Wicked Is Good

With all the snow and ice days keeping us Georgians homebound lately, I’ve been able to catch up on my television and movie watching.

I’ve been wanting to go see Den of Thieves 2 at the theater but felt like I needed to rewatch the first one to remind myself of the plot. I finally got around to that and can now proceed to the theater—some shows just do better on the big screen. And of course I visit on discount day to save some bucks.

I began Moana 2 on my streaming platform but then it started glitching half way through and I just settled for some sleep and will pick it up at a later date.

Now one movie I hadn’t planned on seeing anytime soon is Wicked. Not that I have anything against musicals and I knew the singing would be impeccable with power house entertainers Cynthia Enrivo and Arianna Grande, I just wasn’t into it intially. It was one of those shows you watch when you have a lot of free time lying around or you put on to absorb time while you’re doing something else.

Well Monday night, after taking an early evening nap, I found myself wide awake approaching midnight and guess what I did—I began watching Wicked thinking it would eventually lull me asleep. I was wrong, the first 10 minutes had me drawn in like a school of fish into an ocean current.

The singing script had some bones. It wasn’t just hashing parts of the Wizard of Oz, it explored the relationship between the “good” and “wicked” witches and gave you some meaty background of how the “Wicked” witch became so.

I found that delightful and enlightening because often times the behaviors we “think we see” in a person began formulating over a period of time. The “wicked” witch born different, green, was shunned by her father at birth and was thought lesser of by those around her as a kid, by no action of her own.

Watching it reminded me a lot of people today, everywhere not just in Oz, can be cruel and judgmental for no reason at all—likely just from seeing some difference in others.

I’m raising teenagers now, so I do my best to warn them against those trappings of doing such, and also how to handle being on the receiving end of such.

In elementary school, Robyn was the target of “mean girls,” like I was too in my youth. She would come home sad, and I would build her up and toughen her up mentally. By middle school, she had learned to ignore the chatter and carry on. As a junior, some of those girls now like to follow her on social media and like many of her posts, she just laughs. I haven’t encountered any of that with Jacob yet, but boys are different I suppose.

My lesson learned from Wicked is that people need grace, initially, in life and unless you know their background don’t pass judgment on how they live their life..