Wicked For Good: music as cultural device

Good morning, good afternoon! First of all, I would like to extend an apology for the day this episode is coming out. I’ve had many things on my mind and a lot of physical movement, and since I don’t forget that this is the season finale, it didn’t feel fair to close without dedicating good quality time to it. Also, I’ll be honest, I really love the topic we’re going to talk about. I think it’s an excellent “golden closure.”

Today we are going to talk about the final part of Wicked, Wicked For Good. To enter into this work, I think it’s prudent to begin by clarifying that this is a film that is not only based on a musical, but on a novel: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West from 1995 by Gregory Maguire. Like any adaptation, it has its core changes. For example, in the novel there is much deeper exploration of biopolitics and totalitarian states; the musical, on the contrary, focuses on misunderstood identity and the manipulation of narratives. One could then say that the transformation from literature to musical format “filters” themes that composer Stephen Schwartz at the time considered central in a story that, let us remember, comes from another story: The Wizard of Oz, a novel from the year 1900 by L. Frank Baum.

From here we begin with attention because we have to be conscious that the music we adore and that moves us comes from Schwartz’s perspective, from his reading and interpretation, which is not exempt from omissions or transfigurations. In this way, from the perspective of music, the core of this franchise is a historical filter and the design of social utopias around three main axes: identity, narrative as a device of manipulation, and the Manichean division between “good and evil.”

So then, once this is established, we can approach it with a different posture. In Wicked we have the living example of what as a society is easier for us to integrate. The box office that this second part has reached proves it. Music is without a doubt one of the most strategic ways to present a story. If you don’t believe me, here are some comparisons and data:

Broadway generates almost 2 billion dollars annually in an area equivalent to just a few blocks of Manhattan. No other performing arts industry has this duration of cycle. A single musical can become a multigenerational cultural asset. It is one of the highest cultural and economic densities in the world. A local industry with global impact.

To put it into perspective: Broadway is a district the size of just a few blocks, but it generates almost 2 billion dollars a year, attracts 15 million people, and has titles that last decades. In comparison, for example, with a league like the NBA (which operates in 29 cities) it barely surpasses it in attendance.

And what is the engine of all that? Music, my dear listeners, music.

Why? I think because in addition to connecting generations, it plays with the unique attributes of music: the capacity for replication and storage. In other words, we can take Broadway home with us through memory, re-adaptation and circulation, by introducing it one way or another INTO our personal history, storing it as memory and reproducing it at any moment when we hear the melodies again. Add to this the capacity for identification with different narratives and we have an emotional boom. In my master’s degree I proposed that this is due to a structure of feeling based on nostalgia. But first, what is a structure of feeling? Briefly, these are proposals as ways of feeling and perceiving that are not always fully codified in words or institutions, but that are felt in the cultural air of an era. They are like those shared emotional atmospheres that traverse a society.

So then, proposing the latent structure of feeling in Broadway as nostalgia implies conceiving it under three conditions: distancing, displacement and absence. From this nostalgia, cultural perceptions that connect individuals, generations and relations of power are materialized and activated… wait, wait — why relations of power? Because these elements expose what is valued and shared… and that, my listeners, fabricates the elements that can become resources of value, that are possessed, dominated or the opposite… do you see what I mean? Let’s call them “organic themes” because they carry precisely those themes that are valued and that are exposed to their future valuation by the collective, but — and this is key — from the perspective of some group or individual. Remember that it is always important to question where the proposals we consume and incorporate come from because they configure and shape us.

Nostalgia implies an evocation of a past that has been displaced and that through it is given presence. Broadway is more than music; it is a device of collective identification and emotional regulation. What is interesting is to think of this structure of feeling and music in Broadway as an expression of “organic themes.” The conjunction between the social, material and emotional dimensions configures and replicates the organic themes that are integrated into this symbolic form that is music and the events of this industry. Through the reproduction and circulation of these organic themes… whew, we could even talk about hegemony. In this case, music allows reproduction to become a constantly negotiated and embodied element that activates nostalgia (structure of feeling) and positions individuals as nodes of recirculation of a determined “organic” conglomerate.

It’s intense, right?

Once placed this way, Wicked is a historical device proposed by its music, by Stephen Schwartz… who hit the mark because who hasn’t felt misunderstood throughout their life? Who hasn’t had a person by whom they felt unconditionally supported? Who hasn’t had someone because of whom they had to learn and transform? I think that by touching such broad themes is precisely why Wicked becomes so endearing and even more so, this story encompasses two stories in the “hero’s journey” format, so yes… you can’t miss.

Now then, let’s talk a bit about the style inserted directly into the music. Usually these musicals are composed of two or more acts; in the case of Wicked, we have two and I think it’s clear: the first part presents the musical motifs, the second replicates them and through this replication: resolves.

The characteristics of the music within these contents usually have two main things: easy memorization and at the same time, almost glorious, extraordinary: a brilliant and exaggerated orchestration that weaves the narration through equally impactful voices. This makes a combo that almost allows the equalization of our internal emotional levels, almost a “this is how intensely we feel.” Broadway bets on the emotional nature of the human being and by exposing it at levels of grandeur, it becomes irresistible to the individual and therefore to the collective. It is not the same to be told a story as to have it sung to you and to be able to replicate the melody later; for the emotion of feeling identified to be detonated in the same register as a brilliant trumpet… I believe that when you identify with the narrative embedded in the music, it goes from being an everyday identification to becoming a repositioning as part of something larger that escapes linguistic constructs, even though it also contains them.

In this sense, returning to Wicked, for example, the ascending gesture of “Defying Gravity” tells us what freedom sounds like, the detonation of identity and the decision to show ourselves as different and, in the same way, in other pieces leitmotifs associated with friendship are condensed, luminous chords associated with Glinda and musical progressions that function as emotional synthesis… as if themes and emotions coexisted at the same time and through music were reactivated whenever necessary, as if that contained and unleashed the emotional universe of the journeys of both the characters and the core points of the narrative.

In Wicked, I find very clear and marked another of the great abilities of music: the extraordinary capacity for identification and reappropriation of narratives and social constructs. In the case of Wicked For Good, it is the resolution and condensation of the rereading of an original narrative from 1900 that exposes organic themes that, although carried through time, become timeless by linking themselves with experiences as shared as friendship and the encounter with oneself.

Stephen Schwartz does not only adapt a story: he adapts an entire cultural sensibility, condenses it into motifs, amplifies it in orchestration, and offers it as a common space where anyone can see themselves. Music completely transforms the reception of the story, turns it into part of our individual and collective history.

Wicked reminds us that music is a powerful cultural device: it organizes what we feel, what we remember and what we imagine possible.

And perhaps that is why this ending feels so forceful: because it not only closes a story, but opens a shared emotional place where we recognize who we were, who we are and who we could become.

If nostalgia is the structure of feeling that sustains Broadway, Wicked For Good is its best example: a space where past, present and possibility align in music.

And that is why (because of that crossing between emotion, narrative and memory), this is the perfect golden closure to end the season: because it speaks of closure, yes… but above all of transition. Of the way in which music, again and again, accompanies us back to ourselves.

Original Version