Wicked: A Biblical Worldview Evaluation for Parents and Kids

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Should Christians take their kids to see Wicked? In this episode, Elizabeth Urbanowicz evaluates the popular musical-turned-movie, exploring its postmodern themes and providing practical ways to discuss its messages with your children. Learn how to use movies like Wicked to help your kids think critically and biblically about what they see and hear.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello friends. On today's podcast, we are going to be looking at the musical Wicked, and we are particularly going to be looking at the questions, "Should we take our children to see it? And if we do, what questions can we ask them to help them think critically?" So we're going to do something a little bit off the beaten path day on the Foundation Worldview podcast where typically we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I'm thrilled that you've joined me for this episode today.

And now last night I went to see the movie of the Musical Wicked with some friends, and as I got to the theater, I was actually quite surprised to see that close to a third of the people in the theater were actually children. And so what I did as I was watching the movie with my friends was just took some notes because I thought there might be some Foundation Worldview podcast listeners who are considering taking their children to this movie. And so I thought I would just do a quick review just to help you think through whether or not it's wise to take your child or your children to see it. And then if you do take them what kind of questions you can ask.

So now first, as we think through, should you take your child to see Wicked, what I would say is while I may recommend that you not take your children to certain movies, I probably am never going to just flat out recommend that you do take your child to see a certain movie because you as the parent are the one who needs to make that ultimate decision. You know your child best, you know what they can and cannot handle what is and is not healthy for them. So I am not here to say, go take your child to see Wicked. That's a decision that you have to make. My recommendation is that you not take a child under the age of 10 to see the movie. And now there's several reasons for this. The first one is just that it's really long. This is actually only the first half of the musical that has been released this Thanksgiving season. I guess they're going to release the second half next year, but the movie is two hours and 40 minutes long, so that's just a long time for a child to sit through a movie. The second reason that I recommend that you not take a child under the age of 10 is the ending scenes for probably about the last half hour of the movie are pretty intense for a PG movie, there's nothing really disturbing, but it's just some intensity that I think, especially children who are a little bit more sensitive to intense movies or to loud noises or to really intense images, it might be hard for them to sit through that. And then the third reason that I recommend you not take a child under the age of 10 is that much of what's going on in the movie will just simply go over their heads as this is a musical that was primarily written for adults to engage with.

Now, if you have a child who enjoys musicals or who particularly, particularly likes The Wizard of Oz, I think that this could be a beneficial movie to take them to and then discuss afterward if they are 10 or over. But again, you as the parent have to make that ultimate decision. Now, if you do decide to take your child to see Wicked, I think there's a few things that you need to be aware of as you're making this decision. The first thing is if you've ever seen the musical, it's the play version. The movie is pretty much very similar and in the beginning there is an implied affair in the opening scenes between Elphaba's mother and someone else who I guess in part two you learn who that is. Now, there's nothing that is I would consider super inappropriate that's shown on the screen, but you just have to know that there is that applied, sorry, implied affair in the opening scenes. Then another thing you should be aware of in the song Dancing Through Life when the character Fiyero is introduced, Fiyero is just a very charming and good looking and charismatic man, and in this Dancing Through Life dance sequence, they present the girls at the boarding school to be in love with him, but they also present a few young men to be seemingly in love with him. So there is several gay innuendos in that song. Again, it's nothing that I would consider wildly inappropriate, but it's just important to be aware of that. And then the third thing that you should be aware of is that towards, actually mostly towards the end of the movie, but actually woven throughout all of it, there is magic and incantations because you find out that the character Elphaba just has these magical powers that are particularly activated when she loses her temper. Now, I do think that the magic and incantations are something that some Christians might get really hung up on, but I don't think that they're the main focus of the movie. So I think it's important that you be aware that they're in the movie before you take your child to see them, but I don't think they're the main focus of the movie or the main thing we should focus on if we do take our children to go see Wicked. So let me explain as we go through some questions.

And that's what we're going to look at now, if you do take your child to go see Wicked, there are some questions that I think you can dialogue through with them afterwards to help them really critically evaluate the messages in the movie. Now, if you've seen Wicked on stage, which I think it was about 10 years ago, maybe 11 years ago, I went with my family and saw it on Broadway and really did enjoy it, but I remember coming out of the theater being like, wow, that is a very thoroughly postmodern musical if I have ever seen one. And now if you're or listening to this podcast and you have taken your child through our Comparative Worldview curriculum, this would be a great connection to make because they've already learned all about postmodernism and the postmodern worldview and what it teaches. And so you can make that connection right away. And the reason that I say that this movie is thoroughly postmodern is that one of the main overarching themes is that we humans are incapable of understanding objective truths if such a thing even exists. Instead, all we're capable of knowing is limited subjective perspectives that we glean from our community and from those who are in power over us.

Now, if you have seen any other villain backstory movie, which Wicked is a villain backstory movie or musical I should say, it's all about the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West. But if you've seen the backstory of Cruella or of Maleficent or of any other villain backstory, you know that this is a common theme, that it's all about perspective. Did this person really do something that was evil or was our perspective in the original story just twisted? Then another postmodern theme that is woven throughout is that true freedom is found through throwing off the restraints of the oppressive power structures above us. So those two very clearly postmodern themes are woven throughout. And so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to walk us through several steps that we can go through after seeing this movie with a child to help them pick up on these different themes.

So the first thing I recommend that you do is if you take your child to go see Wicked a day or two or three or four beforehand, watch The Wizard of Oz because that is the main story that this is the backstory to. So watch The Wizard of Oz together and this way you and your child will have a really firm understanding of what the story is that we're now seeing the backstory to. Then you can go see Wicked and after seeing Wicked when you're wanting to have any kind of serious discussion with kids, it's always good to start off with some less intense questions and discussions so it doesn't seem so intimidating or intense. So I recommend you just open up the discussion after seeing the movie with some fun questions. Ask your child what scene they enjoyed the best or what special effects they enjoyed. That's one of the pluses of seeing Wicked on the screen as opposed to on stage is there's just a lot of great special effects in the movie. You could ask 'em a question like if you could be any of the characters, which one would you be? Why would you want to be that character? So just open up with some fun questions. After that, I would recommend that you discuss similarities and differences between the narratives presented in The Wizard of Oz and Wicked. So talk about any of the things that are presented that are similar and any of the things that are presented that are different, and ultimately you're going to want to get to a discussion of how the main difference is how the character of the Wicked Witch of the West is portrayed. That in the Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is the ultimate villain, where in Wicked, the Wicked Witch of the West who is known as Elphaba is the ultimate hero. So you want to dial in on that, that that's the main difference. In one, in the Wizard of Oz, she's presented as the villain in Wicked, she's presented as the hero.

The next thing I recommend that you do is remind your child that in the opening scene, Glinda asks the people, are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? So talk about what this means that Glenda is asking. Are people just born with a predisposition towards evil? Like are we just born wicked? Or is wickedness something that other people push on them? Then talk through how the movie answers this question and you can discuss how according to this movie, wickedness is not something that someone is born with. Wickedness is something that is thrust upon them that we see this, that Elphaba in the movie. She is not wicked. She is trying to do what is good, but she is twisted by the power structures to be portrayed as wicked because her agenda does not align with theirs. I think a great way to contrast this with the biblical worldview is to go and read part of Romans five with your child, specifically Romans five, verses 12 through 21. This is the portion of Romans that contrasts our death in Adam versus our life in Christ. So you can read through these verses with your child and then discuss how according to the biblical worldview, we are all born sinners. Now, the biblical worldview teaches that we have inherent dignity, value, and worth because we are created in the image of God, but we don't enter into this world morally neutral. We enter into this world as sinners, and so then talk about how this is very different than what is presented in Wicked. In Wicked, wickedness is just a matter of your perspective. What have the people around you conditioned you to believe? Where in the Bible, wickedness isn't a matter of our perspective, wickedness or evil or sin is breaking the standard set by a holy God, and so we want to help our children see how this main theme in Wicked that wickedness is just thrust upon people, depending on your perspective is not the biblical view.

Then I think a next step in this conversation is to ask your child, how is it in Wicked that Elphaba found true freedom? And you can discuss how she found freedom by casting off the powers that were over her and those powers that were oppressing her and others, specifically the Wizard, and I'm forgetting her name, but her professor, her professor that was teaching her sorcery at the university. You can actually print off the lyrics to the closing song, Defying Gravity and read through some of them with your child. Actually, as I was at the movie last night, I was thinking, man, when Foundation Worldview eventually refilm our comparative worldview curriculum, I think I'm going to include this song Defying Gravity as one for the students to evaluate when we're talking about morality and postmodernism. So just some lyrics from the song that you can read with your child, and those of you who know me, I greatly enjoy music, so it's taking everything within me just to read these lyrics and not sing them for you. But you're welcome. I will not be singing them for you. So towards the end of the song, Defying Gravity, Elphaba sings, "So if you care to find me, look to the western sky as someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly, and if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free to those who'd ground me. Take a message back from me, tell them how I am defying gravity. I'm flying high defying gravity, and soon I'll match them in renown and nobody in all of Oz no wizard that there is or was is ever going to bring me down", and you can go through those lyrics and you can have your child find or circle or highlight the word free and talk about what does Elphaba say in this song is making her free. It's her choosing to defy gravity and to compete against the Wizard of Oz to say that nobody can bring me down, so it's throwing off those power structures above her.

Then you can talk with your child about, according to the biblical worldview, what is freedom or what brings us freedom? Jesus said that we shall know the truth and the truth will set us free, and the truth he was talking about was the truth that he is God and that he came to bring us salvation. So you can talk with your child about how according to the worldview of wicked freedom is getting rid of all restraints, having no one in power above you, having no one oppressing you. Where in, according to the biblical worldview, freedom is gaining freedom in Jesus no longer being a slave to sin, but being freed from the power and the punishment of sin through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Then a final thing that I think you can go through with your child after you see Wicked is ask them what seeing Wicked does to your perspective of the Wizard of Oz, and then discuss how seeing Wicked one of the goals in Wicked is to completely change your perspective of the story of the Wizard of Oz. I remember that when I went to see the Wizard of Oz, sorry, no, when I went to see Wicked on Broadway with my family about a decade ago, there was a woman at my parents' church who heard that we were going to see it, and I remember her coming up to me and saying, oh my goodness, you're going to love it and you will never again look at the Wizard of Oz in the same way, and it's true that this story in Wicked is meant to have us question everything we've been told is true in the Wizard of Oz.

Now, this obviously the story of the Wizard of Oz, the story of Wicked. They are fictitious stories, so obviously none of it is true. However, I think a helpful question that you could ask your child is to say, if these were real historical events, if what occurred in the Wizard of Oz and Wicked were describing real historical events, what would we need to do to determine what is true? Is it even possible to know what is true? The movie Wicked is coming from the postmodern perspective, which is leading the viewer to believe, you can't really know what is true, it's just all your perspective. So talk with this about this with your child. You can discuss how if this movie were describing historical events, we would need to go and look at the evidence that were provided. We need to look at firsthand written accounts. If it was a long time ago, we could look for archeological evidence, but we would need to look for evidence to investigate what is true. If you're watching or listening to this and you have taken your child through our Careful Thinking curriculum here at Foundation Worldview, what you can do is you can discuss specific steps that your child has learned about determining the strength of evidence to support a claim, and talk about how would we apply this to the claims that were made in the movie if this were about an actual historical event, because we want to help our children see that truth is not just about your perspective. Now, as humans, are we going to struggle to know what is true because we have fallen minds and fallen bodies? Yes, we are going to struggle to know what is true. Sometimes the truth is really hard to discern for a variety of reasons. On this side of Genesis three, however we can investigate to figure out, okay, where does the evidence lead? We want to help our children see that the postmodern narrative that well, you can't know any objective truth. All you can just know is your limited perspective that's been given to you by those who are in power over you or the community that you're part of. We want them to understand that that is not true.

Then I suggest that you wrap up this conversation by discussing what your child has learned from this conversation, any of the things that you've talked through, any of the things that they've enjoyed, things that they're going to walk away with, and then you can continue this discussion. If you go, if you one day see the movie again, or if you see posters for the movie, or if you hear any of the music when you're walking through a store or on the radio.

I hope what you've seen as we've gone through these different conversations that you can have with your child is that movies can be a powerful tool to use to help our children think critically and biblically. So again, as I mentioned upfront, I am not saying that you should take your child to go see Wicked. That is a decision that you as the parent have to make, but if you do choose to engage in this content with your child, I hope that you will take some of the suggestions that I've given in this podcast and use them to help your child think critically and biblically.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode, but if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you could submit that question by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. Also ask that if you've benefited from this content, please take the one or two seconds that it takes to rate and review this content. And as we leave our time together, my prayer for you is the same as always, that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.