I will go out on a rather short branch and assume most of the world has seen The Wizard of Oz at least once. Personally, I have watched the movie dozens of times, it’s my mom and girlfriend’s mom’s favorite film and has remained ingrained in my consciousness for most of my life. As a child though, any sort of subtlety was lost on me and the sort of nuanced drama and set pieces flew right over my head. The Wizard of Oz was originally released in 1939 to great critical acclaim but poor financial return. Re-released in 1949 allowed new audiences to watch the film again and finally turn a profit. However, it wasn’t until it’s first television broadcast in 1956 where a larger, more impressionable audience could enjoy the movie and boy did they. Airing The Wizard of Oz on TV also turned the movie into an annual tradition and cemented the classic as a classic. Of course, as any good classic can be, we have to be thankful for the original material. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900 by L. Frank Baum, began a long, storied adventure of young Dorothy in the Land of Oz. Spawning thirteen subsequent sequels by the author himself and a myriad collection of third-party entries as well, Oz is a fully fleshed and realized fantasy world. For now, though, I am only going to be concentrating on the 1939 film; because I have realized that The Wizard of Oz depicts a harrowing period in the plains of America and a young girl’s attempt to escape the Dust Bowl.
Just so we are clear on the logic behind this let me go through The Wizard of Oz real quick and lay some foundation. Our protagonist is a teenage girl (played by Judy Garland) living on her Aunt and Uncle’s farm in rural Kansas. It seems her only real friend in the world – a little Scotty dog named Toto – is taken away by a woman, escapes from this woman, and returns to Dorothy; who then runs away herself. She meets a fortune teller who, gazing into his crystal ball, explains to Dorothy that her Aunt Em is dying of a broken heart. So, she returns home. Unfortunately, because this is Kansas, a tornado touches down and everyone scrambles into the basement shelter locking Dorothy out. She seeks refuge in the house and, through a dream-like transition, is transported to the magical Land of Oz, Munchkinland to be precise. A lilliputian town full of small people with big ideas and actions. There she meets the Munchkin and Glinda the Good Witch of the North who hail her as a hero for killing the Wicked Witch of the East. Only, Dorothy doesn’t want to be a hero, she only wants to go home. Cue the ruby slippers, which appeared on Dorothy’s feet after killing the witch, and Glinda and the Munchkin explaining that in order to go home she must seek out the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City by following a yellow brick road.
Along the way to the Emerald City, Dorothy meets up with a Scarecrow wanting a brain, a Tin Man wanting a heart of his own, and a Cowardly Lion just wanting some courage. On their quest to the city the group is attacked by the Wicked Witch of the West’s rather frightening flying monkeys and, within eyesight of the city gate, they are attacked by poppy flowers. Inevitably, they make it inside the city, meet with the Wizard and are given a new quest to prove their worthiness of receiving what they seek: bringing the Wicked Witch’s broom back to him. In doing so, Dorothy inadvertently kills the Witch when she spills water on her. Back in the city the Wizard is revealed to be an old man behind a curtain, pulling the strings as they say, and does indeed fulfill his end of the bargain – metaphorically though. He offers Dorothy the chance to go back home with him in his balloon, but Toto jumps out and she follows him as the Wizard flies away. In the most iconic scenes in film history, Glinda shows back up and tell Dorothy to click her ruby slippers together and chant “there’s no place like home” and she would go home. It works and Dorothy wakes up in her bed, surrounded by her family. It was all a dream!?
Alright, that is a quick distillation of the movie’s plot. How, though, does it jibe with the Dust Bowl?
Now, the Dust Bowl was an environmental disaster amongst the American plains in the
early 20th century, not a sports festival. A series of dust storms brought on by over farming and drought ravaged the American states of New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas roughly between 1934 and 1940. This crisis forced thousands of farmers off their land and left for the more western states (think Grapes of Wrath), but not all did that. Dorothy’s family farm is depressing on the outside, a literal pigsty. The surrounding houses are run down and dilapidated, the countryside is bleak and devoid of life. Why on Earth would she ever want to stay there or even return to a dessicated Kansas? It just doesn’t make sense.
The Wizard of Oz takes place in 1939, at the tail end of the Dust Bowl, and we see the Gale family farm. We see the scrub brush and scraggly grass. We see an austere house lacking that polish which comes from hard work. Of course, she wants to escape! There aren’t even any boys around.
The movie maintains that Oz is indeed a real place and I am totally willing to accept that; however, several instances in Oz make me question the direction of the film. The antagonist, the Wicked Witch of the West, looks suspiciously like that lady from the beginning of the movie who wanted to take Toto away. The Wizard of Oz looks eerily similar to that traveling fortune teller she met when she ran away. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion look just like the guys working on her family farm. Right, if I wanted to prove that she was only dreaming that would be a pretty strong case already. Yet, there is more exploring her escape from the farm and Kansas give me.
The striking comparison to Kansas and Oz is the color scheme. The scenes filmed in Kansas remain black and white whereas Oz is completely Technicolor. Dramatically setting up a comparison between the “bad” and “good” allowing Dorothy and audiences to emerge in a new world, wholly unknown. The use and absence of color provide depth and compound the need to showcase the differences between Kansas and Oz and boy oh boy the differences run aplenty.
After meeting the Scarecrow, Dorothy enters a forest full of apple trees – where she also runs into the Tin Man. In this apple tree labyrinth, Dorothy gets hungry, as you do, and picks an apple. Suddenly, the trees come to life and harass her for picking their apples; throwing them at her. Now, ordinarily that would be hilarious, but in this case, it’s more like a representation of Kansas falling apart. The food she wants to eat is attacking her and making her question her safety just like the Dust Bowl back home is doing to her family farm and life. Later, when the Wicked Witch curses a patch of poppy plants making her fall asleep, I want to argue that a simple, benign flower is also attacking her – against its natural process I might add. So, we have this teenage girl running around a magical world with violent flora. Normally, that would just be background noise for any sort of fantasy; however, in the case of The Wizard of Oz Dorothy’s fantasy world is plagued by her real-world fears. Namely, agricultural destruction at home.
The Wicked Witch’s monkeys are also suspect in this same degree, annoying little minions working for an evil dictator. You see, larger private companies were buying the abandoned properties of Dust Bowl farmers and if they wouldn’t sell in the first go-around those funny men in their nice suits would be back later. Like a monkey on these farmers’ backs. The Witch’s monkeys wear little vests and cute hats for their uniform, perhaps an allegory for the government back in Kansas?
Anyway you cut this movie there is always going to be a different interpretation. The original books make many allusions to 19th century America and it seems fitting that the 1939 film make an homage to the book as well (there are 40 differences between the book and film). I like imagining that Oz is the reality and Kansas was the nightmare for Dorothy and the books do a great job of portraying that part, but my mind wanders the opposite direction, making me think the filmmakers might not have thought the Dust Bowl into the plot all the way through.
Regardless, The Wizard of Oz is still a classic to be shared and continued to be loved by the masses. Each generation needs to watch this movie because it serves an important message of imagination and personal faith.
Gonzo Library 