The Age of Emotional Incontinence

Jon M. Chu’s eagerly anticipated adaptation of Wicked hit the silver screen on 22 November. The smash-hit musical by Stephen Schwartz first made a name for itself on Broadway in 2003 and quickly gained a cult following. Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth played the main characters and released a disc of the musical that same year. The new film capitalizes on this resounding success, throwing in a star-studded cast and $160 million budget – and this is only for Part 1, which runs at a whopping 2 hours and 40 minutes. Its opening weekend brought in $164 million globally, surpassing box office records for any Broadway adaptation. The film is immensely popular, but public attention has also been caught by the bizarre press tour: a prime example of the rising media trend to sanctify victimhood and eradicate individuality in the name of identity politics.

A précis for readers in the dark. Wicked is based on the book by Winnie Holzman, which is in turn a loose adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995). The novel turns L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) on its head and imagines an alternate history. In his amusing and perceptive review of the film, Ben Shapiro remarks on the contemporary bowdlerization of fiction, especially when it comes to subverting assumptions about who is good and evil. Often this tactic comes across as a post-modernist “gotcha” moment. Is reality quite as stable as we thought? Are the so-called villains evil and the heroes morally spotless, or have we misunderstood or been lied to? A Munchkin girl pipes up in the opening sequence “No One Mourns the Wicked”, “Miss Glinda! Why does wickedness happen?” Glinda replies, “That’s a good question. Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? After all, the Wicked Witch had a childhood.” I can understand why some might smart at the idea the people have “wickedness thrust upon them”, which is in danger of negating individual moral responsibility. But the question of nature versus nurture is perennially interesting, and in this particular narrative the villain does turn out to be a scapegoat. Those who insist on not seeing the film because it normalizes “wickedness” have misunderstood the premise of the plot.

Wicked tells the origin story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Elphaba, the product of her mother’s extramarital affair, is born with lurid green skin and formidable magical powers. She is an outsider from birth, unloved by her father and scorned by her peers for her abnormalities. At college she is required to room with Glinda, the cotton-candy “It” girl whose ingenuous beauty and confidence are unmatched, and the two get off to a predictably fractious start. They develop an unlikely friendship, however, and much of the musical is dedicated to exploring their relationship. As in the original Baum novel and MGM film (1939), the renowned Wizard of Oz turns out to be a fraud. But in a sinister twist, this Wizard wishes to enslave the talking animals of Oz and strip them of speech. Bit by bit, the animals are subjugated and confined to cages. Elphaba is tricked into using her powers to help the wizard gain more control. Appalled, she refuses to cooperate further and leaves as a fugitive: an outcast labelled “wicked”. Glinda chooses to stay but the friends part wishing each other well. It is at this climax in the narrative that Part 1 concludes.

The film itself is highly entertaining. Though not exactly Tristan und Isolde, as a musical theatre experience Wicked excels. The songs are artfully constructed, well characterized, and full of memorable motifs. They range from the playful ditty “Popular” to the soulful power ballad “I’m Not That Girl”, the glib “Dancing Through Life” to the emotional high-point of the drama, “Defying Gravity”. No expense is spared on the dazzling set, which bursts with color, larger-than-life scenery, and extravagant costumes. The cinematography is breath-taking at points, and there are plenty of intertextual references dotted throughout for Wicked and Wizard of Oz enthusiasts. Pop-princess Ariana Grande puts aside her thigh-high boots to portray the frothy character of Glinda, delighting the audience with her sugary vocals and enviable comedic timing. The flirty performance is convincing, if a little repetitive. Cynthia Erivo steals the show with an extraordinary vocal performance and compelling acting – her portrayal of Elphaba is subtle and complex. The fact that these two women sang live and performed their own stunts is truly impressive, especially in Erivo’s case. Singing at the top of your lungs while doing backflips in a harness is no mean feat.

There are the expected PC overtones and a notably diverse cast – especially in the crowds and the supporting characters, such as Madame Morrible and Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, who is also in a wheelchair (as in the original). Glinda’s two best friends are a flamboyantly gay Asian man wearing a half-skirt and a large blonde woman who looks a touch out of place in the energetic dance sequences. Clearly there is a push to represent a range of body types. Other elements are added in, such as the heterosexual love-interest Fiyero flirting with other fawning men, characters wearing gender-bending clothing, and both sexes wearing outrageous make-up in the Emerald City. In the zany universe of Oz and the colorful world of musical theatre, much of this is to be anticipated. I had gone to see a Universal film with tempered expectations, after all. I was much more preoccupied with structural choices, such as the directorial decision to break up songs with interpolated drama, thereby losing musical momentum and fracturing the intensity of the scenes. Not only is the film bloated – the original Broadway musical is 2 hours and 30 minutes excluding the intermission, which means that at 2 hours 40, Part 1 exceeds the length of the whole show – but individual songs drag. “Defying Gravity” lacked urgency because it was punctuated by unnecessary cut-scenes.

Much has been said about the press tour for Wicked, in which every interview turns into a cultish LGBTQIA+ celebration or a weepy therapy session. Grande and Erivo, who both look starving and strangely euphoric, break down in tears repeatedly, apparently moved by their own profundity. Invariably they hold hands while behaving as if they have just delivered the solution for world peace. ET provides us with a montage of these videos, collating eight minutes of unhinged emotion which verges on parody. The Project released a short clip which epitomized these oddly performative displays.

Those who follow the biographical background to the singers may find a jarring hypocrisy in Grande’s overt sweetness. After all, her co-star Ethan Green abandoned his wife and new-born baby to form a relationship with her. Grande seems not to have been too concerned about this emotional subtext. According to Slater’s ex-wife, “Days with my son are sunny. Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker.”

Often the media conversation veers into the predictable realms of inclusivity and identity politics. An interview by PinkNews sets the tone, declaring proudly in the title: “Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo On Queerness, Setting Boundaries, And Showing Emotion”. Psychobabble at its finest, but largely to be expected in PinkNews. To my knowledge no character in the story is gay, so it is unclear why “queerness” merits so much discussion. Cynthia Erivo herself is “queer”, which we must assume means “bisexual”, but what does this have to do with the characters in Wicked? Actors can bring their own experiences to a role, but the emphasis seems disproportionate and almost religiose. Grande is also keen to join in and pledge her allegiance to the new faith. In a preposterous interview with GLAAD, she asserts that “Oz is a very queer place”. She praises “the most beautiful community in the entire world” and emphasizes the importance of making “the world a safer place” while conveniently focusing on the West.

The opening question focuses on “queer fans”, which narrows down the audience and distinguishes people based on their sexuality. As is typical for journalists who work in “queer media”, the interview twists material to the purpose, and the result can seem intellectually fruitless and repetitive. Take the Gay Times interview where the interviewer claims that “the questions are going to be very homosexual”, to which Erivo and Grande reply enthusiastically, “Thank goodness”. The interviewer sees “queerness” in Elphaba and “allyship” in Glinda, although Grande goes on to suggest that her character might indeed be “in the closet”. Again, she insists vaguely that “everyone is beautifully queer”. The tone is reverent.

A nonsensical clip from the Out interview has gone viral. The interviewer claims that “people are taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that”. No one seems to have a clear idea what “holding space” means here, but they are happy to become inexplicably emotional about it all:

Emma Loffhagen describes this brilliantly as “the apotheosis of Hollywood gobbledegook distilled into a thirty-second surrealist fever dream”.

Identity politics is tentacular, reaching into places where it simply doesn’t belong. It throttles open-minded discussion and insists that we interpret art, and indeed human beings, through an obtrusive ideological lens. Instead of being liberating, as it is clearly intended to be, the slippage between actor and character becomes imaginatively limiting. The point of acting is to play someone other than oneself. Cynthia is black, for example, but do racial politics necessarily concern Elphaba? The character has green skin, but she stands out because she is the only person in the world who looks like that – not because she belongs to a marginalized community descended from slaves. In fact, as a biological “freak” with magical powers, she has no home at all. Wicked is a tale about being different and struggling to find one’s place in the world. At some level, most people can relate to this; it could be mapped onto the historical specifics of race or sexuality but is not exclusively confined to these. Erivo’s emphasis on being a Black queer woman playing Elphaba risks hijacking the universal power of the narrative in favor of a narrower “inclusivity”. There is also something narcissistic about making the dynamics of Elphaba’s character all about herself. After all, the role was created twenty years ago for a different actress.

This focus on identity underplays the talent required for the role, too. Outlets such as the Daily Beast inadvertently patronize Erivo:

The story of Wicked has become a resonant allegory for many marginalized communities […] Elphaba’s story is one of “othering,” as she’s ostracized for traits she cannot, will not, and should not change about herself (the casting of queer, Black Cynthia Ervico [sic] in the role only underlines these themes).

This does Erivo a disservice, and not just because the Daily Beast misspells her name. It implies that her casting was in part dictated by the fact that she is “queer” and “Black”, rather than by her musical talent. The Telegraph quotes Erivo’s insistence that she was not a “diversity hire” and instead has the “credentials” to play the role. I agree with her assessment. But Erivo would do well to stop convincing people otherwise by glorifying the fact that she is “black, bald-headed, pierced and queer”. Surely she is so much more than these labels. The reason that the public keeps on mentioning diversity is because Erivo herself has put her identity centre stage.

Watching the interviews, I was struck not only by the emotional incontinence of Erivo and Grande, who often clutch each other and seem a whisker away from a meltdown, but by the lack of professionalism in the interviewers themselves. It is one thing for celebrities to indulge in displays of self-adoration and to divulge personal details – the public pays to follow their every move, after all – but it all becomes too much when the reporters join in this orgiastic emotion-fest.

The Emsolation journalist swears, calls her interviewee “babe”, and claims sympathy with Elphaba because she was autistic and sidelined as a child (the full interview can be found here). Tears ensue with ecstatic declarations of how much everyone in the room loves each other. The incessant touching, the weeping, the overt displays of emotion and the pledges of support become embarrassing, like watching drunk women giving each other a pep-talk in a club bathroom. For some obscure reason, she mentions how much the “neurodivergent community” love Erivo and Grande. “You two are so important to the autistic community, you’re my ADHD and you’re my autism.” Wicked is her “new emotional support movie”.

Drew Barrymore, therapist-cum-interviewer par excellence, released an interview with Grande on December 12. She is uncomfortably close to her guest, holding hands, cozying up on a sofa, and talking about her own personal struggles. She announces, “This is so much more than a film. This is something that is honoring, respecting, complex, guiding and just what I personally need right now in this world” (cue applause from all-female live audience dressed in pink). She had a similar discussion with Erivo about the therapeutic benefits of touch. Another Buzzfeed reporter makes the vapid claim that “it is more than a film, it is an experience” and boasts about how much he cried. As in the “sentimental” fashion of the 1760s and 1770s, weeping has become a kind of competitive sport – although 250 years ago it was men as much as women who did the weeping. The majority of weepers in the Wicked tour are female. Finally, one interviewer mentions her own mental health struggles and the fact that she dealt with epilepsy.

Rather than asking questions about the art of the film, these interviewers are concerned to make shared victimhood a talisman of in-group membership. To announce that they are mentally unwell, or at least struggling, is their ticket to belonging.

The trend is clearly discernible lately on social media platforms such as Instagram, which valorises victimhood with an emphasis on mental (un)health. It is presented attractively for young people, in particular. Are you a fully-fledged human being if you haven’t diagnosed yourself with depression, anxiety, ADHD, or autism based on a reel? To stake claim to a disorder has become a fashion statement, the 2024 equivalent of wearing black eyeliner, smoking cigarettes, and having a side-fringe in 2010, or appearing to wilt with decadent sensibility or despair in 1770. (Goethe’s suicidal Werther is easily interpretable as an early forerunner of the currently fashionable “neurodivergence”.) This is more than a matter of simply destigmatizing social struggles, but rather glamorizing them. Notice me: I am interesting and complex. This is a running theme in the Wicked press tour. When the glitter-decked Emsolation journalist mentions, “I’m autistic as well”, Grande replies, “Beautiful”.

The online victimhood crusade is bound up with a desire to find like-minded people and unite against a common enemy, whether a person, a disease, or a nebulous “system”. Mental health communities are often welcoming, applauding self-diagnoses with the same warmth as Grande. Rather like the ever-expanding LGBQIA+ umbra, they cast the net wide to include as many people as possible. To take ADHD as an example of trendy “neurodivergency”, the playful tone is illustrated by the Instagram community “Dating with adhd”: “a safe space for people w/ adhd to laugh + feel seen”. To “feel seen” sums it up. Anyone who is isolated longs to “feel seen”. According to the Guardian, videos tagged #ADHD on TikTok have been viewed more than 11bn times.

On 30 October, the Economist reported that until recently, ADHD was thought to affect only school-aged boys. The number of ADHD diagnoses is rising rapidly in all age groups, with some of the biggest increases in young women. This explain the girlish tone, pink profiles, and use of twee cartoons in many of the Instagram profiles, although these women are indeed adults. These elements pander to the ungrown child in us, which also accounts for the surge in adult coloring books over the past decade and perhaps even the continued appetite for superhero movies. We are encouraged to indulge the desire to “be seen” and held by a parental figure who will absolve us of our responsibilities. Drew Barrymore vocalized this need when she sat down with Kamala Harris in the lead-up to the last US election:

Kamala seems perplexed, even when she herself often assumes the role of mother or motivational speaker. Barrymore insists, “We all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now […] we need you to be Mamala of the country.” This touches on the nub of the issue: the intense longing to find home in an increasingly atomized world, where many have lost sight of the traditional structures by which they defined their lives. These include the family unit, faith, geographical community, coherent belief systems, and national identity. It leaves fully grown adults craving a “tremendous hug”. Cynthia Erivo uses similar language, describing the film as “a bit of hug” in Entertainment Tonight. 

Wicked is a visual feast with passages of musical exhilaration and plenty of humor. I was breathless during Erivo’s soaring rendition of “The Wizard and I”. But the press tour is a sign of the times. In an age of rising emotional incontinence, perhaps it is time to cultivate some old-fashioned restraint.