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The Wiz Redux; or, Why Queer Black Feminist Spectatorship and Politically Engaged Popular Entertainment Continue to Matter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2019

La Donna L. Forsgren
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I don't remember the very first time I watched The Wiz (1978). Growing up in a black household during the 1980s, the film was as much a part of my upbringing as the countless hours I spent removing my Jheri curl activator from the sofa, practicing the moonwalk, or listening to my mother and sister's annual Thanksgiving argument about how much salt should go into the collard greens. What I do remember is how much I enjoyed watching The Wiz. Each Thanksgiving Day my six sisters and I would gather around the television set and watch our heroine Dorothy (Diana Ross) travel from her aunt's Harlem apartment to the magical land of Oz. We celebrated the fact that Dorothy ultimately vanquishes her seemingly more powerful foe Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West (Mabel King). As young black girls, we identified with Dorothy's plight. While we were not battling powerful witches, we were constantly resisting our mother's attempts to socialize us into “respectable” young women. As such, we were fascinated by Evillene, the most oppressive force within Dorothy's life. The gargantuan size of Evillene's body, the hideousness of her face, and the force of her supernatural powers both excited and repulsed us. We eagerly anticipated her first appearance in the film, bursting through the doors of her sweatshop belting, “Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.” We reveled in drawing comparisons between Evillene and our mother, hoping that one day we too could defeat her.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 325 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2019 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Editor Marlis Schweitzer of Theatre Survey and the two anonymous reviewers for their generous feedback throughout the publication process.

References

Endnotes

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6. Ibid.

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63. Quoted in Alvin Klein, “Dorothy and Wiz Hip-Hop into the 90's,” New York Times, 7 February 1993. Brown noted that, in the revamped stage version, “Dorothy has more depth, Dorothy is less passive.”

64. Ibid.

65. Posner, 294.

66. The Wiz, directed by Sidney Lumet (prod. Motown Productions, dist. Universal Pictures, 1978; DVD, Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 2009). Subsequent citations of this film are to this DVD.

67. Bunch, 62.

68. R. Williams, 197, 196.

69. Lawrence, 231.

70. Ibid., 236, 231.

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74. In 2015 more than one hundred or 36 percent of unarmed people killed by police were black. Yet, black people constitute only 13 percent of the US population; “Mapping Police Violence: Unarmed Victims” at https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed (accessed 25 August 2017). These numbers later rose, with 149 reported cases in 2017 https://policeviolencereport.org/ (accessed 18 April 2019). For more information, visit “Mapping Police Violence” at https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/(accessed 25 August 2017).

75. The White Lives Matter movement argues that the US government's immigration and integration policies effectively undermines the proliferation of the white race. For more information, visit https://vk.com/whitelivesmatter or www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/white-lives-matter (both accessed 18 April 2019).

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77. Quoted in Stack.

78. Melena Ryzik, “The Story Behind the Return of The Wiz,” New York Times, 30 November 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/arts/television/the-wiz-with-added-street-cred-heads-for-tv-and-broadway.html?mcubz=3 (accessed 24 July 2017).

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81. Robertson, 278.

82. The Wiz Live!, directed by Kenny Leon and Matthew Diamond (Universal City, CA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2015). Subsequent citations of this production are to this DVD.

83. Emphasis added.

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88. Ibid.

89. Collins, 123.

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