24] Um, and so, you know, my church, we wouldn't, obviously wouldn't carry any of those musical

[00:16:30] movies in the church library, but, you know, example, uh, I think showboat was one that was

[00:16:38] okay.

[00:16:39] Um, and to get your gun was another one that was okay.

[00:16:43] Um, yeah, that was a lot of fun.

[00:16:48] Um, and, but you know, the big ones when I was, yes, exactly.

[00:16:56] Sorry.

[00:16:57] I can't help it.

[00:16:58] I'm going to have to read a book.

[00:17:01] Yeah.

[00:17:02] There was one sex from the other.

[00:17:04] All he had to do was look.

[00:17:06] Here we go.

[00:17:07] We've got two musical in case you haven't figured it out.

[00:17:10] I'm sitting next to two.

[00:17:12] I mean, in this conversation with two musical theater nerds for sure.

[00:17:15] So you grew up listening to this.

[00:17:17] Yes, I did.

[00:17:18] And the era, um, the era of, of musical.

[00:17:21] So like for me, the big ones, cause I also like come from a family that wasn't fundamentalist.

[00:17:25] Um, my family was sort of just mainstream evangelical and didn't have the sort of the same sorts

[00:17:31] of rules.

[00:17:32] So I had an aunt who, or still have an aunt who is really into musical theater and tries

[00:17:38] to keep up with the times.

[00:17:40] So, um, you know, I grew up in the time period when cats was on Broadway, lame is, and phantom

[00:17:49] were dominating ticket sales.

[00:17:52] Um, so have you seen all of those three and I actually, I didn't get a chance to see cats

[00:17:57] when it was on Broadway, unfortunately, which I was, uh, you know, after it closed, I was

[00:18:01] bummed about that.

[00:18:01] What have you seen on Broadway?

[00:18:02] So on Broadway, um, too many to name, uh, but off the top of my head, that's what happens

[00:18:10] when you live next to the city.

[00:18:12] Yeah.

[00:18:12] Yeah.

[00:18:13] Um, so, um, the very first show that I had seen on Broadway was lame is, um, which is your

[00:18:21] favorite and it's, it's, it's up there.

[00:18:24] It's up there among, among my favorites for sure.

[00:18:26] Um, so I'm going to, I'm not going to sing.

[00:18:29] I'm not going to sing.

[00:18:30] I'm not going to sing.

[00:18:30] I'm like, in my head.

[00:18:31] Don't sing.

[00:18:32] Don't sing.

[00:18:33] Don't sing.

[00:18:33] I've seen Les Mis at least a dozen times.

[00:18:36] On Broadway?

[00:18:37] On Broadway.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:38] A dozen times.

[00:18:38] Holy cow.

[00:18:39] Um, yeah.

[00:18:40] This was also back when like my dad would get really, really cheap tickets.

[00:18:43] And then the library had these little voucher codes that you could stack onto discounts.

[00:18:48] And so my brother and I would go and see Broadway shows all the time.

[00:18:51] And then we'd go hang out at the stage door, wait for the actors to come out and sign the

[00:18:55] playbills.

[00:18:56] Um, but yeah, we saw Les Mis a bunch of times.

[00:18:58] We saw Phantom a bunch of times.

[00:19:02] Um, I saw, let's see the, the revival of The King and I, um, Showboat.

[00:19:10] Yeah.

[00:19:11] Um, Annie, Get Your Gun.

[00:19:13] Um, the one that I'm really bummed and I wanted to, to get to it.

[00:19:19] I never got around to was Dear Evan Hansen.

[00:19:21] Um, that was a favorite that you enjoyed.

[00:19:24] Love that soundtrack.

[00:19:25] Um, the movie is okay.

[00:19:26] Uh, I, I do understand what some of the critics frustrations with it.

[00:19:30] Cause, um, it, he just looks too old to be a high schooler and they did some digital stuff

[00:19:35] to make him look like a high schooler.

[00:19:37] But I'm like, why not recast the part?

[00:19:38] You don't need to bring the old Broadway guy back.

[00:19:40] Like you could have recast the part, but whatever.

[00:19:42] Yeah.

[00:19:43] Uh, but I love, I love, love, love the soundtrack to Dear Evan Hansen.

[00:19:47] It's one of my favorites.

[00:19:49] Um, and oh God, what else did I see?

[00:19:53] Um, I mean the music man.

[00:19:54] With you and I, we've seen a whole bunch of other ones.

[00:19:56] You're talking about your childhood ones.

[00:19:57] Yeah.

[00:19:58] The childhood ones.

[00:19:59] And then of course together you and I have seen, I'll get there.

[00:20:02] Okay.

[00:20:02] All right.

[00:20:02] Give me some stuff.

[00:20:03] I didn't grow up with this.

[00:20:04] And then, um, and then, and then we'll, we'll get into wicked, but I've seen wicked three

[00:20:09] times on Broadway.

[00:20:11] So, okay.

[00:20:11] And what's your top three?

[00:20:12] Top three are, um, in no particular order.

[00:20:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:18] Um, Les Miserables.

[00:20:21] I think that's his name.

[00:20:22] Um, probably, I might actually put Dear Evan Hansen in there.

[00:20:33] And even though I never saw the stage production of it, um, I just, that soundtrack just gets

[00:20:37] me every time.

[00:20:39] And then.

[00:20:41] That's a hard question for you.

[00:20:42] Yeah.

[00:20:43] What would be, what would be three?

[00:20:44] You don't know what to put as your third.

[00:20:46] Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll go with, um, Hmm.

[00:20:54] You know, I mean, maybe recency bias is kicking in, but I'll put wicked in there.

[00:20:59] All right.

[00:21:00] Okay.

[00:21:01] Did you see it with Christian Chenoweth and Idina Menzel?

[00:21:04] I didn't get a chance to see it.

[00:21:05] No, I didn't get a chance to see it with, um, with Christian Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.

[00:21:09] No, I saw, um, he was so excited to see them.

[00:21:13] Yeah.

[00:21:14] Yeah.

[00:21:14] I had seen Jackie Burns, um, as, as Elphaba.

[00:21:20] She played Elphaba the longest.

[00:21:22] So when I looked at the timeline of when she was playing, I'm like, Oh yeah, almost

[00:21:25] everyone that I'd seen.

[00:21:26] I don't remember who was playing her when, when you and I went, but, um, Jackie Burns

[00:21:32] was playing her when, when I saw her and she was phenomenal.

[00:21:35] Okay.

[00:21:36] So, uh, I'm not a singer like these two beside me and I did not grow up.

[00:21:40] So if you're listening to this episode and you want to discuss wicked, but you weren't

[00:21:44] a musical theater nerd, you've gotten to the right spot because you are with the person

[00:21:48] who did not grow up with me.

[00:21:49] Musical theater did not have this as a background.

[00:21:51] I didn't grow up singing these songs.

[00:21:52] Didn't until I met Nate.

[00:21:54] I really didn't have any, never seen a Broadway play or even watched.

[00:21:57] I don't, uh, Annie was my exception.

[00:21:59] The movie, Annie version 1982.

[00:22:01] I recently made Nate watch it with me cause he had never seen the 82 version.

[00:22:05] I was like, this was my childhood movie that I watched obsessively.

[00:22:09] And it was funny.

[00:22:10] Like I, a little dark and depressing.

[00:22:12] Cause the first time I ever watched it, I was living in a woman's shelter with my mom.

[00:22:16] And, uh, I was a little foreshadowy cause I ended up in foster care, but like that movie

[00:22:20] I identified with as a kid so much in a depressing, sad kind of way.

[00:22:25] And so we watched it when Nate was nostalgic and emotional to go through, but that was pretty

[00:22:30] much it.

[00:22:30] I did not, uh, no musical stuff.

[00:22:33] So when I started dating Nate, actually fun story, the first musical I ever went to watch

[00:22:37] on Broadway, uh, was wicked.

[00:22:40] So this is special for me.

[00:22:42] Um, wicked was the first one I went with me.

[00:22:44] I went with my daughter.

[00:22:45] We actually went in New York city.

[00:22:47] The last weekend that Broadway was on, was open before COVID and it closed down for a year

[00:22:53] and a half.

[00:22:53] Like we went the last weekend Broadway had like before everything shut down.

[00:22:57] And so, and we didn't realize, obviously, I don't know if you think back to the beginning

[00:23:01] of COVID and things shutting down, it kind of things came, went abrupt and people were

[00:23:05] wondering what would happen.

[00:23:06] And then everything just sort of shut down.

[00:23:08] Um, so I remember we walked around in New York city and New York got hit with COVID very,

[00:23:13] very early on.

[00:23:14] So people were starting, the buzz was going around.

[00:23:16] Like we were nervous walking around in the city.

[00:23:18] And, uh, I'm pretty sure, I think we were masking up too.

[00:23:21] There was an anxiety about what was going on.

[00:23:24] Maybe we didn't even have masks.

[00:23:26] It was so early.

[00:23:26] I don't think cause there were no mandates.

[00:23:27] It was strange.

[00:23:28] We didn't know what, nobody knew what to do.

[00:23:30] We didn't know what, it was so early.

[00:23:31] And yeah, and we, the last, the last showing was like for the last weekend.

[00:23:35] It was that last weekend.

[00:23:36] We saw it.

[00:23:37] We saw it on Saturday.

[00:23:38] And then I think on, on that Tuesday they were like, we're done.

[00:23:41] Everything shut down.

[00:23:42] We were shutting Broadway.

[00:23:43] And it didn't reopen for another year and a half.

[00:23:45] So that was strange.

[00:23:47] Like just as a marker was wicked.

[00:23:49] And, uh, and in, if I'm going to make my top list of musicals, it's wicked and that's

[00:23:54] it because I haven't, I don't really.

[00:23:58] Okay.

[00:23:58] Well, how about, uh, instead of saying your top, you've not seen the sound of music.

[00:24:03] I would say the musicals I have seen, I've seen, I saw Moulin Rouge with, um, with Nate,

[00:24:10] which was special because, uh, your brother and one of our good friends sang Come Up May

[00:24:15] at our wedding, which they did a phenomenal job with.

[00:24:17] So I'd heard that song before even seeing Moulin Rouge show was kind of special to actually,

[00:24:22] you know, kind of watch that.

[00:24:23] We went shortly after our wedding, maybe a month later, we went to go watch Moulin Rouge.

[00:24:27] So it's nice.

[00:24:28] Um, and then what, and it's a very fluffy musical.

[00:24:32] The songs, it's all about the songs.

[00:24:33] It's not the story.

[00:24:34] No, you're not going there for the story.

[00:24:36] You're going there for the songs.

[00:24:37] It's just about the songs.

[00:24:37] And then, uh, and it's, it's glitzy and it's fun.

[00:24:40] The stage is beautifully set as well.

[00:24:43] Um, and then what else did we see?

[00:24:45] I think there was one more.

[00:24:46] We, it was not on Broadway, but it was a Broadway show that we saw.

[00:24:49] Oh, I've watched a few musical.

[00:24:51] Like you made me watch these.

[00:24:52] I'm not talking about movie.

[00:24:53] Oh, I'm talking about an on stage musical production.

[00:24:58] Oh, we saw come from away in Boston.

[00:25:00] That was, that was lovely.

[00:25:02] Actually, actually, you know what?

[00:25:03] Maybe I'll put that one in my list.

[00:25:05] It was, it was unique.

[00:25:06] It was, uh, and as a Canadian, uh, the Canadian American storyline, uh, it was, it's related

[00:25:12] to 9-11 and it's sort of the story of, uh, Americans landing in Canada being planes

[00:25:17] from all over the world, actually landing in Canada that were supposed to be landing

[00:25:21] in New York.

[00:25:22] So, yeah, I'll put, I'll put come from way maybe as my number two.

[00:25:26] Um, let's see.

[00:25:28] So I'll, I'll, yeah, the, on, in the, on the musicals that I've watched as movies that

[00:25:34] I've enjoyed, uh, I know you made me watch lazy mess.

[00:25:37] I didn't, I didn't really track with it that well.

[00:25:39] I've watched fiddler on the roof with you and I recently, and then we also watched phantom

[00:25:45] of the opera, which I also did not enjoy at all.

[00:25:47] So you didn't see the movie.

[00:25:48] You saw the 25th anniversary stage production, which is still good, but I think the movie

[00:25:54] would have given Andrew Webber movie is just like, Oh, for me, I know that it was very

[00:26:00] controversial.

[00:26:00] Some people hate it.

[00:26:02] I love that fucking love that movie.

[00:26:04] Like stop it.

[00:26:05] I will start drop everything and watch that over and over and over and over.

[00:26:10] Yeah, I have.

[00:26:11] So there, there, I, there was nothing about phantom that appeared, that appealed to me

[00:26:15] at all.

[00:26:15] Disliked the entire.

[00:26:16] So if anyone else is like, that's not my thing.

[00:26:18] I'm with you.

[00:26:19] I most, and it's funny at Hamilton is the movie version I saw, um, of the stage production

[00:26:24] with Lin-Manuel Miranda and a lot of the original casts, you know, Jonathan Groff and

[00:26:29] uh, who else was, uh, on stage.

[00:26:31] This is bad.

[00:26:32] I don't remember cast members.

[00:26:33] Anyway, Hamilton.

[00:26:34] I will, I have to shout out Hamilton because this is the musical that my son and I sing together.

[00:26:41] Car karaoke all the time.

[00:26:43] Like I know all the Hamilton songs.

[00:26:45] It is the songs I sing the most when it comes to musical theater songs.

[00:26:49] I mean, and yeah, my son and I speak, it's one of our love languages together is quoting

[00:26:54] Hamilton stuff and singing it together.

[00:26:56] And my daughter will just roll her eyes if the two of us get going because she's not interested

[00:27:01] and we love singing it together.

[00:27:02] If we go on a road trip, we, we get into Hamilton mode, but I actually, funnily enough,

[00:27:06] I did not enjoy the story.

[00:27:09] Like when I watched the movie version of it, I, I just like the, I don't know if you guys

[00:27:13] have ones where you don't care about the story.

[00:27:14] You just like the songs, but that's how I felt about Hamilton.

[00:27:17] The story was like, eh, I didn't keep my interest.

[00:27:20] I didn't, I didn't find it an appealing story, but the songs, I just, I haven't found

[00:27:24] another musical where I love the music as much as, and I find that's the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda.

[00:27:30] I really liked the Encanto music, even though it's not, you know, it's a children's, uh,

[00:27:35] cartoon movie, but I just, I find his.

[00:27:36] Well, we still haven't seen In the Heights.

[00:27:37] So I'm curious to see my take on that.

[00:27:39] Yeah.

[00:27:40] Um, I think I feel, I kind of feel that way about Phantom.

[00:27:43] Um, the music always, I mean, it's such a part of my childhood, such a part of my,

[00:27:49] my upbringing.

[00:27:50] And I sang songs from Phantom for all, like all sorts of events and stuff.

[00:27:54] Oh yeah.

[00:27:55] Um, but I've spent so many hours practicing, working on my vocals with that music.

[00:28:02] Cause you can work, you can really give your vocals a workout on Phantom.

[00:28:06] Yeah.

[00:28:06] Cause this, the songs are high and low.

[00:28:09] So you have to hit all the range.

[00:28:11] And, uh, so whenever I'm trying to get my voice in shape.

[00:28:14] Yeah.

[00:28:15] Yeah.

[00:28:15] For a soprano, that's definitely for me as a baritone, it doesn't really have a whole

[00:28:24] I forgot the title of it.

[00:28:26] Say you'll love me.

[00:28:28] Um, yes.

[00:28:29] I forgot.

[00:28:30] Anyway.

[00:28:30] Yes.

[00:28:35] Any, anywhere or something.

[00:28:36] Yeah.

[00:28:37] All I ask of you.

[00:28:38] There it is.

[00:28:38] All I ask of you.

[00:28:39] It's all something.

[00:28:40] All I ask of you.

[00:28:41] Yeah.

[00:28:42] Yeah, exactly.

[00:28:44] Um, okay.

[00:28:46] So, so we ready to dive into.

[00:28:48] That's where we, where we are in terms of just our love of musical theater.

[00:28:51] As you can tell, I'm on the low end of this, you know, and I'm sure there's

[00:28:56] people tuning in where you don't care about musical theater, but you wanted to see Wicked

[00:28:59] because, because of the actors in it, because of the story.

[00:29:03] Maybe even because like me, you liked the Wizard of Oz movie when you were a kid and

[00:29:07] grew up with that as a favorite childhood.

[00:29:09] Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite childhood movies.

[00:29:11] And maybe even in my all time enjoyable movies, Wizard of Oz was that for me.

[00:29:16] I know Wicked is a divergence from that story, but they're tied in together and there's

[00:29:20] a lot of nostalgia for me.

[00:29:21] I'm curious.

[00:29:21] Did you guys watch that movie as a kid?

[00:29:24] And did you read any of the books related either Wicked or Wizard of Oz?

[00:29:28] It's Oz books.

[00:29:29] I'm curious for you too.

[00:29:30] For me, I saw the Wizard of Oz.

[00:29:34] The Wizard of Oz, the movie is also one of my favorite movies from, especially from

[00:29:38] like a technical standpoint.

[00:29:39] Uh, when I was a film major in college, I really dug into the way that movie was made.

[00:29:49] And the, you know, some of the lore and like, you know, uh, urban legends about filmmaking.

[00:29:55] A lot of that stems from the Wizard of Oz.

[00:29:58] So I loved the Wizard of Oz as a film, as a film study.

[00:30:02] Um, can I add in a quick, sorry, a quick side on that?

[00:30:06] Sure.

[00:30:06] My mom, uh, when she was a kid had watched that movie and it was the first time she ever

[00:30:11] saw color TV was Wizard of Oz.

[00:30:13] And, and it was made, you know, it starts off in black and white and then switches over

[00:30:17] into color.

[00:30:18] To take the color.

[00:30:18] And she was saying how cool it was as a kid that that was like the original one where

[00:30:22] she got to see color TV with that.

[00:30:24] Cool.

[00:30:24] Cool.

[00:30:25] Um, yeah, but I had never actually read, um, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

[00:30:31] Um, it's, it had, it's always been on my list of things to read, even as a kid,

[00:30:37] it was always on my, like, you need to read this.

[00:30:39] It's nerdy and you've seen a lot, you've read a lot of the books behind the movies.

[00:30:42] I was curious if you'd read that one.

[00:30:43] No, I hadn't.

[00:30:44] I never actually read it, surprisingly enough.

[00:30:46] Um, wicked.

[00:30:47] Yes, but wicked.

[00:30:49] I did read the book.

[00:30:52] Okay.

[00:30:52] Um, unfortunately I read it as an adult because that is not a book for kids in any way, shape

[00:30:59] or form.

[00:30:59] I heard that.

[00:31:00] I haven't read it, but I have heard that.

[00:31:03] It is.

[00:31:04] And I've heard people say it's really miserable.

[00:31:07] It's really terrible to this read, but they didn't like it.

[00:31:10] It is dark.

[00:31:11] And I think part of it too is if you set your expectations for it based on your familiarity

[00:31:16] with the musical, you will be severely disappointed.

[00:31:22] But it is a very interesting book because, um,

[00:31:27] And the musical is based off of that book.

[00:31:28] Yeah.

[00:31:29] The musical is based off of it.

[00:31:29] So the book is called Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

[00:31:32] Um, and it's the same premise.

[00:31:35] It's like, you know, going into her backstory and reframing her and all of her deeds through

[00:31:41] the lens of what happened to her and the sort of politicization of the world of Oz,

[00:31:46] her experiences with the wizard.

[00:31:48] Um, the difference in, you know, from the book to the play is that the book wears its politics

[00:31:55] on its sleeve.

[00:31:56] It is, it doesn't shy away from just straight up saying the wizard of Oz is a fascist.

[00:32:02] He's a dictator.

[00:32:04] He is, you know, starting wars over there, massacring, uh, various groups of people right

[00:32:11] off the bat from, from the start of the book.

[00:32:15] That's where we're at.

[00:32:16] We're living in a world where the wizard of Oz is a fascist dictator.

[00:32:21] Um, and then, you know, all of the politics kind of play into that.

[00:32:25] There's a lot of blood and gore in the book.

[00:32:28] There's a lot of explicit sexual descriptions in the book.

[00:32:32] So, um, if you're, if you're listening to this and you're like, Hey, my kid really loved

[00:32:37] the movie.

[00:32:38] Maybe I should read the book with them.

[00:32:39] No, no, wait a few years.

[00:32:42] Yeah.

[00:32:42] Maybe don't.

[00:32:43] Or depending on your kid, if they're, if they're, if they want you, they want to go

[00:32:47] through mature content with you to discuss, then that's different.

[00:32:49] I guess, supposedly maybe, I don't know.

[00:32:52] Uh, maybe pre-read it, see where your kid is at.

[00:32:55] This is definitely the kind of book where I would like any kid that's younger than 16.

[00:32:58] I wouldn't want them going near this book.

[00:33:02] Interesting.

[00:33:03] Yeah.

[00:33:04] But, um, yeah.

[00:33:06] So, so that's far as, as far as the wicked source material, that's, that's kind of my,

[00:33:10] my engagement with, I have not read the other books, um, in the, in Gregory Maguire's wicked

[00:33:16] series.

[00:33:17] I think there's son of the witch and then there's something that has to do with a cowardly

[00:33:21] lion.

[00:33:21] I don't remember what the title of that one was, but follow ups after wicked.

[00:33:25] Okay.

[00:33:25] Jessica.

[00:33:25] What about you, Jessica?

[00:33:28] So, um, my introduction to wicked was only through the music.

[00:33:32] Um, I have heard the music all throughout my musical.

[00:33:39] You know, whenever I would go looking for music, I would look for musical music.

[00:33:44] And then, and I actually, I think my true introduction to wicked music, you're going to laugh was through

[00:33:52] Glee, the TV show.

[00:33:55] Oh, I, I watched, I watched Glee.

[00:33:58] So I know what you're talking about.

[00:33:59] Yeah.

[00:34:00] I loved Glee at the beginning.

[00:34:01] I really, really loved Glee.

[00:34:02] Um, and they do an episode where there's musical theater of, and they do defying gravity and

[00:34:10] that type.

[00:34:10] And I just, I was like, Oh, I've died.

[00:34:15] They've gone to heaven.

[00:34:15] This is, this is like, this is amazing.

[00:34:17] And so I learned it.

[00:34:19] And then, um, within the next few years, I picked up other songs from it and learned

[00:34:26] them.

[00:34:26] And then like four years ago I learned popular and recorded myself singing that.

[00:34:33] If you want to see that, you can go to Gale's page.

[00:34:36] Is it okay if I put a link to that?

[00:34:38] I really think.

[00:34:39] Yeah, I think no, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll post a link below in the show notes.

[00:34:44] You should go.

[00:34:45] If you, if you enjoy wicked, uh, Jessica's rendition of popular nail nails it down perfectly.

[00:34:51] Nate, do you have a defying gravity one that you've recorded?

[00:34:54] No, I, I, I.

[00:34:55] That would be fun.

[00:34:56] I performed.

[00:34:57] It was for this like little cabaret night at our, at our church.

[00:35:01] We, um, uh, a friend of mine and I performed, um, as long as you're mine, which if you're

[00:35:06] only in wicked with the movie, that song hasn't come up yet.

[00:35:10] It's not going to show up until part two, but I'll put that link to if you, if you're

[00:35:13] fans of the musical.

[00:35:15] So I did two recordings of it.

[00:35:16] So I, sorry, I did, I did the one performance with a friend at that cabaret night and then

[00:35:21] I did a recording of just, just a song.

[00:35:24] Um, so if you want to find out how nerdy my friends are with me and how well they love

[00:35:30] musicals and sing it, you can go check out.

[00:35:32] I strongly encourage you to go listen cause they're both lovely.

[00:35:39] It's very silly.

[00:35:49] Okay.

[00:35:49] So Jessica going back to, um, uh, you're saying you've heard, you heard those songs.

[00:35:55] I'm curious.

[00:35:55] Did you ever watch the original wizard of Oz as a child?

[00:35:58] Did you know?

[00:35:58] Oh yes.

[00:35:58] Wizard of Oz.

[00:35:59] Yes.

[00:35:59] Not, not, not the Broadway wicked.

[00:36:02] Um, so I did watch the wizard of Oz.

[00:36:05] Yes.

[00:36:06] Um, as a kid, I remember, uh, not getting through it the first time because I was so freaked

[00:36:12] out.

[00:36:13] Uh, I did not handle scary movies when I was young and I was probably six or seven.

[00:36:22] I think the first time I saw it.

[00:36:24] I think the first time I saw it.

[00:36:25] So a little young on the young side.

[00:36:27] And so I think I kind of like took off and didn't finish it.

[00:36:30] Um, and then I came back and, um, saw it again.

[00:36:35] And then, um, but I don't, I think it took a long time.

[00:36:39] I was probably fully an adult before I sat down and watched it beginning to end, you

[00:36:45] know, and, and wasn't too freaked out.

[00:36:48] Uh, and so I liked it, but it wasn't like one of these movies that was like my favorite

[00:36:53] ever, ever.

[00:36:54] Um, I love Judy Garland and I love Judy Garland in all of the movies I've seen her in.

[00:37:00] And so, um, yeah, the wizard of Oz was a fun one, but I don't have a ton of like,

[00:37:06] it was my favorite ever.

[00:37:08] So like a lot.

[00:37:09] It's so funny because you're talking about how, you know, you were as a kid scared to

[00:37:13] watch it.

[00:37:13] I had that moment too, as a child being scared of it.

[00:37:15] But, but also what's funny to me is, you know, you're talking about how you didn't

[00:37:19] like scary movies as a kid.

[00:37:20] And what's funny is I can't watch scary movies today and you can, but that's one of my favorite

[00:37:25] ones as a kid.

[00:37:26] Not too scary.

[00:37:27] I will preface that there.

[00:37:30] There's a lot of horror movies I am not interested in watching.

[00:37:33] Um, but, but I did get through all of stranger thing.

[00:37:36] There you go.

[00:37:37] Nice.

[00:37:37] Okay.

[00:37:38] So yeah.

[00:37:38] All right.

[00:37:39] I gotta bring up, um, before we go into like our thoughts on the movie, which would

[00:37:44] probably like intersperse some of that in here because of the nature of our podcasts.

[00:37:50] Uh, we of course had to do a little bit of, you know, digging around to see what evangelicals

[00:37:57] were thinking.

[00:37:57] You know what?

[00:37:58] That yes, yes, yes, yes.

[00:38:00] I think there's an article I'd love for us to give our thoughts on and it'll probably pull

[00:38:04] up a lot of our thoughts about wicked.

[00:38:06] Um, I mean, from, I'll just say straight off the bat when I was sitting there watching

[00:38:10] it in theater, uh, yesterday is when I saw it.

[00:38:13] You too, Jessica, right?

[00:38:14] Yeah.

[00:38:14] Last night.

[00:38:15] Yep.

[00:38:15] Mm hmm.

[00:38:15] Okay.

[00:38:16] So we're coming all fresh off of seeing this yesterday.

[00:38:19] Um, the thing that was, was hitting me right on the spot was, wow, this movie feels

[00:38:24] like it was written for this time.

[00:38:26] Uh, it feels on the nose when it comes to the political climate and, and, um, and even how it

[00:38:33] spoke to religion for me, uh, or, and it didn't directly speak to religion, but it kind of touched

[00:38:38] on some themes that were pretty common to me as an ex, as, as, as an ex evangelical, having

[00:38:43] grown up evangelical.

[00:38:44] I thought some of the topics were on point for how we were raised to think.

[00:38:49] And it felt explicit to me.

[00:38:50] I felt, I felt the whole movie felt so on the nose for me.

[00:38:53] And I was kind of wondering how other people felt about that sitting in theater if they

[00:38:58] were making parallels to the world around them.

[00:39:00] So that thought was popping in my head.

[00:39:02] And, and then Nate read me this article this morning.

[00:39:05] Uh, and we started talking through it and it's, uh, yeah, it's from, it's from the gospel

[00:39:12] coalition.

[00:39:12] I'll just say that straight off the bat.

[00:39:14] He made me guess at the end of it.

[00:39:15] He's like, who do you think wrote this?

[00:39:17] And I was like, oh, that's obviously the gospel coalition.

[00:39:19] I just, yeah, that was my first guess.

[00:39:21] And I was right on.

[00:39:23] Yeah.

[00:39:23] So apologies for anybody who, uh, is extremely triggered by the gospel coalition.

[00:39:28] Um, we're going to pause and give our thoughts as we go along.

[00:39:31] Yes.

[00:39:32] Um, the other thing too, is if you're not familiar with the gospel coalition, they are a staunchly

[00:39:37] Calvinistic evangelical, evangelical organization that loves to just complain about everything.

[00:39:44] They'll, they'll jizz their thoughts over every possible.

[00:39:47] Yep.

[00:39:48] Exactly.

[00:39:49] Exactly.

[00:39:50] So, you know, I thought this would be as, as, as a podcast that deals with themes of,

[00:39:54] um, mutuality and deals with themes of justice.

[00:39:57] I thought this was actually wicked was an, a great topic for me to get into as the movie,

[00:40:02] because it deals with a lot of that stuff.

[00:40:03] And this article definitely, uh, was angry about it for the wrong reasons, but we know evangelicals.

[00:40:10] So I thought it was very, it was going to be a great intro into talking about wicked.

[00:40:14] So I wanted Nate to, to give us a reading.

[00:40:16] Yeah.

[00:40:17] I guess I'll just, we should read the whole, I'm sorry.

[00:40:19] We're going to read this thing.

[00:40:21] We're going to read through the whole fucking thing.

[00:40:23] Here we go.

[00:40:24] All right.

[00:40:25] Um, one of the most noteworthy theological trends in the 20 and 21st century pop culture

[00:40:30] has been the rehabilitation of the villain from Cruella to Maleficent to the Joker and more

[00:40:37] iconic villains are now routinely given spinoff movies and sympathetic backstories that complicate

[00:40:43] our categories of good and evil.

[00:40:46] This is dovetails with the rise of the trauma plot and a narrative fixation on how destructive

[00:40:53] choices, let's just call it sin can be explained by past trauma.

[00:40:57] Okay.

[00:40:58] So here's, here's, here's the thing, right?

[00:40:59] I'm going to stop.

[00:41:00] We're going to be doing a lot of stopping.

[00:41:02] Yeah.

[00:41:03] Uh, the, the whole, like, you know, the rehabilitation of the villain, it is interesting.

[00:41:10] And I think part of that for me, and, and I'm, I'm a little annoyed by dis by Disney doing

[00:41:16] some of this stuff cause I'm not super interested.

[00:41:19] Um, especially Cruella, like, you know, cause her whole motivation in 101 Dalmatians is to

[00:41:26] kill a whole bunch of dogs.

[00:41:27] Oh, that's not hard.

[00:41:28] I don't want to rehabilitate.

[00:41:30] Yeah.

[00:41:31] Baby dogs.

[00:41:32] Baby dogs.

[00:41:32] We don't care why she's poor their coat, which she wanted to wear.

[00:41:36] To fucking wear.

[00:41:38] Right.

[00:41:39] So I have very little interest in rehabilitating Cruella.

[00:41:43] However, you know, the, this whole like idea of the rehabilitated villain, quote unquote.

[00:41:49] Um, I do think that character explorations are worth diving into.

[00:41:56] I don't like, Oh, sorry.

[00:41:57] I was going to say, isn't this rich coming from evangelicals?

[00:42:00] Are they not the people who like character rehabilitation?

[00:42:04] Trump?

[00:42:04] Hello.

[00:42:05] We have completely rehabilitated this New York playboy.

[00:42:10] I mean, let's go through Bible stories.

[00:42:14] Like, like Paul.

[00:42:16] I mean, isn't the Bible full of like, look at this person and how he's going to be.

[00:42:19] Oh God.

[00:42:20] Moved and chain.

[00:42:21] Mm hmm.

[00:42:22] It's, it's full of, I mean.

[00:42:23] Well, I think part of their frustration.

[00:42:26] Yes, of course.

[00:42:27] Um, I think part of their frustration isn't so much that you're rehabilitating a villain.

[00:42:33] It's that we're now reframing the villain.

[00:42:37] A villain as a good character.

[00:42:38] As a good character.

[00:42:40] Or as understandable.

[00:42:41] Like a prequel story.

[00:42:42] Yeah.

[00:42:42] Yeah.

[00:42:44] So, um, so.

[00:42:47] And, uh, sorry, their comment too on like, oh, sorry, right off the bat, we have to get

[00:42:53] into their trauma background now with villains to make us, you know, understand them.

[00:42:57] And it's, it's funny to me because there's such a resistance in evangelicalism to understanding

[00:43:03] psychology, understanding how trauma impacts people.

[00:43:06] Right.

[00:43:06] They love using words like church hurt, but very condescendingly and very mockingly of

[00:43:11] people who've been harmed.

[00:43:13] And it's like your trauma.

[00:43:14] Oh, it's, you're so wishy washy, whatever.

[00:43:18] And they really believe psychology is like a joke and not to be taken seriously.

[00:43:22] And trauma is not something to be taken seriously.

[00:43:24] So even when they talk about someone's trauma background, it's not really, um, they don't

[00:43:30] really take that as something valuable or important.

[00:43:33] Right.

[00:43:33] There's zero kindness and empathy in it.

[00:43:36] Zero.

[00:43:37] Yeah.

[00:43:38] Mm hmm.

[00:43:38] Yeah.

[00:43:38] So I found that interesting that right away he's, he's getting into how old we got to

[00:43:43] find their trauma backgrounds.

[00:43:44] And of course, going into Alphaba's history is going to be a part of wicked, right?

[00:43:48] So, okay.

[00:43:49] I'll let you continue reading and we'll.

[00:43:51] Yeah.

[00:43:51] So, um, part of why Hollywood has gravitated toward this narrative is simply that it makes

[00:43:55] good and financially lucrative drama.

[00:43:57] Giving villains origin stories is intriguing, but I think this trend's rise is also connected

[00:44:02] to the post-Christian culture's confusion about sin and evil, morality and justice.

[00:44:08] In this world, the theological word sin has been replaced by the psychological word brokenness

[00:44:14] and transcendent concepts of justice have been replaced by oppressor oppressed power

[00:44:20] dynamics.

[00:44:21] This is hilarious.

[00:44:22] So.

[00:44:23] Oh my.

[00:44:23] Can you hear my eyes rolling?

[00:44:25] I think you can hear it.

[00:44:29] Um, okay.

[00:44:31] So his whole, like they, they love the evangelicals love using the word justice, but this

[00:44:38] even like the way that he phrases it here, um, transcendent, where is it transcendent

[00:44:43] concepts of justice?

[00:44:45] Um, like the idea of justice for this guy is something that is transcendent.

[00:44:54] It is above, it is beyond our meager mortal understanding.

[00:44:59] Um, when, you know.

[00:45:01] So like Jesus saving us and, and dying for our sins, that's G that's God justice.

[00:45:06] That's transcendent justice.

[00:45:07] But, you know, fighting for equality among, for women and men or for marginalized people

[00:45:13] who have voting rights or making sure that they, you know, any of, any of that kind of

[00:45:17] stuff.

[00:45:17] Well, that's just, what is it?

[00:45:18] Oppressor oppressee.

[00:45:20] He's mocking that sort of dynamic power dynamics.

[00:45:23] Right.

[00:45:24] Which is.

[00:45:25] Yeah.

[00:45:26] That's so important.

[00:45:28] Mm hmm.

[00:45:29] Mm hmm.

[00:45:30] But, but, but no, no, we've got to deconstruct it and demonize it.

[00:45:34] So I, I, I get frustrated with these, these guys in their, uh, evangelical approaches to,

[00:45:41] to pop culture because they put everything through this hierarchical lens.

[00:45:45] Um, and they can't, they just cannot grasp the necessity for understanding and how this

[00:45:54] plays into good storytelling to just understanding how people's psyches work, how people's relational

[00:46:00] interactions work because everything comes through this lens of, are we offending God

[00:46:06] or are we in right relationship with God and everything else?

[00:46:09] And who's in charge.

[00:46:10] Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:10] Who's in charge.

[00:46:11] Who's, you know, who's the authority.

[00:46:13] And are we calling the right things sin?

[00:46:14] And are we submitting to that authority?

[00:46:15] Yeah.

[00:46:16] Yeah.

[00:46:17] Mm hmm.

[00:46:17] Are we calling the right things sin?

[00:46:20] Exactly.

[00:46:20] It's just so annoying.

[00:46:22] Um, let's see.

[00:46:23] All this is on full display in wicked, uh, the John M Chu directed movie about the wicked

[00:46:28] which of the West origin story, the wicked franchise first a book, then a popular Steven

[00:46:32] Schwartz, Broadway musical, and now a two part cinematic saga is perhaps the clearest

[00:46:36] example.

[00:46:37] Yet the contemporary pop culture struggles with the category of evil.

[00:46:40] The title alone playfully probes the concept, redefining it as a word of empowerment.

[00:46:44] Think wicked.

[00:46:45] Awesome.

[00:46:46] As Bostonians might say.

[00:46:47] Okay.

[00:46:48] This guy's infuriated.

[00:46:49] Wicked was cool in the nineties.

[00:46:51] Like nobody is.

[00:46:52] How old is this guy?

[00:46:54] He's an old, he's a boomer speaking.

[00:46:57] He looks like a millennial ish.

[00:47:01] He's just, I don't know.

[00:47:02] He's got a beard.

[00:47:03] What's this guy's name?

[00:47:04] Uh, Brett McCracken.

[00:47:06] He, yeah, a Brett.

[00:47:07] He's a white dude, isn't he?

[00:47:09] He, yeah.

[00:47:09] Of course he is.

[00:47:10] He's a very white dude.

[00:47:11] Of course he's white.

[00:47:13] Yes.

[00:47:14] All right, Brett.

[00:47:15] So.

[00:47:15] Yeah.

[00:47:16] Where are we?

[00:47:17] Um, let's see.

[00:47:18] Rather than being the iconically despicable nightmare inducing character immortalized by Margaret

[00:47:22] Hamilton in 1939's The Wizard of Oz, the wicked witch of the West is reconsidered in wicked

[00:47:27] as a good natured, well-intentioned outcast named Elphaba who has been seriously misunderstood.

[00:47:34] Uh, that's what she has been.

[00:47:36] Mm-hmm.

[00:47:37] But I like how you're reading that because they definitely, I mean, do that with people.

[00:47:42] Evangelicals will often, you know, when you say someone's been misunderstood, you're like, oh, they've been, it's like church hurt.

[00:47:49] It's like misunderstood.

[00:47:51] Yeah.

[00:47:51] There's not really a desire to what you were saying before about empathy.

[00:47:54] There's just none of that.

[00:47:55] Yeah.

[00:47:56] Desire to get to know someone's backstory.

[00:47:58] Yeah.

[00:47:59] It's a joke to them.

[00:48:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:01] Yeah.

[00:48:01] It's not relevant.

[00:48:02] And also, like, they're talking about, like, the way he, he sort of, it, the way he writes

[00:48:11] about the 1939 Wizard of Oz villain, the Wicked Witch of the West, it's almost like she is Bible.

[00:48:20] Like, that portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West is canon in his mind and therefore,

[00:48:26] right, therefore none of this could be legitimate because, like, this is the culture's need.

[00:48:31] How dare we use wicked as a word of empowerment?

[00:48:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:33] Right.

[00:48:33] Which is funny, too, because, I mean, just that, that fear of like, I was thinking about

[00:48:39] evangelicals watching a movie titled Wicked and how much it would make, like, you grew

[00:48:43] up in New Jersey, Nate, where there's the New Jersey devils.

[00:48:46] And like, didn't you grow up feeling uncomfortable as a kid that you're the hockey team nearby

[00:48:51] had the devils title?

[00:48:52] Right?

[00:48:53] Like, weren't we so paranoid over like the satanic, and anyone who thinks satanic panic was

[00:48:58] a nineties thing, this has been a common theme throughout evangelicals.

[00:49:01] They never let go of the sphere of the devil.

[00:49:03] It goes through, yeah, different phases of it.

[00:49:06] Mm-hmm.

[00:49:07] Right?

[00:49:07] Taylor Swift, demonic, like, everyone becomes evil.

[00:49:10] Harry Potter in the 2000s.

[00:49:12] Yeah.

[00:49:13] Right.

[00:49:13] In the eighties, it was Dungeons and Dragons.

[00:49:15] In the 2000s, it was Harry Potter.

[00:49:17] So Wicked, I mean, that will always be on an evangelical radar for scary, bad.

[00:49:22] I mean, how could you not see it as problematic?

[00:49:24] It has the word...

[00:49:26] Evangelicals are constantly scared of Halloween.

[00:49:28] There's some people in it that are okay with it, but it's always controversial because

[00:49:32] anything that represents, anything that can be the word wicked or association with witchcraft

[00:49:37] or witches or anything like that is so...

[00:49:39] It's still very taboo.

[00:49:40] Yeah.

[00:49:40] So I'm imagining...

[00:49:41] I'm not imagining they'll have favorable opinions of wicked.

[00:49:45] No, of course not.

[00:49:45] Yeah.

[00:49:46] Um, why does wickedness happen?

[00:49:48] The question opens the film posed by a munchkin in Munchkinland to Glinda the Good Witch, played

[00:49:52] by Ariana Grande, following news that ends the original Oz film, The Wicked Witch of the

[00:49:58] West is dead.

[00:49:59] Glinda answers the question by narrating the life of her frenemy, Elphaba, played by Cynthia

[00:50:03] Erivo, from her birth in a broken home to a childhood marked by bullying to adult years

[00:50:08] when she and Glinda attended Shiz University, an institution reminiscent of Hogwarts for would-be

[00:50:13] witches to learn magic.

[00:50:14] Okay, hang on.

[00:50:16] I...

[00:50:16] Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I didn't think Elphaba came from a broken home.

[00:50:21] She had two parents.

[00:50:22] Her mom died in childbirth with the second one being born, her sister being born, but

[00:50:27] she has a dad.

[00:50:29] Oh, yeah.

[00:50:29] She has a sister.

[00:50:30] She doesn't come from a broken home.

[00:50:32] Mm-hmm.

[00:50:32] Am I missing something?

[00:50:34] Why is he saying she came from a broken home?

[00:50:36] Uh, well, because this is a home without a stay-at-home mother, therefore.

[00:50:40] Oh!

[00:50:41] Wait, can you hear it?

[00:50:43] I'm just...

[00:50:44] I don't know.

[00:50:45] But I'm also wondering, even isn't the fact that it's...

[00:50:49] Isn't she born through an affair?

[00:50:51] I mean, the dad doesn't know it.

[00:50:53] Hey, hey, hey, spoilers for part two.

[00:50:54] I mean, we're definitely all into spoilers.

[00:50:56] No, but in Wicked part one, you see the mom is drinking and see the eliphate.

[00:51:01] Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true.

[00:51:01] That's true.

[00:51:02] You're right, you're right.

[00:51:03] In the flashback sequence, you're right.

[00:51:04] This is definitely Jeff Goldblum's voice.

[00:51:07] That guy that she's...

[00:51:08] Jeff Goldblum's voice, yes.

[00:51:09] Yes.

[00:51:10] It's supposed to be vague, but it's also supposed to be wink, wink, nod, nod, guess who this

[00:51:15] is?

[00:51:16] Guess who this is.

[00:51:17] So that's broken home.

[00:51:18] I mean, she's having...

[00:51:19] The mom is having a baby out of wedlock with the wrong...

[00:51:22] Yeah, but...

[00:51:22] She's having an affair.

[00:51:23] That's not technical...

[00:51:24] Okay, I'm just hung up on the technicalities of this, but that's not technically a broken

[00:51:28] home.

[00:51:28] Like, your mom had an affair, but that was covered up.

[00:51:32] She's raised by her two parents, right?

[00:51:35] Right.

[00:51:35] And she's raised with her sister, and she's raised with this whole house full of staff.

[00:51:40] Like, this is a traditional home.

[00:51:42] This is traditional.

[00:51:43] It's not like...

[00:51:44] Anyway, I'm sorry.

[00:51:46] I just think it's funny that this author superimposed that onto this.

[00:51:51] He took his lens and put it onto the story, again, in a way that it's not there, in my

[00:51:57] opinion.

[00:51:57] But...

[00:51:58] Interesting.

[00:51:58] That's a good point.

[00:51:59] Sorry.

[00:51:59] I'm harping on a...

[00:52:01] No, it's good.

[00:52:01] That's fine.

[00:52:02] This is what we're doing.

[00:52:02] I want to kind of open it up to explore an evangelical lens of seeing this, but also

[00:52:06] how we look at it kind of coming out of this culture and how they analyze this.

[00:52:12] Hey, this is Cortland.

[00:52:14] And this is Megan.

[00:52:15] We're from the Thereafter podcast.

[00:52:18] And we are so excited about our second annual content warning event coming up next February.

[00:52:24] This year, we're going to be in Atlanta, Georgia over President's Day weekend, February

[00:52:29] 15th and 16th, 2025, with some extra hangout time on Friday, February 14th.

[00:52:36] Content warning is a unique event with more than 20 collaborators who are podcasters, authors,

[00:52:42] therapists, speakers, and creators that want to reinvigorate the conversation happening

[00:52:47] around sex and sexuality and faith deconstruction spaces.

[00:52:51] We'll have panel discussions, facilitated conversations, and even a live stream option

[00:52:56] for those who can't make it in person.

[00:52:59] Our hope is to make this an annual gathering in various locations as we continue striving

[00:53:04] to build an inclusive community.

[00:53:06] You can find all the event information at contentwarningevent.com.

[00:53:12] Early bird tickets are on sale through October 31st.

[00:53:15] We hope you'll join us there.

[00:53:18] Much of Wicked follows the relational development between Glinda and Elphaba.

[00:53:22] Well, he's talking about part one with part two coming out next year.

[00:53:25] Follows a relational development between Glinda and Elphaba as roommate rivals turned friends

[00:53:30] at ShizU.

[00:53:31] Their odd couple dynamic is fun to watch.

[00:53:33] Much of Wicked's pleasures come from the way Elphaba and Glinda compliment and learn

[00:53:37] from each other.

[00:53:37] There are genuinely moving scenes of them caring for one another against all odds.

[00:53:42] The Ozdust ballroom scene stands out.

[00:53:45] Grande is perfectly cast as Glinda, who reminds me a lot of Reese Witherspoon's iconic character

[00:53:50] in Election, Tracy Flick, a popular, ambitious, but slightly annoying queen bee.

[00:53:55] I've decided to make you my project, Glinda informs Elphaba, exuding the sort of condescending

[00:54:00] liberal guilt of a privileged do-gooder whose altruism is largely about virtue signaling.

[00:54:05] She represents privilege, power, and Karen-esque entitlement.

[00:54:08] Even her gestures of allyship and solidarity feel opportunistic.

[00:54:13] Okay, pause.

[00:54:14] I mean, he's right.

[00:54:15] There is a white liberal allyship that is just fluffy, privileged BS, and it's a real thing.

[00:54:22] But it's interesting that he associates power and privilege with liberals and does not also

[00:54:27] see that that is absolutely a depiction of like she looks like a little blonde Republican

[00:54:32] girl and acts like one too.

[00:54:34] Yeah.

[00:54:34] Absolutely.

[00:54:35] The entitlement, the attitude.

[00:54:37] Yeah.

[00:54:38] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:38] She's a Laura Trump.

[00:54:41] Yep.

[00:54:42] Yep.

[00:54:43] Yep.

[00:54:45] Meanwhile, Elphaba is a marginalized icon of intersectionality.

[00:54:48] Born with green skin, the daughter of an unknown father, ostracized in childhood, prone to quirky

[00:54:54] dance moves.

[00:54:55] It's no doubt intentional that Elphaba is played in the film by a queer black woman, Erivo.

[00:55:00] Her character doesn't neatly fit mainstream society's binaries and norms.

[00:55:05] And as the story progresses, she becomes a freedom fighter for the oppressed, a quote-unquote

[00:55:09] villain, only insofar as those in power mischaracterize her cause.

[00:55:18] Um...

[00:55:19] If wicked finds wickedness anywhere, it's not in Elphaba.

[00:55:23] Rather, it's in Oz's privileged power structures, namely, the Wizard of Oz, played by Jeff Goldblum,

[00:55:28] Madame Morrible, played by Michelle Yeoh, and others who gain power by using and abusing

[00:55:33] the less fortunate.

[00:55:34] Yes.

[00:55:35] He actually nails down that pretty well and accurately portrays, but I think he's upset

[00:55:41] about that.

[00:55:42] Oh, he's upset.

[00:55:42] Here, we're about to hear why he's upset.

[00:55:45] It's interesting that the Wizard is a god proxy in the film's world.

[00:55:49] Characters exclaim things like, thank Oz, and what in the name of Oz?

[00:55:53] This deity turns out to be a manipulative, self-serving, untrustworthy villain.

[00:55:59] Religious mythology is exposed as a convenient means of perpetuating human power.

[00:56:03] Pause!

[00:56:04] Thank you!

[00:56:05] Pause!

[00:56:06] Yes!

[00:56:06] This is what Christianity fucking is!

[00:56:12] Yes!

[00:56:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:56:12] Ah, okay.

[00:56:13] Yes.

[00:56:14] It's the moment that he realizes, oh wait, they're talking about us, but the lack of self-awareness

[00:56:20] is to ask, why do they see us this way?

[00:56:23] Well, it's just like, also you can't question the God of the Bible, right?

[00:56:26] And I think that's a big flaw in evangelicalism.

[00:56:30] It's just, you know, I think other traditions, Jewish tradition, there's a lot of other traditions

[00:56:34] and even maybe other progressive Christian cultures where you can look at the Bible, analyze

[00:56:38] the God in the Bible, inerrancy is not a thing, and you could question, do these stories,

[00:56:43] are they a good model for what a deity should look like and behave and be like?

[00:56:47] Right.

[00:56:47] Is this some sort of template for an unchanging historical God or is these some ideas and

[00:56:51] concepts we should probe a little more carefully and form opinions about based on, you know,

[00:56:57] things as a society we've evolved to care about?

[00:57:00] Right.

[00:57:00] Like, for example, genocide is a problem, right?

[00:57:03] Like, these are things evangelicals can't grapple with very well because anything God

[00:57:07] does in the Bible in their mind is benevolent, good, proper.

[00:57:11] It's the definition of good, right?

[00:57:13] Yeah.

[00:57:14] And so, you know, when they're saying, wait, Oz is the God character and we're criticizing

[00:57:19] this deity as this deified character is terrible because he's bad.

[00:57:25] We're evaluating his behavior and we're looking at his power tripping and seeing this is not,

[00:57:30] you know, it is interesting.

[00:57:31] I find looking through a lot of the God we grew up on as evangelicals, it does look a

[00:57:37] lot like Oz.

[00:57:38] It looks like we're supposed to sing the songs about him and believe that he's lovely and

[00:57:43] amazing.

[00:57:43] And then what we're seeing happening and what people are saying is happening, it's

[00:57:49] not all matching up very consistently, right?

[00:57:51] Because what we're seeing is problems.

[00:57:53] What's being talked about is not the problems.

[00:57:55] It's being whitewashed literally into something entirely different.

[00:58:00] I think right off the bat, when the song opens up and they're singing about the death of the

[00:58:06] witch, I found the lyrics so interesting.

[00:58:09] Isn't it nice to know that good will conquer evil?

[00:58:13] And then, you know, the good man scores the wicked through their lives.

[00:58:16] Our children will learn what we miss when we misbehave.

[00:58:19] And it's this, this constant, this thought of like, you know, the, yeah, the good, the

[00:58:25] good will conquer the evil and sort of, that is a very evangelical.

[00:58:29] For me, when I heard those lyrics, it just, it rang out to me as how I grew up, right?

[00:58:33] Our children will learn this about how good will conquer evil.

[00:58:36] And then they're believing this about the world that they're in.

[00:58:40] They're believing this about what's happening.

[00:58:43] And it's just not, not the reality of that.

[00:58:45] I also think there's a little sense of that as being exploitative of people's desire for

[00:58:51] hope and for comfort and by using that and simply saying, okay, you know, we all yearn

[00:58:58] for good to conquer evil.

[00:59:00] Now let's reframe or, or frame or set the tone for what you think is good and what you think

[00:59:07] is evil, you know?

[00:59:08] And then when, you know, when we win, cause we're going to frame ourselves as good, then

[00:59:14] we can, Hey, look, everybody good is conquering evil.

[00:59:17] And everyone buys into that.

[00:59:20] Um, you know, we love the binary.

[00:59:22] We love it the way it has divide.

[00:59:27] Yeah.

[00:59:28] Um, I'll continue reading.

[00:59:30] Uh, one subplot basically equates Oz's elites with Nazi fascist, but Nazi fascists.

[00:59:36] He's paying attention.

[00:59:37] Hmm.

[00:59:38] Yeah.

[00:59:38] Somebody is actually like, yeah, you see, you see the allegory here.

[00:59:41] It's not like it wasn't, you know, painted clearly for us.

[00:59:44] It's interesting that he could see it in wicked, but he can't probably can't see it with.

[00:59:48] It's funny how evangelicals could see that framing and wicked, but not with Trump.

[00:59:52] That's an entertaining and sad.

[00:59:54] Right.

[00:59:55] No, they're just going to look at this and saying that wicked is, you know, they're, they're making

[00:59:59] a mockery of, of Trump or whatever, you know?

[01:00:03] Um, as if this was even written specifically with Trump in mind.

[01:00:06] Um, anyway, the talking animals previously valued members of society are now an oppressed group

[01:00:12] othered in ugly ways, blamed for everything.

[01:00:16] Scapegoat, literally silenced and even locked up.

[01:00:20] Animals should be seen and not heard is the mantra of the fascist regime.

[01:00:25] Elphaba emerges as the voice of resistance to this oppressive prejudice.

[01:00:29] Can we pause?

[01:00:30] Sorry with that.

[01:00:31] When you guys were watching the movie and you were seeing the animals being silenced

[01:00:35] and being scapegoated and all of that, were you all like feeling the same way as me that

[01:00:41] this is, that's where I really felt this movie was so on the nose with our current culture

[01:00:44] and climate or was that just me?

[01:00:46] Hmm.

[01:00:47] Yeah.

[01:00:47] Yeah.

[01:00:48] I also think that, um, the, the decision to specifically to, um, make the animals actual

[01:00:57] animals in this movie rather than like actors in animal costumes, like in the, the stage

[01:01:03] version, um, also kind of set a particular tone to allow us to kind of see animals in different

[01:01:09] ways, especially putting them in cages.

[01:01:11] Right.

[01:01:12] Um, really kind of, you know, drove that point home.

[01:01:17] This incredible harshness and cruelty.

[01:01:21] Reminiscent of, um, you know, locking kids in cages during the previous Trump administration.

[01:01:26] Right.

[01:01:27] Um, and what we're likely looking forward to as we, as we get close to, to another.

[01:01:33] But I look at like, I look at the, the, the animal analogy of like trying to make them

[01:01:37] in, you know, they're talking animals, right.

[01:01:40] And he's there in Oz, they're trying to make them silenced and, and don't want them to

[01:01:44] be who they are, which is talking smart creatures, right?

[01:01:47] They want them to be dumb and muted creatures.

[01:01:49] And I know like for when I was watching that, I was thinking of, it was very hard for me

[01:01:54] to get out of my head how much, uh, trans people have been scapegoated currently are being scapegoated

[01:01:59] politically in the U S and how, um, the, the idea or the thought that you hear from the

[01:02:06] conservatives is that's a mental illness you have, and you just need to go back to whatever

[01:02:11] assigned at birth you had.

[01:02:13] And basically who you are as a trans person is no longer what we want.

[01:02:18] We don't, we want you to not become yourself anymore.

[01:02:20] We want you to undo that piece that you've, you figured out who you are and now you're,

[01:02:24] and we're seeing that we don't want that.

[01:02:27] So we want, we would want you to go silent on these things, you know, about yourself,

[01:02:31] these truths about who you are.

[01:02:32] We don't want to see them publicly and we want, yeah, if you have to be caged in order

[01:02:39] to become acceptable to us, you know, as in.

[01:02:43] Yeah.

[01:02:44] Yeah.

[01:02:44] De-transitioning.

[01:02:45] That's what we were going to want from like, these were the things popping in my, I don't

[01:02:48] know if I was reading too much into it, but it was very hard for me to know.

[01:02:51] I was picking up that too.

[01:02:52] Also, I was picking up on the, the part where he's teaching the, the goat is teaching

[01:02:57] and he's talking about the history of animals talking and animals teaching and animals being

[01:03:04] at every level and how that was being right.

[01:03:07] And I saw that they were trying to erase that.

[01:03:10] They didn't want him teaching because he's going to teach his own history.

[01:03:14] Right.

[01:03:14] And I saw that so much in parallels to us trying to get rid of critical race theory

[01:03:18] and this idea that we don't, we've got to whitewash all of this education that we have

[01:03:24] kids learning in America.

[01:03:26] And yeah, that was a huge moment for me where I was like, this is super on the nose.

[01:03:30] And this, this, this moment where he was teaching.

[01:03:33] That's, I thought, I thought of that group too.

[01:03:35] I was thinking of trans and then I was thinking of, you know, the scapegoating of immigrants,

[01:03:39] right?

[01:03:39] Like they're the big ball, they're eating cats, they're eating all the dumb things Trump

[01:03:42] has been saying about immigrants or deport mass deport people.

[01:03:46] That idea of building gates or building cages, they kind of went together.

[01:03:50] And what you said about the history, that too, the idea of we're only going to teach the

[01:03:54] future.

[01:03:55] I think there was a line in there about teaching the future and not the past.

[01:03:58] And in the U S there's so much, I was like, this is so on the nose.

[01:04:03] There's states banning the teaching of African.

[01:04:05] Yeah.

[01:04:06] Yeah.

[01:04:06] Yes.

[01:04:07] Yeah.

[01:04:07] I was seeing that.

[01:04:08] Yeah.

[01:04:10] Um, let's see.

[01:04:11] Elphaba emerges as the voice of resistance to this oppressive prejudice.

[01:04:15] No one should be scorned or laughed at or looked down upon or told to keep quiet.

[01:04:19] She says animated by her painful childhood trauma.

[01:04:22] We see a scene of her being bullied by a gang of white kids, but she's also motivated by real

[01:04:28] compassion for others who are marginalized, chiefly her paraplegic sister played by Marissa

[01:04:32] Boat and the goat professor, Dr. Dillamond played by Peter Dinklage.

[01:04:37] Um, I do think it's worth pointing out here since they mentioned Nessa Rose, um, that both

[01:04:46] positive and kind of negative as far as production of wicked in general, this is the first time

[01:04:50] that an actual wheelchair user has played the role of Nessa Rose in a production of wicked.

[01:04:56] Um, so good on the movie for doing that a little bit shameful that no stage production

[01:05:03] has taken that.

[01:05:04] Um, taken that, that disabled people playing disabled characters.

[01:05:09] Right.

[01:05:09] Yeah.

[01:05:12] Um, if Elphaba has a flaw in wicked, it's that she cares too much.

[01:05:16] Okay.

[01:05:17] Pause.

[01:05:18] Right.

[01:05:19] Doesn't the gospel coalition feel like that is the problem with like, that's a huge problem

[01:05:24] in society is empathy, too much empathy, caring too much.

[01:05:27] And that's often, and the gospel coalition is literally written.

[01:05:30] It is what they think is the definition.

[01:05:33] Yeah.

[01:05:33] They, they, they, yeah.

[01:05:35] A big wolf.

[01:05:36] They've written articles on how empathy is, is problematic, how caring too much and having

[01:05:41] too much compassion is a sin.

[01:05:42] Um, it's fast.

[01:05:44] Yeah.

[01:05:44] They really do see that as, as a big flaw to love too much, to care too much.

[01:05:49] And now it's interesting that he's going in that direction.

[01:05:52] And you just, you're not speaking in hyperbole.

[01:05:54] You literally are referencing very specific articles.

[01:05:57] Yes.

[01:05:57] Absolutely.

[01:05:58] Absolutely.

[01:05:59] These are articles that have been written by them.

[01:06:00] Yes.

[01:06:01] And, and the whole conversation around the word woke and how we, how it is used constantly

[01:06:08] as a derogatory term is literally a reaction to the idea that you care about other people,

[01:06:15] that, that, that is an, that is a flaw.

[01:06:17] Caring about what other people are experiencing, going woke is, is to them considered to be a

[01:06:23] major flaw.

[01:06:24] And it's just.

[01:06:25] Yeah.

[01:06:25] Good point.

[01:06:26] Yeah.

[01:06:27] Um, unlike many in the film who live decadent, thoughtless lives, dancing through life rather

[01:06:32] than studying strife, Elphaba can't turn a blind eye to injustice.

[01:06:36] Her wickedness emerges out, emerges out of an earnest passion that begins to consume

[01:06:41] her.

[01:06:42] Her character is emblematic of the hyper serious humorless stereotype of the woke.

[01:06:48] How can one smile and make jokes when the world is so cruel and unjust?

[01:06:52] There it is.

[01:06:53] There it is.

[01:06:54] Did I not say we were going there?

[01:06:56] Yeah.

[01:06:57] Yeah.

[01:06:57] I mean, look, if you think that liberal people are all serious and don't have a sense of

[01:07:02] humor, you're living in a conservative echo chamber because we make fun of conservative

[01:07:06] people a lot because there's a lot, a lot.

[01:07:08] We laugh to cope with this stuff.

[01:07:10] It's bad.

[01:07:11] I mean, I watch a lot of late night comedy shows just all based around combing through

[01:07:15] this nonsense and we know how to have a sense of humor about it.

[01:07:18] Um, the whole, the left can't meme stuff is ridiculous because when you look at a lot of the

[01:07:23] right means on what they think is funny or just like, maybe, maybe our jokes are flying

[01:07:27] over your head.

[01:07:28] This is what you consider humor.

[01:07:29] Yeah.

[01:07:30] Yeah.

[01:07:30] I will say.

[01:07:33] She does seem more serious than the play.

[01:07:35] Yeah.

[01:07:36] So, so in, in the, the, the, the play Elphaba, every version of Elphaba that I've seen has

[01:07:45] sort of played up this, um, kind of sarcastic deadpan.

[01:07:52] Dry humor.

[01:07:53] Dry humor.

[01:07:54] Right.

[01:07:54] She sort of looks at everybody around her with this kind of ridiculous response.

[01:07:59] Like, um, that I think is missing.

[01:08:03] Cynthia Erivo does not play that up here.

[01:08:05] And I don't know if that's, if that's their decision, if that's, um,

[01:08:10] A directing choice or an acting choice.

[01:08:12] Yeah.

[01:08:13] Exactly.

[01:08:13] Exactly.

[01:08:14] How, um, however, I would say that, uh, and you and I were discussing this on our way

[01:08:18] home, Nate, after the movie, um, there's stuff when you're watching a theater play, um, you

[01:08:24] can't zoom in on someone's facial expressions on theater.

[01:08:27] So it relies a lot more on overt body language on different, you have to use different instruments

[01:08:32] to convey feelings and emotions.

[01:08:34] Whereas the movie really, really took, um, made use of that, that ability to just zoom

[01:08:40] in on Cynthia Erivo's face and her facial expressions that were able to connect you even on a deeper

[01:08:46] level to the emotion, to the pain, to like her acting is phenomenal.

[01:08:49] And the thing she's not even saying, just studying the way her, her.

[01:08:53] So that was sort of one of the pluses to being able to watch the movie version.

[01:08:56] And I think they took advantage of, of how deeply it can connect you to watch the pain in her face.

[01:09:02] And I think, yeah, it maybe was a different version of alphabet than the stage production, but that's because this is a different

[01:09:09] medium for storytelling and this works a lot better in movie version.

[01:09:12] I think they made a good choice.

[01:09:14] I really, I thought our acting was, I think, I think so too.

[01:09:17] I think that there, there are a few little moments and we can talk about this a little

[01:09:20] bit later, but there are a few little moments and, and aspects of the film that, you know,

[01:09:25] part of me kind of wishes had been drawn over from the stage play.

[01:09:29] But at the same time, I also recognize that it's a different medium.

[01:09:33] So I don't know how well some of those things would go over translating directly from stage

[01:09:38] to film. So, you know, and even like speaking a little bit about that, when, you know, my

[01:09:45] mom had seen Les Mis a few times on Broadway.

[01:09:51] And then when we went and saw the movie together as a family, she mentioned how she suddenly understood

[01:09:56] the story and she always struggled to understand the story when we would go and see it as a

[01:10:01] Broadway show.

[01:10:04] But sometimes the different avenues really are able to bring out a different side.

[01:10:07] Uh, in the way that they tell the story and the mediums they're using to communicate

[01:10:11] it. Yeah.

[01:10:13] Uh, so continuing on, uh, indeed vice in the world of wicked, isn't just embodied by powerful

[01:10:18] people who actively oppress.

[01:10:20] It is also evident in those who don't care enough that this is happening.

[01:10:24] The privileged who can eat, drink and merrily dance while nefarious forces ruin the world.

[01:10:29] Yes.

[01:10:30] Yes, dude.

[01:10:31] Yes. You're catching it.

[01:10:32] You're paying attention. Good.

[01:10:34] Uh huh.

[01:10:35] Silence is violence.

[01:10:37] Yes.

[01:10:38] In wicked's view of sin and culpability, some individuals are actually heinous and Hitler-esque,

[01:10:43] but entire classes of people are culpable for their willful ignorance, guilty on account

[01:10:47] of their naive comfort prioritizing complicity, quote unquote, in an evil system.

[01:10:52] Yes.

[01:10:54] I don't even, sorry dude, but yeah.

[01:10:56] Sorry dude, but yeah.

[01:10:56] Can you repeat that last line?

[01:10:59] Yeah.

[01:10:59] This is how people voted this election.

[01:11:01] They were cared about their comfort and didn't care about their complicity in harming other

[01:11:05] people.

[01:11:06] And yes, this is a, their silence, their, yeah.

[01:11:10] Yep.

[01:11:11] Yep.

[01:11:13] Um, Elphaba's framing as wicked's heroic protagonist has a lot to do with her advocacy for others,

[01:11:19] but it also has to do with her resolute belief in herself and a bold rejection of imposed expectations

[01:11:26] and limits.

[01:11:27] Oh no.

[01:11:27] This too reflects our post-Christian culture's reframing of virtue and vice.

[01:11:32] To be radically autonomous, fiercely whoever you want to be, this is a high virtue.

[01:11:38] To conform to external norms and submit to authority outside yourself, this is the vice

[01:11:43] of weakness and uncritical complicity.

[01:11:46] Oh man.

[01:11:48] I gotta pause.

[01:11:49] That was a whole mouthful of lots of interesting evangelical thoughts, right?

[01:11:54] And this is, this is it.

[01:11:56] Like, this is the thing.

[01:11:57] This, they, he's clearly heard the criticisms that we have leaving Christianity.

[01:12:04] The, the criticisms that the, the world quote unquote has about Christianity, which is

[01:12:11] that it is incredibly, um, dehumanizing.

[01:12:16] It takes away our own innate goodness, our own innate knowledge of ourselves, our own innate

[01:12:23] understanding of who we actually are.

[01:12:26] And it hijacks that and takes that away.

[01:12:29] And so we've been pushing back against this, this idea that I'm just inherently bad and

[01:12:35] evil as a, as a, as a, as, because I'm a human, because I exist.

[01:12:40] And actually I, I am in possession of my own goodness and I am in possession of my own,

[01:12:45] um, rightness, um, about myself.

[01:12:49] Like I get to know me better than anyone knows me.

[01:12:53] And Christianity has been fighting this battle because this is where, this is where trauma

[01:12:58] happens.

[01:12:59] This is where you deeply, deeply remove a person's sense of self.

[01:13:03] Then you can get them to do and follow and obey in any way that you want.

[01:13:08] And as ex evangelicals, we're saying, no, thank you.

[01:13:12] No, thank you.

[01:13:13] I'm good.

[01:13:14] I'm going to reclaim self.

[01:13:16] Yeah.

[01:13:16] And you, you and me and Gail, we've all done this in our own ways.

[01:13:21] We've found ways to reclaim ourselves.

[01:13:23] And for me, this is, this is a hill I will die on.

[01:13:26] This is, this is the thing that I am ready to burn it all down about.

[01:13:30] I get so angry over the idea that I don't get to know me and I'm not even queer or,

[01:13:36] or trans.

[01:13:38] And, and imagine, and I imagine what it would like be like to be queer or to be trans and

[01:13:45] to have people tell me, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:13:48] You don't know you.

[01:13:49] You don't know.

[01:13:50] You've just been brainwashed by the culture to think that you just get to choose what

[01:13:55] gender you want to be.

[01:13:57] The autonomy piece is really one I agree.

[01:14:00] Well said, by the way, Jessica.

[01:14:01] Well, and amen to all of that, preacher.

[01:14:04] Soap box.

[01:14:05] Yes.

[01:14:06] No good.

[01:14:07] Soap box to go on.

[01:14:08] I doubt that there are, there are annoyance over.

[01:14:11] Let me just look at the wording.

[01:14:12] I want to reread, read some of that.

[01:14:15] A rejection of, of imposed expectations and limits.

[01:14:19] Yeah.

[01:14:20] Our post Christian cultures, reframing of virtue as viced to be radically autonomous, fiercely,

[01:14:26] whoever you want to be.

[01:14:27] This is the highest bridge.

[01:14:28] It's so interesting that the idea of autonomy is that's maybe that's the one that I zoned in

[01:14:33] on in my mind when he was saying that the idea of autonomy is just so frightening and so

[01:14:38] evil in their mind.

[01:14:39] Like they're saying this is your highest virtue.

[01:14:41] Yes.

[01:14:41] To be able to make decisions for yourself is extremely important.

[01:14:45] And you're right.

[01:14:45] It's something they want it.

[01:14:46] They want to take away from us as an and with similar to you, like I'm not trans.

[01:14:52] However, as a woman having my autonomy stripped away and coming in from Canada and moving to the

[01:14:57] U.S. and seeing that, you know, certain protections that I had as a Canadian, I no longer have as an American

[01:15:03] woman on a federal level that that the government has decided to strip away, you know, access,

[01:15:08] access to abortion.

[01:15:09] If I have a miscarriage here, unless my state is going to protect me, I'm screwed.

[01:15:13] And people keep dying in the U.S. because of this.

[01:15:16] Right.

[01:15:17] Yeah.

[01:15:17] My autonomy having control and a say over my own body as a woman is absolutely a value that I hold and I have.

[01:15:24] Right.

[01:15:24] And I know to the Republican and conservative people, this is terrible.

[01:15:28] This is like the sign you're going to hell in a handbasket.

[01:15:31] Right.

[01:15:32] The idea that you could know what you actually need, what kind of health care you actually need,

[01:15:38] what kind of time frames you need for whatever's going on with your health and your decisions in your life.

[01:15:46] The idea that you should have control of that is just this huge, huge thing that they think that they need to take from everyone.

[01:15:55] And it is based in the idea that you don't know how to be good.

[01:15:59] You can't unless you follow our rules.

[01:16:03] We're going to tell you how to be good.

[01:16:05] And if you follow our rules, then you are good.

[01:16:08] And only then.

[01:16:09] Anyway, this is ties in neatly with you, with wicked, because this is what is happening in this school and in the story.

[01:16:19] Hmm.

[01:16:20] Anyway, go ahead.

[01:16:21] Keep reading.

[01:16:22] So Brett continues.

[01:16:25] All right, Brett.

[01:16:26] We want to hear more of your thoughts.

[01:16:28] Although, you know, some of this he's nailing down.

[01:16:30] He is parsing out what they're upset about.

[01:16:32] And he's nailing down some of the themes of wicked.

[01:16:34] He's just mad about it.

[01:16:35] He's mad about them.

[01:16:37] Yeah.

[01:16:37] Where we're over here excited about these things.

[01:16:39] He's just big mad.

[01:16:40] He's pissed.

[01:16:41] We're all like, yes, exactly.

[01:16:45] Wicked ends where act one of the musical ends with Elphaba picking up her iconic broomstick, learning to fly and fleeing Oz as an exiled villain.

[01:16:53] She and Glinda sing Defying Gravity, Wicked's trademark empowerment anthem.

[01:16:57] It's a thesis statement of sorts for the film's remaking of Elphaba as a post-Christian messianic hero more than as a depraved villain.

[01:17:06] Okay.

[01:17:08] That's a mouthful.

[01:17:09] Okay.

[01:17:10] That's how we interpreted that.

[01:17:11] Messianic post-Christian.

[01:17:13] I mean, he's reading a lot into it, but okay.

[01:17:15] Messianic post-Christian.

[01:17:17] What does that mean?

[01:17:18] That is a term I have not heard.

[01:17:20] Yeah.

[01:17:21] It's...

[01:17:21] Messianic post-Christian?

[01:17:22] Remaking Elphaba as a post-Christian messianic hero.

[01:17:25] I think I'll call it evangelical babble.

[01:17:27] I don't...

[01:17:27] Yeah.

[01:17:28] I think so.

[01:17:29] Messiah?

[01:17:29] Messiah hero?

[01:17:30] Is that what they're saying?

[01:17:30] Like, she comes to save the world?

[01:17:32] Well, yeah.

[01:17:33] Messianic being the adjectival form of messiah.

[01:17:37] Oh, okay.

[01:17:37] Like, yeah, she's going to be the salvation hero, the salvific figure.

[01:17:42] Okay.

[01:17:42] Now I'm following.

[01:17:42] Yeah.

[01:17:43] Okay.

[01:17:45] Blah, blah, blah.

[01:17:46] Right.

[01:17:47] The thing that's frustrating is that, again, like, kind of reading between the lines here,

[01:17:53] but he can't seem to envision a world outside of Christianity.

[01:17:58] Right.

[01:17:58] So he can't seem to envision any form of pop culture or any form of literature that doesn't

[01:18:08] center on or that doesn't view the story through the lens of a sort of Christian approach.

[01:18:20] And it's interesting the use of post-Christian there as in, like, this doesn't fall within

[01:18:25] our opinion of what Christianity should look like, right?

[01:18:28] This can't be...

[01:18:28] A lot of times evangelicals will try and pull pop culture in and reframe it as see it reflects

[01:18:33] our values.

[01:18:33] And, you know, you could see Jesus in this story or that story or look at...

[01:18:37] There's so many books that were written by evangelicals on Lord of the Rings, for example,

[01:18:41] to try and make people see Jesus through tons of movies that were pop culture.

[01:18:46] Right.

[01:18:46] But it seems in this one, he's like, this doesn't fit within the Christian narrative.

[01:18:49] This is his take, right?

[01:18:50] This has to be post-Christian.

[01:18:52] This is a rejection of Christian beliefs and is kind of going beyond the bounds of what is

[01:18:57] Christianity.

[01:18:57] Yeah.

[01:19:00] Um, if you'll let me...

[01:19:01] I'm going to try to fly through as much of this as possible.

[01:19:04] We're only halfway through this article.

[01:19:05] Oh, sorry.

[01:19:05] Yes, go.

[01:19:06] We have thoughts.

[01:19:07] Yeah.

[01:19:09] Um, Elphaba defies gravity literally but also philosophically, rejecting higher authorities

[01:19:13] and moral norms.

[01:19:14] I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.

[01:19:16] I'm through accepting limits because someone says they're so.

[01:19:19] She asserts her quote unquote woken up virtue, too late to go back to sleep.

[01:19:23] Moral autonomy, it's time to trust my instincts and born this way self-acceptance.

[01:19:29] Some things I cannot change.

[01:19:30] It's not surprising defying gravity has become a favorite anthem of the LGBT community often

[01:19:35] performed at pride events.

[01:19:37] The song and wicked generally has a campy ambiance of naughtiness and shameless transgression,

[01:19:42] but it also narrates the choice many LGBT plus people make to sever relationships and separate

[01:19:48] from quote unquote non affirming communities, including families, so they can live in freedom on their own terms.

[01:19:56] As someone told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to fly.

[01:19:59] And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free.

[01:20:01] I do need to pause.

[01:20:03] It's so funny that he's framing it as sad that people are having to fly solo and like break away from family without acknowledging.

[01:20:10] Okay.

[01:20:11] Like example in that exact story in wicked.

[01:20:14] What is her options?

[01:20:15] What her option is to die, right?

[01:20:18] It's or to fly like literally they're not giving her the choice at all.

[01:20:22] They're like coming in.

[01:20:23] They're breaking in together.

[01:20:25] Right.

[01:20:26] Like she's she's an under danger and threat of them.

[01:20:29] They're not coming in nicely.

[01:20:30] They're they're coming in with weapons.

[01:20:32] They're coming in like this is violence against her.

[01:20:35] And you don't know that she's not going to be murdered or what what their plans are.

[01:20:39] Like we know maybe they could just trap her and like try and use her to do the wizards, you know, bidding and doing.

[01:20:46] But yeah, what kind of a life is that now?

[01:20:47] You're a puppet.

[01:20:48] Yeah.

[01:20:48] Of the wizard.

[01:20:51] But but like the threatening element, right?

[01:20:53] The idea of her choice.

[01:20:54] Either option.

[01:20:55] There's not good options here.

[01:20:56] And I think it's interesting that when people see their their queer people leaving their family and and and separating themselves and flying solo,

[01:21:04] they imagine it is that's so sad for them.

[01:21:08] Like, why couldn't they choose their family?

[01:21:10] How dare them think that the idea of what is good for them is leaving us?

[01:21:14] And it's like you're not taking the time to analyze what options you're giving to your family that's needing to flee you.

[01:21:20] Nobody picks that as an option unless, you know, the results to them and that and even the ignoring how long term they have been being harmed over and over by you.

[01:21:29] It's just sort of like an obliviousness to your own piece of what you're creating for that person and how being around you is a threat to them and has been for probably a prolonged period of like it's it's so interesting.

[01:21:41] The reframe of it as you're just making that decision very cavalier, like on a whim, you know, because it's the culture to want to fly solo.

[01:21:50] Nobody does that because they just want to ignoring the harm.

[01:21:53] Right, right.

[01:21:55] People are not leaving and breaking away from the Republican family on a whim because we just want to feel empowered and fly solo.

[01:22:04] People are heartbroken and having their hearts ripped out as they're saying goodbye and crying and have had conversations with family members pleading for them to care for them to want to understand.

[01:22:16] And there's a refusal to I had a friend.

[01:22:20] I mean, I put up a post today asking at two.

[01:22:23] So I had two conversations in one day the other day with friends talking about how they were talking to siblings about Trump happened twice in one day.

[01:22:30] And then I put that up on Facebook and a friend wrote she had a conversation with her brother and he said explicitly if this doesn't impact me, I don't care that those are her exact words.

[01:22:40] Yeah. And it's like, what what kind of discussions can you have with people when they're saying we just don't care?

[01:22:49] So on one hand, you're shaming empathy.

[01:22:51] You're acting like this is a big deal.

[01:22:52] On other hand, you're also saying I don't care.

[01:22:54] And then you're shaming people for being like they've tried and they have to walk away now.

[01:22:58] And you're acting like they're walking away on a whim.

[01:23:00] You know, it's just there's so much hypocrisy.

[01:23:03] And it's just so thick with.

[01:23:05] Yeah, with that with hypocrisy inside people's homes and families.

[01:23:09] They are enduring a tremendous amount of microaggressions.

[01:23:16] And I know that is a really like a term that people don't don't don't take to heart anymore, especially outside of the left.

[01:23:26] But this idea that that you have to endure hour after hour, day after day, tiny little digs at your very core person hood, who you are as a person is being constantly put down in all these little ways.

[01:23:46] And you have to when when when people finally leave, it's because they can't take it anymore.

[01:23:52] It's it's too many.

[01:23:54] It's on and on and on.

[01:23:56] They need a break.

[01:23:57] They want to stop.

[01:23:58] They wanted to stop.

[01:23:59] And when their family members refuse to take the time to understand empathy.

[01:24:04] And understand what they're they're saying and how it impacts the people that they claim to love.

[01:24:10] Yeah, it's very uncomfortable.

[01:24:13] And at some point you just can't keep going.

[01:24:15] Yeah.

[01:24:16] And as he continues writing writing here, it's almost like he recognizes a little bit, but then it just completely dismisses it.

[01:24:22] So he says there's a sadness to Elphaba's choice to fly solo quote unquote and embrace her exile justified by her.

[01:24:30] No one can bring me down freedom like he's recognizing.

[01:24:33] Okay, there's a sadness in her voice.

[01:24:35] Why is there a sadness?

[01:24:37] This is not an easy choice to make.

[01:24:39] This is she's not a fun choice.

[01:24:41] Right.

[01:24:42] Exactly.

[01:24:42] There.

[01:24:43] Nobody can bring me down is not some casual sort of I'm just frivolous and not thinking this through and what have, you know, just be excited in life.

[01:24:51] And I'm just so that's a reaction thoughtful to people trying to bring you down.

[01:24:55] Yeah, exactly.

[01:24:57] Bring down.

[01:24:57] But in a very real way, this isn't I'm thinking of the dancing through life vibe in the in the song.

[01:25:03] This is not I don't want people to bring me down because I'm dancing through life flying off, you know, swinging from the library rafters.

[01:25:10] This is bring me down like trying to erase me.

[01:25:14] This is bring me down like trying to make me hide the reality of who I am wanting me to die from a miscarriage putting me in a kid.

[01:25:21] Yes.

[01:25:21] Yes.

[01:25:22] Throwing me out deporting me.

[01:25:23] Right.

[01:25:24] Like this is bring me down in a very different way.

[01:25:28] Mm hmm.

[01:25:29] Yep.

[01:25:29] Yep.

[01:25:31] All right.

[01:25:31] So continuing on.

[01:25:34] Here we go.

[01:25:36] Glinda recognizes the sadness of it, but doesn't necessarily think Elphaba is making the wrong choice.

[01:25:40] She sings, I hope you're happy now that you're choosing this.

[01:25:43] I hope it brings you bliss.

[01:25:45] Glinda's way of loving Elphaba is in the end to affirm her choice, however destructive it may be for her and others.

[01:25:53] Indeed, I hope it makes you happy has become the grid of moral evaluation in a post Christian world.

[01:25:59] Okay.

[01:26:00] You do you be yourself.

[01:26:01] Follow your heart as long as you're happy.

[01:26:04] Mm hmm.

[01:26:05] Oh, my.

[01:26:06] Yeah.

[01:26:06] It's because they, they, this is their justification for being complete dicks and assholes to everybody and saying, no, I'm being loving.

[01:26:14] I hope you're happy now.

[01:26:16] Yeah.

[01:26:16] Yeah.

[01:26:17] It's interesting.

[01:26:17] I actually had a, I have a sign somewhere in my room thinking in Montreal.

[01:26:22] It says something about your happiness mattering or.

[01:26:24] No, it says do what makes you happy.

[01:26:26] Do what makes you happy.

[01:26:27] Yeah.

[01:26:27] It just says do what makes you happy in French.

[01:26:29] And I, and I remember putting it up specifically because that sort of messaging was exactly like spoken to me in this way.

[01:26:36] This guy is writing in the article where if you center your happiness, your, it's a sign you're selfish.

[01:26:42] It's a sign you are bad, evil.

[01:26:44] I remember when I, when I left my evangelical church and I was visiting other churches.

[01:26:50] Uh, and I think it actually made me stop trying to find a good evangelical church.

[01:26:54] It was one of those eyeopening moments where I'm like, this is the culture.

[01:26:57] This is how, you know, these messages are everywhere.

[01:27:00] I'm not going to find it.

[01:27:01] If it's evangelical, it has this, this is permeates through it.

[01:27:03] But they were talking about divorce and they were like, the guy said on stage, he's strumming his guitar.

[01:27:08] And he's like, the reason why people are all divorcing today is because they only care about their own happiness.

[01:27:13] And I just remember being enraged because I was like, your message is why women stay for 20 years in terrible marriages.

[01:27:19] Because we're scared that we're sent, we're being selfish and centering our happiness is somehow evil and frivolous.

[01:27:25] And, and that, and often ignores everything else going on and just makes you think that you're, uh, that exactly that, that you care about very unimportant things.

[01:27:36] Yeah.

[01:27:37] As if feeling comfortable in your own body, uh, enjoying your marriage, loving your partner and all that is so secondary to what it means to be a person in life, to be in a healthy marriage.

[01:27:48] Right.

[01:27:48] And I think, you know, when you're in a bad marriage where there's not mutuality, where, uh, you are miserable for a good reason.

[01:27:54] Uh, and, and there, if you're miserable, that is a good reason.

[01:27:57] Like that is a red flag that they don't want you to notice.

[01:28:00] Right.

[01:28:01] Yeah.

[01:28:01] And I remember just being constantly taught that all marriage is hard work.

[01:28:05] Yes.

[01:28:05] That being miserable is a natural piece of being married and, uh, that you should not expect to be happy somehow.

[01:28:12] Like that idea of your happiness being so secondary is intentional so that you're not focused on the fact that things are problematic and there's a reason you're unhappy.

[01:28:20] Like it has been shocking to see how being in a good relationship and in a good marriage is just, it's so easy to be happy.

[01:28:26] It is so easy to be happy.

[01:28:28] And I feel angry for all the years that I didn't realize that that was a good, healthy, normal thing to want my own happiness.

[01:28:35] Right.

[01:28:35] Well, and, and I just wanted to say that there is ample evidence that actually, um, it takes a lot more effort to get divorced than it does to stay married.

[01:28:48] Staying married is the lazy route.

[01:28:51] Many, many, many, many people in very miserable marriages stay married because it is the easier way.

[01:28:57] It is hard to get out of a difficult marriage.

[01:29:01] You and I both know how difficult it is to get out of a marriage.

[01:29:03] Yeah.

[01:29:04] It's very, very hard.

[01:29:04] It took me years and years to get out and a lot of money.

[01:29:07] Yeah.

[01:29:07] Cost tons of money.

[01:29:08] Even in places where they might have more legal avenues for divorce and are much more lenient on women in general.

[01:29:16] Um, it's still a huge challenge.

[01:29:20] Like you can, you know, Quebec, Quebec is one of those places where, yeah, they'd be like, yeah, get divorced.

[01:29:25] Probably.

[01:29:25] They, they probably discourage you from getting married in the first place.

[01:29:28] Yeah, they do.

[01:29:29] Where I live.

[01:29:29] Yeah.

[01:29:29] It's marriage is not a big thing, but it still was, was really hard even in Quebec to get out of it.

[01:29:33] And you know, and when you're dealing with kids, there's so many, there's so many challenges involved in trying to make life work after getting a divorce.

[01:29:42] And so they've done research on this.

[01:29:44] They have done research on people who report themselves to be happily married or unhappily married.

[01:29:50] And the number of people who chose divorce or to chose to stay married.

[01:29:54] And clearly the easier choice is to stay married when you're in a miserable relationship.

[01:29:59] There's no work required.

[01:30:01] And I remember being that, I mean, that was most of my marriage was, was doing that.

[01:30:04] And I stayed that long because yeah, I didn't have to deal with literal logistics.

[01:30:09] Like the literal is just finding an attorney, finding, um, someone who will help you figure out what to do and which kids are going to go where and which schedule is going to change.

[01:30:19] Everything has to change.

[01:30:21] And that takes a tremendous amount of outside work.

[01:30:26] So yes, that's my, my little soapbox.

[01:30:28] Do keep coming in with your soap boxes.

[01:30:30] I'm loving them, Jessica.

[01:30:30] That's why we wanted you to come talk because we wanted to have some good soap boxes.

[01:30:34] It's not just me and Nate's soap boxes.

[01:30:35] Yeah.

[01:30:41] I'm Priska and I'm here to put a new podcast on your radar.

[01:30:45] Welcome to the horny chapel, a limited series podcast where Scott Okamoto and I dive headfirst into the wild, wild world of evangelical purity.

[01:30:54] In each episode, we discuss purity culture in detail, highlighting both its absurdity and the damage caused by an abstinence only rhetoric.

[01:31:03] We explore how our AAPI cultural influences combined with the misogynistic sexual miseducation from the church led to a unique brand of repression.

[01:31:12] But don't fret, dear listener.

[01:31:14] We also share how we found our way to a sex positive mindset after breaking free.

[01:31:19] Subscribe to this podcast by visiting dauntless.fm.

[01:31:26] Hey everyone.

[01:31:27] I'm Maggie from the Hello Deconstructionists podcast.

[01:31:30] I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for tuning into this show.

[01:31:34] We're so grateful that you decided to spend your time with us.

[01:31:37] Seriously, Cortland, Dan, Gail, Jessica, Megan, Nate, Scott, and the rest of us here at the Dauntless Media Collective couldn't produce content like the show you're listening to without your support.

[01:31:48] I'd also like to invite you even further into the conversation.

[01:31:51] Right now, there are some great discussions happening over in the Dauntless Media Collective Discord server.

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[01:32:13] In our Discord server, we have channels devoted to general deconstruction conversations, some meme sharing, therapeutic venting about whatever religious bullshit you're currently dealing with, and even a specific channel devoted to talking about the latest episodes of the podcast you're listening to right now.

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[01:32:40] See you there!

[01:32:45] Um, okay.

[01:32:46] Gravity can't be defied without consequences.

[01:32:49] Gravity is an inescapable law of the universe.

[01:32:53] It's a law of this planet.

[01:32:56] Anyway, anyway, okay, whatever.

[01:32:58] And also, anyway, whatever.

[01:33:00] Not of the universe, just our planet.

[01:33:01] But our planet is the universe and evangelical thought process, right?

[01:33:05] Oh, yeah.

[01:33:05] We're the center of everything.

[01:33:06] Anyway, it can't be defied without consequences.

[01:33:10] Universal laws and limits exist.

[01:33:11] No matter how forcefully we sing, unlimited, God's creation has a grain.

[01:33:19] I can't help it, y'all.

[01:33:21] Sorry.

[01:33:21] I get it.

[01:33:22] You held back in the movie theater.

[01:33:23] You gotta get it somewhere.

[01:33:25] Okay, wait.

[01:33:25] I did.

[01:33:26] I was so good.

[01:33:27] Nate, too, I said, how badly did you want to sing through all that?

[01:33:30] And I know he would never, like Nate, it would be so embarrassed to break those rules.

[01:33:35] But he was, he's like, I did want to whisper.

[01:33:38] I did.

[01:33:39] I did.

[01:33:39] I lip synced a couple times here.

[01:33:40] So I was lucky that I was in the middle of the theater and I get in my seat and I'm like, okay, two rows up behind me as the nearest person behind.

[01:33:49] There's no one in the rows beside us.

[01:33:51] And then three rows down in front of me.

[01:33:53] So I was like, I think I can safely sing at a quiet route and not bother anyone.

[01:33:59] There are musical showings and I highly recommend them to all of the YouTube times.

[01:34:04] I am signing up.

[01:34:05] One of my colleagues was telling me that at work that her kids were just like, Mom, we have to go back for the singalong show.

[01:34:13] Yes.

[01:34:14] Oh, yes.

[01:34:15] I went to a singalong version of Mamma Mia back in the day.

[01:34:19] The original Mamma Mia movie.

[01:34:21] Yep.

[01:34:21] Oh, it was so good.

[01:34:23] I, we, I sat there and belted my lungs out.

[01:34:26] Nice.

[01:34:26] It was glorious.

[01:34:27] So it says, God's creation has a grain and going against the grain always leaves you with splinters.

[01:34:33] Yeah.

[01:34:34] Because, because you've made those people.

[01:34:37] You guys are splintering people.

[01:34:38] Yeah.

[01:34:38] You guys have decided what is going against the grain.

[01:34:41] Exactly.

[01:34:42] And now you're, the thing that you have set is the thing that's giving people splinters.

[01:34:46] It's, it's causing wounds.

[01:34:47] It's so interesting.

[01:34:48] It's like, they act like the suicide.

[01:34:50] Yeah.

[01:34:51] The suicide rates, the dying by, by suicide rates and the, yeah, all of the pain and misery people are in is out of the blue and doesn't come from the way.

[01:35:00] Like they'll ignore the statistics that show that trans kids who are accepted and loved by their parents for who they are, that they thrive and do well versus kids that aren't and how that makes the mask.

[01:35:11] They will completely, and they'll pretend like the splinters that come into defying what they imagine as God's grain is just kind of nature taking its course.

[01:35:19] Look, if, if God said that you should be this way and you don't, then it's, you're going to, of course you're going to want to be suicidal.

[01:35:25] And they ignore actually, why is it, why isn't the fruit producing?

[01:35:29] Like, why wouldn't it be the kids whose parents say, no, you cannot be who you are that and follow what they believe is God's way that are doing well.

[01:35:37] If that's not the case, they're not the thriving kids.

[01:35:39] Those are the ones wanting to unalive themselves.

[01:35:41] It's the same thing with divorce.

[01:35:42] It's the same thing with divorce.

[01:35:44] If you take two people who are like, Hey, you know what?

[01:35:47] This isn't working.

[01:35:48] You, why don't you go your way and I'll go mine.

[01:35:50] We will do this to be best for our children.

[01:35:53] And then they celebrate and are happy for each other in their new lives and in their new homes.

[01:35:58] And, and then their children are allowed to love both of them in their own ways and have relationships with each new family in their own ways.

[01:36:06] These kids end up with a bigger, happier life, not an unhappy one.

[01:36:13] And because it is everyone is allowed to be different.

[01:36:16] I think of the couples who are, um, unequally, uh, uh, like ones finds out realizes they are gay or whatever and separate to go and live their life as a gay person.

[01:36:30] And now finally, and when the other spouse is just supportive of that and is like, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're out and experiencing being yourself now.

[01:36:39] And everyone supports that or trans or all these things.

[01:36:42] Then families thrive, right?

[01:36:45] They thrive.

[01:36:46] And so it's like this idea that divorce has to be this evil, awful thing that happens that is imposed upon these families by this ideal being so narrow.

[01:36:58] And when we define the ideal as narrow and small and this big, and you have to fit here or else you suffer, we're imposing that suffering.

[01:37:08] This is not a natural suffering.

[01:37:10] This is, but Jessica, the road to God is narrow.

[01:37:14] That's what it says in the Bible.

[01:37:16] God's way is narrow.

[01:37:17] So we get to define what that narrow is.

[01:37:19] Leads to life.

[01:37:20] We're going to tell you.

[01:37:23] Broad is the way that leads to destruction.

[01:37:26] Many choose that path.

[01:37:28] There be that finding.

[01:37:29] Few find the good path.

[01:37:30] We're the special few.

[01:37:32] All right, go back.

[01:37:32] Three more paragraphs.

[01:37:33] Okay, we can do it.

[01:37:34] Sorry, go, go, go.

[01:37:35] By the way, sorry, I'm loving the discussion on the side.

[01:37:38] Yeah.

[01:37:38] This is what the point of reading this article was.

[01:37:40] So we can hash this out.

[01:37:42] Yeah.

[01:37:43] Okay, here we go.

[01:37:43] This is the real tragedy of wicked.

[01:37:46] It's a well-intentioned story driven by an earnest exploration of right and wrong.

[01:37:51] The residue of Christianity informs its moral intuitions.

[01:37:55] What?

[01:37:55] For example, the inherent dignity of all people, advocacy for the weak.

[01:38:00] And we can celebrate that wicked wants us to think and talk about morality rather than simply dancing through life.

[01:38:06] No, you're going to pause.

[01:38:07] They're the originators.

[01:38:08] What the fuck is that?

[01:38:10] I'm sorry.

[01:38:11] Please don't read.

[01:38:11] The residue of Christianity informs its moral intuitions.

[01:38:16] Uh-huh.

[01:38:17] And the dignity of people is given to us by Christianity?

[01:38:21] It's as if they can't imagine any morally benevolent concept without attributing Christianity to it.

[01:38:31] Like we can't just be our instinct to care for people.

[01:38:36] Yeah.

[01:38:37] It can't be that.

[01:38:38] It has to be.

[01:38:39] No.

[01:38:39] Well, it comes from Christianity and we can praise that element.

[01:38:43] What would you do without the Bible telling you not to kill people, Nate?

[01:38:46] You would just go around.

[01:38:48] I would probably go around killing people, right?

[01:38:49] We'd go around murdering people.

[01:38:50] Willy nilly.

[01:38:51] Just willy nilly.

[01:38:52] If you're not the Bible telling you, that's what you would do naturally.

[01:38:54] I'm like, you guys need to continue reading your Bible.

[01:38:56] With a smile.

[01:38:57] If that's what keeps you from killing people.

[01:38:59] If that's what keeps you from killing people, please do not stop reading your Bible.

[01:39:03] If that's all that's preventing you from going out and murdering your name, you do need the Bible.

[01:39:07] Please, please don't stop.

[01:39:09] Please keep reading it if that's what's keeping you from murdering the people around you.

[01:39:12] But that's, it's so, I grew, I don't know about you guys.

[01:39:15] I really do want to discuss this because I grew up believing that goodness came from Christianity, that we had the whatever on morality.

[01:39:24] What's the word I'm looking for?

[01:39:25] We had the-

[01:39:26] The corner on it.

[01:39:26] We had the market on it.

[01:39:27] We owned it.

[01:39:28] It was-

[01:39:28] Yeah, cornered the market.

[01:39:29] We cornered the market on morality.

[01:39:30] It came from us.

[01:39:31] It was with us.

[01:39:32] Any human dignity was only from God.

[01:39:35] If you were an atheist, then you were missing out on that.

[01:39:37] And I remember the people in my life as a young kid, there were some quote unquote non-Christians that were the best examples that I had of loving, caring, kind-hearted, thoughtful people.

[01:39:50] And it messed me.

[01:39:51] Like, as a young evangelical, I didn't know what to do with that.

[01:39:55] I would pray for their salvation because that's what I was taught to do.

[01:39:58] They need to convert to Jesus to be going to heaven.

[01:40:00] I didn't want them to burn forever in hell.

[01:40:02] But also I was disturbed to know, well, how are they being so good without God living in them, teaching them the truths that I had?

[01:40:10] Because that was supposed to be the only thing that brought us to treat others well and to care about others.

[01:40:16] And I found that so perplexing and confusing as an evangelical kid.

[01:40:19] It messed with me when I was young.

[01:40:21] It was those early poking at my evangelical faith.

[01:40:25] And it was starting to deconstruct me before I had words or before I was leaving my faith.

[01:40:29] It was planting those seeds of reality, which is you can be good without Christianity.

[01:40:34] Christianity is not the root of all good.

[01:40:36] It is not the essence of morality and ethical treatment of people.

[01:40:42] It is the root of a whole lot of evil, though.

[01:40:44] And that's...

[01:40:45] It really is.

[01:40:46] That I think is something about wicked that it does throw into question is what you imagine to be good.

[01:40:51] What if it isn't, though?

[01:40:53] What if the thing that you're saying is sets the rules and is supposed to be the good thing is actually a false structure that is actually power tripping and harming people?

[01:41:03] And it isn't actually the benevolent thing it's presenting itself as.

[01:41:07] What if it's actually harming people?

[01:41:08] And that question, I think, is...

[01:41:10] That touches on what I think really pisses them all off.

[01:41:13] I'm going to say that that idea is really evaluating what you imagine to be good and realizing all along in your simplicity and your nicely packaged idea that it's actually the other way around.

[01:41:24] And what you are saying is good is just causing a ton of harm that you want to look away from and ignore.

[01:41:29] And I think that messaging...

[01:41:31] Yeah, this is where we're at with Christianity today.

[01:41:35] Christianity today.

[01:41:36] Yeah.

[01:41:37] Little, little...

[01:41:39] That was my other guest of who published this article.

[01:41:42] Yeah.

[01:41:43] It was Christianity today.

[01:41:44] But no, there is this whole point that we've arrived at of needing to redefine good.

[01:41:53] Hmm.

[01:41:55] Hmm.

[01:41:55] Because Christians have a very big PR problem with their definition of good.

[01:42:01] What is good?

[01:42:02] And people are able to articulate very, very accurately how it is not.

[01:42:10] Demonstrate clearly this is not good for...

[01:42:14] Children committing suicide is not good.

[01:42:18] No, that doesn't look good for them.

[01:42:21] No.

[01:42:22] And so they've got to redefine that somehow.

[01:42:24] They've got to go on a whole PR campaign about what that means.

[01:42:27] What does it mean?

[01:42:28] What does good mean?

[01:42:30] Hmm.

[01:42:31] So is it good to tell children that they can't trust who they are and all these things that we've been pushing back on in this whole conversation?

[01:42:40] Like...

[01:42:40] I think they, in a sense, we were talking about scapegoating before, but talking about them saying what is good for kids, right?

[01:42:46] Like one of those fabricated villains they've come up with to pretend they're about the goodness of kids is trans people, right?

[01:42:52] It's drag people.

[01:42:54] Yeah.

[01:42:54] And they're imagining...

[01:42:55] It's queer people in general.

[01:42:57] It's queer people.

[01:42:57] Just being queer and out in any way, shape, or form.

[01:43:00] What's fascinating is how they have turned them into predators as a group when that's evangelical.

[01:43:05] Like you can read every day a new article about a predator, youth pastor, pastor.

[01:43:12] And what's interesting is it's not just that they are predators, but that the church has known, covered up for, and even passed around the same predator among churches.

[01:43:20] And this happens all knowingly.

[01:43:22] All the time.

[01:43:22] All the time in this culture.

[01:43:23] So it's interesting that they, you know, they love to talk about protecting children is a favorite line that's used in conservative circles and protecting children.

[01:43:31] But it's ignoring what actually happens in their circles to kids from predators, from white predators, and then pretending and projecting that outward onto the queer community as a threat when statistically that's not what's happening.

[01:43:48] Right.

[01:43:49] You ask women, are you...

[01:43:50] Ask most women, are you more afraid of a trans woman in your bathroom or are you more afraid of meeting a white conservative man?

[01:44:01] Which do you think is a threat to you?

[01:44:03] I know what my answer is.

[01:44:05] Without like in the drop of a hat, I know which one has caused me more harm in my life.

[01:44:09] I know which group of people has continuously done things that have caused harm to me and my kids.

[01:44:14] Yeah.

[01:44:15] And I've seen that over and over.

[01:44:16] So it's interesting that they put up this exterior threat and ignored what that looks like to look at the fruit of what this is causing to a group of people, to children, to women, to families.

[01:44:27] Yeah.

[01:44:28] Yeah.

[01:44:28] 100%.

[01:44:29] Okay.

[01:44:30] Second to last paragraph.

[01:44:31] We're doing it.

[01:44:32] Oh my god.

[01:44:33] But even if the story helpfully praises the costly pursuit of justice and fighting for the marginalized, in the end, its rejection of moral absolutes leaves audiences without real hope or clarity.

[01:44:43] Oh my god.

[01:44:44] In a trust my instincts world where subjective authority reigns, questions of what's just and unjust, good and evil, are ultimately unanswerable.

[01:44:54] Heroes and villains are constructs.

[01:44:56] Wicked is merely an arbitrary label imposed by one group over another as propaganda to consolidate power.

[01:45:04] Um, hello.

[01:45:07] Hello.

[01:45:07] Hello.

[01:45:09] That, cause that's what you do, dude.

[01:45:11] That is true.

[01:45:12] That's what you do.

[01:45:13] That last part about propaganda and imposing and making up stuff in order to, I want to back that up.

[01:45:19] So he goes into like this whole, uh, in the end, its rejection of moral absolutes leaves audiences without real hope or clarity.

[01:45:27] The, the thing that always gets me about these, these types of people is that they assume that society functions in a framework of moral absolutism.

[01:45:38] Um, and any time we question that framework, we are rejecting moral absolutes.

[01:45:48] Um, yes.

[01:45:49] And we are not.

[01:45:50] No.

[01:45:51] In fact, I think just absolutely doing the exact opposite.

[01:45:57] Mm-hmm.

[01:45:57] I think the questioning of those moral absolutes is questioning whether or not those absolutes, those binaries, those, you know, standards have been applied to the right places.

[01:46:12] Exactly.

[01:46:13] Yes.

[01:46:13] I love the line, um, where he goes, uh, in the trust my instincts world where subjective authority reigns.

[01:46:20] And I like the authority line because at the end of the day, they're about authority.

[01:46:23] It is, you're not following under my authority.

[01:46:25] So this must be subjective.

[01:46:27] It's a changing authority.

[01:46:29] It's a changing belief.

[01:46:30] The truth is all authority should be subjective.

[01:46:34] We should be very, very constantly reevaluating whether someone's authority extends as far as they want to take it.

[01:46:45] Mm-hmm.

[01:46:45] And that's the crux of evangelicalism.

[01:46:47] What you just said, Jessica, is they want you to believe that there is an absolute authority and it's God.

[01:46:53] So they're going to say, it's not me.

[01:46:54] It's not my, you don't need to evaluate me.

[01:46:57] You just need to know I follow the absolute authority, which is God.

[01:47:00] So that gives me all authority and power because I'm claiming to speak in God's name.

[01:47:04] Therefore, you don't have to evaluate me because I'm not telling you about evaluating me.

[01:47:07] I'm telling you my thoughts are God's thoughts.

[01:47:09] And that's the favorite line of the whole absolute idea versus trusting your instincts is what you were saying earlier.

[01:47:16] If you get outside of yourself, then you just blindly follow your leader.

[01:47:21] If you don't believe good exists in you, if you don't believe your instincts, your autonomy matters, if they could strip you of who you are, then you just blindly follow them.

[01:47:29] And they don't want you, they will never say this is about following me.

[01:47:33] But who gets to define God?

[01:47:34] Who gets to spell out what God thinks or what his teachings are or what it?

[01:47:39] Christianity is a fascinating religion with thousands of denominations and different opinions on everything.

[01:47:45] Like there is no consistent group thought on any of this.

[01:47:50] And the fact that there are just so many interpretations and ways of looking at it is because the Bible is not clear.

[01:47:55] The Bible is not inerrant.

[01:47:56] The Bible contradicts itself.

[01:47:57] It has so many different messages that people have grouped together as one and they don't even agree on what the canon is because many groups of Christianity have a different section that they consider the Bible.

[01:48:06] So it's just so fascinating that the end of the day when they say, no, the Bible is the authority.

[01:48:11] No, God is the authority.

[01:48:12] What they're actually, actually, actually saying is I am the authority.

[01:48:16] I know the right interpretation of God.

[01:48:18] I have the right idea of what God is trying to say.

[01:48:21] And so you need to listen to me because I'm going to tell you what to do.

[01:48:25] And I don't want you to question me.

[01:48:27] So I'm going to say it's God that I'm speaking for.

[01:48:29] And that's absolute authority.

[01:48:30] That's what that it's not subjective.

[01:48:32] It's not my, me, my instincts.

[01:48:34] And yes, it is.

[01:48:35] You just don't want us to evaluate you and the fruit of your.

[01:48:38] Yeah.

[01:48:39] Yeah.

[01:48:40] Right.

[01:48:40] This is the thing.

[01:48:41] Yes.

[01:48:42] Yeah.

[01:48:43] And this is the thing that for me stands out is, you know, in a trust my instincts world

[01:48:48] where subjective authority reigns, questions of what's just and unjust, good and evil are

[01:48:51] ultimately unanswerable.

[01:48:53] So his.

[01:48:53] Says who?

[01:48:54] Exactly.

[01:48:55] It's not.

[01:48:55] Right.

[01:48:56] And that's the other thing too.

[01:48:56] Says who?

[01:48:57] He's assuming.

[01:48:58] Right.

[01:48:59] You're going to tell us that, Brett?

[01:49:01] Okay.

[01:49:01] He's.

[01:49:02] You couldn't answer it.

[01:49:03] Mm-hmm.

[01:49:03] Mm-hmm.

[01:49:04] Got it.

[01:49:05] Right.

[01:49:05] Exactly.

[01:49:06] In your little white man brain.

[01:49:08] Exactly.

[01:49:08] And yet the rest of us who have been.

[01:49:11] That was insulting.

[01:49:13] The rest of us who have been targeted by these systems are looking at this going, no,

[01:49:21] the answers are there.

[01:49:22] The problem is that you're not willing as the person in power to reflect on the fact

[01:49:27] that you are part of the problem.

[01:49:31] Part of the problem.

[01:49:34] Yeah.

[01:49:34] It's merely wicked is merely an arbitrary label imposed by one group over another as

[01:49:40] propaganda to consolidate power.

[01:49:42] Heroes and villains are constructs.

[01:49:46] That's not.

[01:49:47] That's you telling on yourself, bro.

[01:49:49] Yeah.

[01:49:50] Dude.

[01:49:50] You are the one that is.

[01:49:53] Wait, where is the line?

[01:49:54] Yeah.

[01:49:54] Christianity has employed this as such so effectively.

[01:49:58] Yeah.

[01:49:59] They can see it when it's there.

[01:50:00] They have made arbitrary labels imposed by one group over another and it's their propaganda

[01:50:05] to consolidate power.

[01:50:07] Yes, dude.

[01:50:08] Yes.

[01:50:09] Thank you for telling us what you're doing because we've seen it.

[01:50:11] Yeah.

[01:50:12] We've lived it.

[01:50:12] We've watched it.

[01:50:13] Yep.

[01:50:13] What is it behind every accusation is a confession?

[01:50:16] That's what they say about narcissism.

[01:50:18] Yeah.

[01:50:18] Every accusation is a confession.

[01:50:19] And evangelicalism, which tries to encourage people to deemphasize empathy, has a very narcissistic

[01:50:25] trait that's a key component.

[01:50:27] Yes.

[01:50:27] So I would say there's, evangelicalism is a narcissistic religion by that metric.

[01:50:31] Yeah.

[01:50:31] Well, it's been invented by a narcissist.

[01:50:34] So yes, it reflects the people that it is intended to prop up.

[01:50:40] And it's so interesting because if you look at the words like gay agenda or, you know,

[01:50:46] the way that liberal agenda, the way they use agenda all the time for me, raise the evangelical.

[01:50:51] I'm like, why are they so obsessed with agenda as a concept?

[01:50:54] And I'm like, oh, because we had an agenda.

[01:50:56] Make disciples of all nations.

[01:50:58] Convert people.

[01:50:59] Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone for the hope you have.

[01:51:02] And all these verses about basically converting everyone, right?

[01:51:06] We had an agenda.

[01:51:07] We did not love someone because they had inherent dignity and value.

[01:51:09] We loved them because we needed to lead them to Christ.

[01:51:12] We needed them to become a Christian.

[01:51:14] We had an agenda to our love and care.

[01:51:16] We couldn't love someone if they disagreed with us because now they were an enemy.

[01:51:19] So Christians see everything, everyone who's advocating for something as having an agenda because they do.

[01:51:25] That's exactly it.

[01:51:26] That's what pops into my head.

[01:51:27] They don't know how to see.

[01:51:29] Yeah.

[01:51:29] And so, yeah, he sees all of this the way he's saying it because that is the way he sees it.

[01:51:36] That's the evangelical framework.

[01:51:38] Yep.

[01:51:38] Yep.

[01:51:39] Okay.

[01:51:39] Last paragraph.

[01:51:40] We got here.

[01:51:41] All right.

[01:51:43] We've had enough of you, Brett.

[01:51:44] Pretty much done.

[01:51:46] Please, please.

[01:51:47] We can praise elements of Wicked as a well-told story and creatively rendered world.

[01:51:53] The songs and costumes are fun.

[01:51:56] The vibes are pleasant, but the moral ideas, however well-intentioned, are ultimately incoherent and unhelpful.

[01:52:05] Which is weird because...

[01:52:07] Is that the end of that?

[01:52:08] Yeah.

[01:52:08] Okay.

[01:52:08] What's weird is that he was able to coherently spit back the film's moral ideas.

[01:52:17] Mm-hmm.

[01:52:17] Yeah.

[01:52:18] It was unhelpful to his ideas of what morality is.

[01:52:21] So unhelpful is truthful there.

[01:52:22] It's unhelpful in promoting his agenda.

[01:52:26] Right.

[01:52:26] For what he wants to see as moral ideas.

[01:52:29] But they're there.

[01:52:30] They are quite coherent.

[01:52:32] They're quite clear.

[01:52:33] There's something you could spell out and repeat back.

[01:52:35] They're coherent.

[01:52:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:52:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:52:37] He did a great job of spelling it out here.

[01:52:39] He did.

[01:52:40] He figured it out.

[01:52:41] He definitely got it figured out.

[01:52:44] He just thinks it's bad.

[01:52:45] It's unhelpful to his moral authority.

[01:52:47] Mm-hmm.

[01:52:47] He just thinks it's bad.

[01:52:50] Yeah.

[01:52:50] He could...

[01:52:51] Like, translation, I don't agree with it.

[01:52:54] Right.

[01:52:54] Therefore, I'm going to call it incoherent and unhelpful.

[01:52:57] Right.

[01:52:57] But he genuinely thinks it's evil.

[01:52:59] It's wrong.

[01:53:00] He feels like this is a bad way of believing or acting or seeing the world.

[01:53:06] It's poorly...

[01:53:08] A poor way of doing it in his mind.

[01:53:11] Yep.

[01:53:12] Okay.

[01:53:13] So, now that we've read through that, and we're coming to the end of our hangout together

[01:53:18] because this episode's getting long.

[01:53:21] Yes.

[01:53:22] Let's just talk about the movie.

[01:53:24] I thought we were talking about the movie.

[01:53:26] Yeah.

[01:53:26] No, just ourselves.

[01:53:27] Like, how did you feel?

[01:53:29] What did you...

[01:53:30] What were your reactions?

[01:53:31] I cried.

[01:53:32] Yeah.

[01:53:32] I cried when they were having the dance together and Galinda had to...

[01:53:37] Oh, the Oz Dust ballroom scene?

[01:53:39] Yeah.

[01:53:39] When she had to make that decision if she was going to break away from the cool kids

[01:53:43] and because she was the cool kid, the ultimate cool kid, and then go to the ultimate uncool

[01:53:47] kid who she kind of had a role in stigmatizing herself and that change.

[01:53:52] I really found it fascinating because she seems like a shallow character the whole way through,

[01:53:57] and that's her shining moment of being a decent person and making a decision.

[01:54:02] And you see her friends looking at each other like, what the heck is she doing?

[01:54:05] Bo and Yang's little cameo there as one of her friends.

[01:54:09] Yes.

[01:54:11] I'm all about Bo and Yang's appearances.

[01:54:13] He just always makes me smile.

[01:54:14] So it was fun to see him.

[01:54:16] The smiles, but then the tears of those two women at that, during that dance had my tears

[01:54:21] streaming.

[01:54:21] That was my...

[01:54:22] I think that was, I think, one of my favorite moments of the movie.

[01:54:26] But I choked up quite a few times.

[01:54:28] Yeah, that was lovely.

[01:54:29] I enjoyed that very much.

[01:54:32] Yes.

[01:54:32] I feel like I need to see it again.

[01:54:35] And I still don't know what happens in the second half.

[01:54:37] So, cause I've never watched the stage production.

[01:54:40] So I've never read the book and I've never watched the stage production.

[01:54:43] So I have no idea what's coming.

[01:54:46] I just know some songs.

[01:54:48] Quick, quick.

[01:54:48] I tend to forget things right after I see them.

[01:54:52] So I have seen the stage production of it and I know the story.

[01:54:55] And then I was asking Nate questions about how Glinda starts off talking about Alphaba.

[01:55:02] And I was like, this is not...

[01:55:03] I was confused.

[01:55:04] And he was like, don't you remember what happens in the next...

[01:55:07] I won't give it away.

[01:55:08] I won't give away that part.

[01:55:09] We'll only spoil this section one we talked our way through.

[01:55:13] But what I would say is if you only watch, if you don't know the whole story and you're

[01:55:18] only watching this part, once you finish watching the second one, if you go back and

[01:55:21] repeat the whole story, it will make all of those beginning scenes and sequences so much

[01:55:26] more...

[01:55:26] It's one of those movies that when you get to the end, you have to go back and rewatch in

[01:55:30] order to all of a sudden fit it together well.

[01:55:32] Yes.

[01:55:32] As I'm watching the beginning, I'm like, dang it, I'm going to need to rewatch this.

[01:55:36] It is going to be one of those for sure.

[01:55:38] Yeah.

[01:55:38] And I think that for me is...

[01:55:39] But it was a pleasure to watch.

[01:55:41] Yeah.

[01:55:42] Just visually.

[01:55:43] It was beautiful.

[01:55:44] I thought Ariana Grande did a really good job.

[01:55:47] She's so good.

[01:55:47] Especially for not...

[01:55:48] Yeah.

[01:55:49] Especially for not having much acting before this.

[01:55:54] And yeah.

[01:55:55] So that was very fun.

[01:55:57] And I did think the casting of all of the adjacent characters were very fun.

[01:56:06] And the Michelle Cho is...

[01:56:10] Michelle Yeo.

[01:56:10] Michelle Yeo.

[01:56:11] Yeo.

[01:56:12] Yes.

[01:56:12] Yes.

[01:56:13] Her name skipped off my lips.

[01:56:15] She's so good.

[01:56:16] She's just stunning in everything she's in.

[01:56:19] Everything she does.

[01:56:19] So if she's in something, I'm going to go watch it.

[01:56:22] But she really did a lot with that character and I enjoyed tremendously.

[01:56:26] What's fun?

[01:56:27] What I found fun about Michelle Yeo.

[01:56:29] I mean, and I also love her in everything.

[01:56:31] I loved her trying to sing too.

[01:56:32] Yeah.

[01:56:33] Not bad.

[01:56:33] Not bad.

[01:56:34] Yeah.

[01:56:35] She definitely gave a good shot at it.

[01:56:37] One of the nerdy things I like her in that she's less well known for is she actually

[01:56:41] plays a significant character arc in one of the Star Trek series.

[01:56:45] Is it Discovery?

[01:56:46] Discovery.

[01:56:47] Yeah.

[01:56:48] And what's interesting about her character in Discovery is she plays one version of herself

[01:56:53] and a mirror universe version of herself.

[01:56:56] So she plays a good version of herself and an evil version of herself.

[01:56:59] So you get to really watch.

[01:57:00] And I find wicked fun in that way because she starts off one way acting really sweet and

[01:57:06] convincingly so and then turns villain.

[01:57:09] And I was like, I love her acting range to pull off both.

[01:57:13] So like it's those are fun actors who can you're still just enjoying her.

[01:57:17] Yeah.

[01:57:18] She's so great.

[01:57:19] I love that.

[01:57:20] Mm hmm.

[01:57:20] Yeah.

[01:57:21] So I'm going to come at it from the perspective of somebody who is quite familiar with the

[01:57:26] Broadway show and address some things and some frustrations that I have with these

[01:57:33] kind of snobby Broadway theater nerd theater goers who are just like, oh, I don't like adaptations.

[01:57:41] And so it's not going to please every every especially the diehards.

[01:57:46] Right.

[01:57:46] Like there are certain things that you're going to have to sort of set aside.

[01:57:53] So one of the things I'll go with a an analogy.

[01:57:58] Right.

[01:57:58] The Les Miserables from stage production to film completely different interpretations of that

[01:58:05] musical.

[01:58:06] Yeah.

[01:58:07] And there's there's several the movie versions, too, that are all in their own.

[01:58:14] Right.

[01:58:15] Right.

[01:58:15] So I'm speaking specifically of the musical when you're looking at the stage production

[01:58:20] and even the orchestration and the the the vocalizing, the singing, the styles.

[01:58:27] It's all very, very different.

[01:58:29] It's a completely different interpretation.

[01:58:30] So that kind of set the stage in my mind for seeing Les Mis as something different from

[01:58:35] stage to film.

[01:58:37] The thing about Wicked is that the orchestrations are very similar from stage to film.

[01:58:43] So I think for a lot of theater goers, we're going to be lulled into a false sense of familiarity

[01:58:52] with this production and make assumptions about what these characters are supposed to play

[01:58:58] out as over the course of the film.

[01:59:00] And they're not going to play into those roles exactly.

[01:59:03] Some of it could be a matter like we were talking before.

[01:59:05] Some of it could be a matter of the medium differences.

[01:59:08] Mm hmm.

[01:59:09] And and the fact that certain actions or certain characterizations aren't going to translate

[01:59:15] as well from stage to film and vice versa.

[01:59:19] Some of it might just be interpretive differences that that John Chu had from, you know, the stage

[01:59:25] directors.

[01:59:26] So I look at it.

[01:59:29] So there's some things like some of the characters.

[01:59:31] Right.

[01:59:31] Fiero is a character who I thought translated very differently from stage to film.

[01:59:37] Fiero is much more of a he's a slough it off, like slacker kind of character who then transitions

[01:59:45] into the thoughtful, the thoughtful activist kind of character.

[01:59:50] Whereas in the film, it feels more like the thoughtful character is there all along underneath

[01:59:58] the surface all along.

[01:59:59] Exactly.

[02:00:00] And that he's just kind of peeling back those layers as he or putting on a facade.

[02:00:06] It makes almost a little more sense and how humans.

[02:00:09] Yeah.

[02:00:09] This is true.

[02:00:10] I do like the movie version of it.

[02:00:12] Yeah.

[02:00:12] And that's one example.

[02:00:14] He did a great job with that character, too.

[02:00:18] Did it fantastic.

[02:00:18] He's such a great actor.

[02:00:20] Oh, enjoy him.

[02:00:21] Another one.

[02:00:22] I think Ariana Grande did a fantastic job translating the character straight from stage

[02:00:29] to film.

[02:00:29] I think that out of all of the cast members, that's the one where I'm like, I felt most

[02:00:33] familiar with that interpretation of Glinda.

[02:00:37] I was asking you about Glinda.

[02:00:39] It was like, was that scene in the in the stage where she does the I'm not Glinda anymore.

[02:00:44] I'm now Glinda.

[02:00:45] And then and then everyone is applauding her.

[02:00:47] Like, wow, she did something so amazing to help society.

[02:00:51] And it just that was it was a great analogy for performative allyship where like you actually

[02:00:57] have nothing to contribute and you're pretending she's like doing this in the honor of the animals.

[02:01:02] And it was like, right.

[02:01:03] So so it is it was in the play.

[02:01:06] That'd be like me going by Jessica now because that's how black people say it or something.

[02:01:12] Yeah.

[02:01:12] So that was in this.

[02:01:14] You can call me Jessica.

[02:01:31] Yeah.

[02:01:31] So my mindset might have been a little bit different.

[02:01:33] My interpretation might be a little bit different, but it comes across a little bit less as performative

[02:01:38] allyship and more as I need the spotlight and I focus on.

[02:01:45] Yeah.

[02:01:46] I need to pull focus.

[02:01:47] Yeah.

[02:01:48] But I also but I also am kind of reading the room and I know that like everybody cares

[02:01:53] about Dr. Dillman.

[02:01:54] So I'm going to stand in solidarity with him.

[02:01:57] But I do need to make this about me somehow.

[02:02:00] So which is essentially what performative allyship is.

[02:02:02] But I think it plays off a little bit differently on the stage versus the movie version.

[02:02:08] Yeah.

[02:02:08] People clapping and acting like that was so big was hilarious.

[02:02:11] Well, well done.

[02:02:12] The emphasis was a little bit more.

[02:02:14] Yeah.

[02:02:15] So that was.

[02:02:15] And then I love that they kept it throughout the rest.

[02:02:18] Oh, absolutely.

[02:02:18] Now she's Glinda.

[02:02:20] Which they do.

[02:02:21] And that's that was I mean, and that's part of Wizard of Oz canon as well as she's Glinda

[02:02:25] who then when she becomes the good witch, she changes her name to Glinda the good.

[02:02:30] Yeah.

[02:02:30] Glinda.

[02:02:31] Yeah.

[02:02:32] So.

[02:02:33] So yeah, I think one of the things that I sort of miss from the stage play is the steampunk

[02:02:41] aesthetic, though I do realize that's very much a product of its time.

[02:02:45] Like the costuming and the set design.

[02:02:49] Very different.

[02:02:50] That dragon with the red eyes.

[02:02:51] Yeah.

[02:02:51] The clock tower, the dragon, wait, the clock tower dragon, the clock of the dragon tower.

[02:02:57] That is sort of imposes over the entirety of the play that has a callback to the book wicked.

[02:03:06] And like I.

[02:03:08] There was more a Wizard of Oz movie theme.

[02:03:10] Yes.

[02:03:10] Going on in wicked.

[02:03:13] Uh, does it have to do with rights or something?

[02:03:15] So the stage.

[02:03:16] So the stage production has its own style and aesthetic.

[02:03:20] It's very steampunk.

[02:03:22] Lots of clock gear kind of vibe going on.

[02:03:25] And it does.

[02:03:27] It takes a lot of the visual cues away.

[02:03:32] It didn't no longer has a lot of those visual cues from the Wizard of Oz 1939 movie.

[02:03:37] Was he not allowed?

[02:03:38] Yeah.

[02:03:38] The stage, the stage production, uh, that, the, that company didn't have the rights to

[02:03:45] the, to use any visual elements from the film.

[02:03:49] So like in the stage, the Ruby red slippers, no yellow, no yellow, no red.

[02:03:53] Yeah.

[02:03:54] The red slippers are not there.

[02:03:55] Yeah.

[02:03:55] Yeah.

[02:03:56] So they have to use only the book.

[02:03:58] So the movie could do this.

[02:03:59] The movie could because they obtained the rights from, uh, I think it was MGM or Warner.

[02:04:06] Yeah.

[02:04:06] They did some great nods to the movie and it was really fun.

[02:04:10] And Nick really enjoyed that.

[02:04:11] My, my boyfriend.

[02:04:13] The pink, the pink gown that she, the prances around in.

[02:04:16] Yes.

[02:04:16] Like makes me think of, uh, definitely makes me think of the movie.

[02:04:19] Right.

[02:04:19] Yeah.

[02:04:20] So she comes down, um, in, in a, in an actual bubble like she does in the Wizard of Oz movie.

[02:04:26] That was lovely.

[02:04:27] Whereas in, in the stage play, she comes down in bubble esque kind of, uh, clock gear floating

[02:04:35] thing, which is cool.

[02:04:37] All of it is very cool.

[02:04:38] Jessica, when you come to New York, you, I think we should just go see Wicked.

[02:04:43] We should take you to see Wicked.

[02:04:44] We just have to do this.

[02:04:45] We need to just fly in for a weekend.

[02:04:47] We should wait till after we watched the second part before going to see Wicked all

[02:04:51] together and back on Broadway.

[02:04:53] But like we should, and then we watch all the whole movie and then go compare to the

[02:04:57] Broadway.

[02:04:57] So, so I'll say, um, right from the, the, from the drop of the first beat and we saw,

[02:05:04] um, Ariana Grande revealed as Galinda and she started singing.

[02:05:08] Um, that's when I started getting choked up.

[02:05:11] I was, Ariana Grande did such a great job of conveying some of those emotions and I know

[02:05:15] where her story is ending up.

[02:05:16] I know where this is going to lead.

[02:05:18] So I got choked up because I know what she's doing in that scene.

[02:05:22] And I know what the inner turmoil that she has as she's talking to the munchkins.

[02:05:28] And I'm like, oh, gut wrenching.

[02:05:31] If you know what's going to be forgotten.

[02:05:33] And so I was kind of going through it when I'm like, I won't spoil.

[02:05:36] But then Nate was like, no, don't you remember this, this, and this later?

[02:05:39] And I'm like, no, I didn't remember this, this, and this.

[02:05:41] And then I'm like, that changes how I looked at what you were getting choked up over.

[02:05:45] I was not remembering anything.

[02:05:48] So it didn't have the same emotional impact on, but I can't wait to rewatch.

[02:05:51] I want to see the second part, go back and then rewatch.

[02:05:54] And there's little musical nods to the final song between, um, Glinda and Elphaba.

[02:06:02] The, the, there, there's little musical notes that, that, you know, that, that give you the motif kinds of kind of comes in a little bit here and there, especially at the very beginning scene.

[02:06:11] And that's what got me choked up.

[02:06:13] Cause I'm like hearing their duet while she's introducing them, the whole story.

[02:06:19] I heard it too.

[02:06:20] That got me choked up too.

[02:06:22] I was like, I can hear it.

[02:06:23] I can hear it.

[02:06:24] It's coming.

[02:06:24] And, um, so, so it was, it was, and honestly, like the costuming, the, the, the set design.

[02:06:29] Yes.

[02:06:30] I missed the steampunk aesthetic, but I also am just like, of course, they're going to give us that, that visual aesthetic nod to the wizard of Oz.

[02:06:38] I'm so glad they did.

[02:06:40] Um, so yeah.

[02:06:41] Speaking of aesthetic.

[02:06:42] Um, and I was asking you this about the witch hat that she gave her and the costume that, um, Elphaba has.

[02:06:49] There was a change from the Broadway outfit and how she comes into the school that was different.

[02:06:54] So they were able to present her and what she was wearing in the, in the, in her black motif.

[02:06:59] Yeah.

[02:07:00] So when she first comes to the school, this is one of the larger changes that I noticed.

[02:07:04] Um, when she first sets foot in the school, in the play, she is already enrolled as a student.

[02:07:10] And they have a mix up and that's how she ends up with.

[02:07:13] And there's an administrative error is what causes her to become a roommate with Glinda.

[02:07:16] Whereas I think the movie made more sense in having her not originally enrolled.

[02:07:22] And then she has this display of power that then Madame Morrible convinces her.

[02:07:27] That's a change.

[02:07:28] That's a change.

[02:07:28] That allows her to have the wardrobe instead of us coming in dressed as the student.

[02:07:32] Yeah.

[02:07:32] She comes in and set apart visually and you kind of, you can contrast her, which I never

[02:07:37] understood.

[02:07:38] Why is Glinda come in, not in uniforms and she's enrolled as a student, but I realized she's

[02:07:41] just so privileged and she's so rich and she's, she's so floating above everyone else.

[02:07:46] Yeah.

[02:07:47] Yeah.

[02:07:47] And I kept looking at this cause this kept playing in my mind while I was watching the

[02:07:51] show, watching the movie is that her outfit isn't in, in, in dress code.

[02:07:58] And so I'm watching, but then when you look at it closely, it is technically the stripes

[02:08:03] and the cut and everything is similar, but she's doing her pink thing.

[02:08:07] Yeah.

[02:08:08] It's variations of pink.

[02:08:09] Exactly.

[02:08:10] It's so funny.

[02:08:11] Um, but the stripes are the same and all that.

[02:08:13] So one thing that stood out to me and Gil, you had brought it up after we watched the

[02:08:17] movie, um, which was so beautiful is the, um, Defying Gravity goes for like a full almost

[02:08:26] 20 minutes in the movie.

[02:08:28] It's a six minute, um, motif in the play and there's, they, they, they drag it out with

[02:08:34] a whole bunch of like this big action sequence and everything, which is cool.

[02:08:37] Yeah.

[02:08:38] Um, and it, and it's, you know, enticing and an adventurous and, and, you know, it

[02:08:42] is what it is.

[02:08:42] I'm going to, I'm going to bookmark cause I know where you are, but I want to cut you

[02:08:45] off.

[02:08:45] Uh, the, the stage, uh, play of the entire wicked stage play, it runs at about two hours,

[02:08:52] I think.

[02:08:52] Two and a half hours.

[02:08:53] And the actual movie we just watched of half of it was almost three.

[02:08:58] Two 45.

[02:08:58] So a lot of people are like, where did this addition come from?

[02:09:01] And that's the example.

[02:09:02] That's this, that song is a good example.

[02:09:04] You said it went from six minutes to 20 minutes.

[02:09:06] Yeah.

[02:09:06] Oh, and then the other thing to the, the flashback to, um, Elphaba as a child and the bullying.

[02:09:12] This is where you're going to go with it.

[02:09:13] This is where I'm going with it.

[02:09:14] So that scene does not exist in the, um, in the stage play, the, that little bullying

[02:09:19] sequence with her and Nessa as little kids.

[02:09:21] Um, they hint at that and they talk about it as sort of this, like, um, you know, the

[02:09:26] flashback montage and then they quickly move through it in like a minute.

[02:09:30] Whereas in, in the play, they'd spend an entire scene in there or in the movie, sorry,

[02:09:34] they spend an entire scene there.

[02:09:35] Um, and what that's, what it's such a beautiful moment that, that, that Gail, you had pointed

[02:09:41] out was when she's falling at the end of the movie during.

[02:09:46] You wonder, will she, won't she be able to defy gravity?

[02:09:48] Yeah. And of course we know where this is going, but the moment where she sees her younger

[02:09:52] self in the mirror and she comes to terms with loving her younger self, which gives her

[02:09:57] what she needs to fly, you know?

[02:10:01] I think as somebody who, who has obsessed over IFS, uh, internal family systems as a therapy

[02:10:06] thing, uh, and how much that helps religious trauma victims seeing her have to come to terms.

[02:10:13] You know, I have said an IFS you're often encountering younger versions of yourself and learning how to work

[02:10:18] through that.

[02:10:19] Um, and even different therapies will focus on, you know, learning how to befriend younger

[02:10:23] you parenting your inner child.

[02:10:25] Yeah. That kind of language is super important to healing.

[02:10:27] And so I thought that was so beautiful when she's looking in the eyes of her younger self

[02:10:32] and learning how to love her, right?

[02:10:34] Like, cause remember when she, her dream of having the wizard of Oz turn her and not, and he makes, I

[02:10:39] loved, I don't, I don't think that wasn't, was that in the Broadway thing where she has the

[02:10:42] little figurine of herself and she, she's green and he goes, is that okay that you're green?

[02:10:46] Oh yeah. I don't remember that one.

[02:10:48] I feel like that was an addition.

[02:10:49] That was a really interesting moment.

[02:10:51] Right?

[02:10:51] She just didn't want to be who she was visually.

[02:10:54] She wanted to be changed.

[02:10:55] She thought that's how she would be loved and accepted and, and blend into society.

[02:10:59] And sort of that struggle with, do you accept yourself?

[02:11:02] And you could tell like she wasn't accepting herself at that moment.

[02:11:06] Cause she's looking at the figurine and she's like, no, actually I don't feel comfortable

[02:11:09] with that being who I am.

[02:11:10] Right?

[02:11:10] And then at the end she's looking at younger her and instead of being disgusted or being

[02:11:15] annoyed by who she was, it's like that making peace and looking at her young, looking at

[02:11:20] younger you with compassion and love.

[02:11:22] And I thought that's what gave her wings to fly.

[02:11:24] And I thought that was just so poetic and beautiful.

[02:11:27] And yeah, that really choked me up.

[02:11:29] Yeah.

[02:11:31] Ah, well.

[02:11:34] That was fun.

[02:11:35] We did it.

[02:11:36] We, we did it.

[02:11:38] We talked to you wicked.

[02:11:39] It was really fun.

[02:11:39] And I, I just love, I love that you guys asked me to do this and that we decided to

[02:11:45] do it.

[02:11:46] Um, it, it is, we carry with us as we go into life and as we go into the movie theater

[02:11:54] to watch movies, the, the history of our evangelical background and our lens.

[02:12:01] We bring this lens with us, um, as well as the work that we've been doing in deconstruction.

[02:12:06] And when we can sit with each other and just be like, Hey, I experienced this cultural

[02:12:11] phenomenon that's hitting me differently than it's hitting, you know, my other people in

[02:12:17] the theater today.

[02:12:18] Um, I want to talk about it.

[02:12:19] I'm so glad I wanted to talk with you.

[02:12:21] It was like, I need to talk about somebody who has the same background as we do and who

[02:12:25] will actually hear the voice of that Brett dude before even reading that article.

[02:12:29] Yeah.

[02:12:29] You know what they're thinking when they're watching it because you heard these messages

[02:12:32] your whole life that your happiness is, is mockery to, to be so frivolous as to care

[02:12:38] about.

[02:12:38] I hope you're happy.

[02:12:39] Like hearing that and feeling like you hear the old evangelical voices saying that's wrong.

[02:12:44] You can't, that is not a right way to look at life and, and, and having done the work

[02:12:50] to get out of that and being like, that's actually beautiful that they care about each other enough

[02:12:56] to want each other's happiness.

[02:12:57] Like it's a different lens that we've had to work our way out of to value and appreciate

[02:13:02] what they're actually saying to each other versus that messaging that we were taught.

[02:13:06] Yeah.

[02:13:06] It's beautiful.

[02:13:08] It is.

[02:13:09] So, um, verdict to, uh, do, do we recommend the movie?

[02:13:12] I loved it.

[02:13:13] I absolutely, I love, absolutely.

[02:13:15] I mean, like I said, Wicked is my only movie and favorite Broadway productions.

[02:13:20] And I, I thought the movie did a fantastic job and I, we're actually planning to watch

[02:13:24] it a second time too this week.

[02:13:26] We were, we had tickets with his mom and, and I think anyway, some confusion happened

[02:13:31] and we ended up with going to see it before.

[02:13:33] And we're, we're happy with that to be able to go rewatch the whole thing.

[02:13:36] Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[02:13:40] So great.

[02:13:41] Thanks for doing this.

[02:13:42] Go see Wicked.

[02:13:42] Yeah.

[02:13:43] Yes.

[02:13:43] Go.

[02:13:44] Yeah.

[02:13:44] And, and from, and then from me, go see Wicked and guys, you need to see it.

[02:13:49] Go take your daughters, take your girlfriends, take your, you know, sisters, whoever go see

[02:13:53] it.

[02:13:53] It's, it's healthy, you know, story of a female empowerment.

[02:13:57] No wonder evangelicals are freaking out over this.

[02:14:00] Losing their minds.

[02:14:02] Of course they are.

[02:14:02] Of course they are.

[02:14:03] Can't have us, can't have us thinking for ourselves or defying gravity.

[02:14:07] Yeah.

[02:14:08] If gravity is the patriarchy.

[02:14:10] Mm hmm.

[02:14:10] Ooh.

[02:14:11] Which it is.

[02:14:11] Ooh, good metaphor.

[02:14:13] There we go.

[02:14:14] It is.

[02:14:15] Thank you so much.

[02:14:16] Thank you.

[02:14:17] This is fun.

[02:14:17] This will not be the last episode of Full Mutuality with Jessica Goldworth.

[02:14:21] No, of course not.

[02:14:22] Uh, we love having you on and talking with us.

[02:14:25] I love coming.

[02:14:25] This, this to be continued in the future with other topics.

[02:14:28] Just like the ending of Wicked part one, to be continued.

[02:14:30] To be continued.

[02:14:31] Yeah.

[02:14:31] Oh yeah.

[02:14:31] We'll have a part two.

[02:14:32] Yes.

[02:14:32] We'll have to talk about this when the part two comes up.

[02:14:34] Yes.

[02:14:35] Yes.

[02:14:35] Yes.

[02:14:36] We'll be here.

[02:14:36] I mean, Jess, Jess will be back before part two of Wicked, but you know what we, let's

[02:14:41] make an appointment, you know, like with all the episodes that we're probably going

[02:14:44] to be doing over the course of this year at this time next year, we're going to sit

[02:14:48] down and do this one again.

[02:14:50] And do part two.

[02:14:50] And for those listening to us and who took the time to listen to this episode, feel free

[02:14:55] to throw your comments in.

[02:14:56] We want to know what you thought about Wicked.

[02:14:57] Wicked.

[02:14:58] We want to know, even from the event, ex evangelical perspective, if there was stuff that we missed

[02:15:03] that hit you as you were watching it, that was powerful to you.

[02:15:06] If stuff in the political climate hit you very differently this time around, if it wasn't

[02:15:10] just me and other, others of you are going like, yeah, that was, that was really on the

[02:15:14] nose.

[02:15:15] Um, we want to hear all your thoughts.

[02:15:16] So please give us your feedback.

[02:15:18] We, we love hearing that.

[02:15:21] Yeah.

[02:15:21] All right.

[02:15:22] Well, lest this episode go as long as the movie, let's go ahead and say, say goodbye.

[02:15:29] Yeah.

[02:15:29] The battle cry.

[02:15:30] End with the end with Elphaba's battle cry.

[02:15:32] You guys think I don't know.

[02:15:33] Sorry guys.

[02:15:34] That's right.

[02:15:36] All right.

[02:15:37] Thank you.

[02:15:46] This is a Dauntless Media Collective podcast.

[02:15:49] Visit dauntless.fm for more content.