The image I’ve selected is a promotional poster for the 1978 musical The Wiz, an alternate take on The Wizard of Oz with an entirely African-American cast. To 
understand why this film exists, and why the fact that it exists is relevant, we have to examine the conditions under which L. Frank Baum created the original Wizard of Oz story in the final years of the 19th century. Baum was a member of the Democratic Populist party, and in the 1890s he ardently supported Populist William Jennings Bryan in both his 1896 and 1900 presidential campaigns – obviously, both were unsuccessful (Littlefield, 49). Henry Littlefield proposes that The Wizard of Oz is an allegory for the political climate during the time Baum was writing it: Dorothy is the common citizen, the cowardly lion is Bryan, and the Wizard represents the U.S. government leadership (the emperor has no clothes). Though Bryan’s dual losses in the presidential election proved that Baum’s Populist party was in the minority, The Wizard of Oz has a happy ending, with all of the characters realizing that what they were looking for was inside themselves all along. If Littlefield is right about the allegory, we can see The Wizard of Oz as a story that Baum wrote with the intent to empower and motivate his fellow Democratic Populists to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and perhaps be a bit smarter and braver the next time around. Baum was writing for a minority group that didn’t have the political or social clout that it desired.
Flash forward almost eight decades to the conception of The Wiz in the late 1970s. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 are superfamous African-American pop stars in a nation that had only been desegregated fairly recently. It would be disrespectful to say that L. Frank Baum’s Democratic Populists were ever in a situation as dire as that of African-Americans in the mid 20th century; however, enough parallels can be drawn that I believe it is fair to say that The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz were created with a similar goal – to empower and encourage a minority demographic that lacks social and political power. The Wiz feautures a Dorothy who is from Harlem, not Kansas, but both locations were chosen with the goal of appealing to the common citizen as opposed to the elite. Additionally, the Wizard himself in The Wiz turns out to actually be a failed politician, which is probably a symbol for the numerous ways that the U.S. government has failed and mistreated African-Americans throughout the country’s history. If The Wizard of Oz was an attempt to rally and reinvigorate the downtrodden and few Democratic Populists, than The Wiz was an attempt to empower African-Americans, who suffered awful injustices at the hands of the government trusted with protecting it. Both works succeed in these goals while simultaneously delivering a fun, entertaining musical.
allegory, I got to thinking about other movies that could have employed the same method. Some further research revealed theories about Star Wars and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz being essentially the same story. Although created in completely different eras, the resemblance between the two works is startling.
Carol on more public school field trips than any person should have to endure. But, despite these unhappy visits to the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, I have managed to preserve my love of musicals by way of Wicked: The Musical. Four t-shirts, one sweatshirt, two Collector’s Edition Grimmeries, one bootlegged soundtrack (oops), four shows in Pittsburgh, and one show in San Francisco later, my mother has forbidden me from purchasing more tickets to see Wicked, and has certainly stopped buying me overpriced clothing with the word “popular” on it.
my mom) so much money. In addition to the powerful message of believing in yourself and the importance of knowing the whole story before making judgments, the sheer creativity and modern political allegory that warns against the power of those in charge are what makes Wicked resonate so well with audiences.
the sounds of L. Frank Baum’s (author of original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) initials – LFB. This is only one of literally hundreds of references to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the children’s book that Wicked is based upon. Wicked opens as the townspeople of Oz are rejoicing in the death of The Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda The Good Witch arrives (traveling via bubble) and tells the townspeople that they should not be so quick to hate the Wicked Witch, and reveals that a long time ago she was friends with The Wicked Witch, whose name was Elphaba. The rest of the musical is a flashback to Glinda and Elphaba’s time at Shiz University.
open fields with canyons in the background, a Marshall urging townspeople to take action against the outlaws, and a chase scene on horses, just to name a few. Due to these images, and the panoramic scenes of the land, obviously the West, it is quite apparent that this film is indeed a Western.
movie was made in 1968, and it is set in a made up-town somewhere in Utah called “Flagstone.” It was filmed in a studio in Italy and in the Spanish desert. The overall theme of this film adheres to what most, if not all of America, believes to be stereotypical of the American West. We drew many of these same themes on the back of our maps in class on Monday. The idea of the American West was created to glorify the American people, especially white American men. And most of these ideas have made their way into popular icons and themes created by the media through film.
summarize the film: The cowboy, Shane, is wandering through the West on his horse as he comes across a family living on the homestead. Shane befriends the family, especially the little boy, Joey. Joey thinks Shane is invincible and is mesmerized by him. However, Shane is very mysterious and the father of the family, Joe, is reluctant to trust him. There are also some subtle feelings between Shane and Joe’s wife, Marian. The movie includes classic Western scenes of saloon fighting and drinking just as I had expected it would. The family that Shane meets is struggling to keep hold of their “claim” (land) along with other people on the homestead. A greedy man named Ryker claims that Joe is on his land and he has come to take it back. One by one, other families on the homestead leave their land but Joe is determined to stay. Ryker recruits a notorious gunman, Jack Wilson, to help him fight off the people on “his land”. Joe plans to fight Ryker and Wilson but Shane’s inner cowboy and previous gunfighting experience surfaces as he knocks out Joe and goes to fight Ryker and Wilson. Shane ends up killing Wilson in a saloon shootout. To Joey’s disappointment and Marian’s relief, Shane rides off just as any true cowboy would too. 
legend John Henry. The cartoon tells a story of two freed slaves John Henry and his wife Polly Ann on the search for work and a new home during Reconstruction. John Henry finds a crew of exhausted workers who are having trouble completing the railroad’s deadline. The railroad company has a contract with the workers; if they complete their deadline on time the workers are entitled to 50 acres of land. John Henry gets right to work but workers become fearful when a steam-powered drill comes to finish the job. The laborers contracts will be broken if the steam-powered drill proves to be more efficient. This part of the film dealt with the anxiety workers had during this time that industries would replace manpower with machines. In Nelson’s reading this anxiety propelled labor unions and the communist party to use pictures of John Henry to represent Black laborers.
s by Scott Reynolds Nelson stated music teachers taught rhythm using John Henry folk songs during the 1950’s and later. He was also written about in many children books but was not discussed in other disciplines due to the association with the communist party. This Disney short was a part of a compilation called American Legends and the addition of the John Henry short was only released recently compared to the other shorts that were released in the 1950s. This displayed the controversy that surrounded the icon but his popularity continued through children stories, music, and movies. John Henry has had a strong lasting power in American society and is one of the greatest African American heroes.
character who appears in the both who harkens back to some ideas of John Henry. The character is Tyreese, a burly African American man who brandishes his weapon of choice: the hammer.
Tyreese has a moment where the audience/readers expect him to perish. John Henry’s death at the end of his legend is unexpected. In TWD the audience is led to believe Tyreese has died while saving the rest of the group. But eventually we learn of his survival. Looking at Tyreese, I find he has some connections to John Henry and the legend then I had noticed before.