In recent news, Cynthia Erivo was upset by a fan-edited promotional poster for her upcoming film Wicked, which stirred up conversation online. The new and upcoming movie Wicked is an adaptation of the popular Broadway musical that tells the untold story of the two witches from The Wizard Of Oz. Focusing on the relationship between Glinda, the Good Witch, and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, the musical is based on the 1995 novel The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. This new adaptation paints Elphaba as the misunderstood outcast, rather than the “evil” witch (Forbes).
The controversy started when the first picture of the Wicked movie poster was released. In the original Broadway musical poster, Glinda whispers into Elphaba’s ear, while Elphaba has a smirk topped with a bright red lip. Elphaba’s eyes are shadowed by her hat, leaving a more dramatic and mysterious effect. The vast contrast between the all-white outfit that Glinda is wearing and Elphaba’s blacked-out outfit is impactful. When the new movie poster was released, some fans were ecstatic while others were disappointed. Fans felt the poster was off; Ariana Grande’s hand placement looked uncomfortably edited and had too big of a gap between the two actors. Fans also said they preferred when Elphaba had the classic smirk and red lip. A few days after the poster was published, some fans edited the promotional poster to resemble the original.
When this was published, it received a lot of attention, catching the eye of Erivo who took to Instagram, posting the altered poster and saying, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting… Our poster is a homage, not an imitation; to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. That is just deeply hurtful.”
Emma-Claire Ho (11), a fellow Mustang who describes this situation, comments, “It’s a controversial topic that I think was taken the wrong way. Fans of the original Broadway musical were just trying to recreate the iconic Wicked poster, but their actions were interpreted as harmful. That being said, it’s best not to make quick judgments about things you see on the Internet.” I think this is a great way to put it; while the fans did not mean harm or to try and hide and erase Erivo, it came across that way. Erivo was trying to protect herself, in a case that could have felt like people attacking her and not giving her the credit she deserved. This controversy has led fans to say that Erivo is too sensitive to this topic and that this is what she should expect to be so popular in the entertainment industry.
However, even amid this controversy, many fans still anticipate Wicked‘s arrival in local movie theaters. Many are excited to see Cynthia Erivo’s amazing acting and hear Ariana Grande’s fantastic singing.
