#15: The Wicked Press Tour

musical theatre is the home of big feelings, I guess

Seriously, though. The press campaign for the first Wicked film was a lot. The relationship Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have displayed in their various interviews has a very similar tone to some of the overly intense friendships I would witness from my mid-teens to early twenties between young women who were going through disordered eating together. I’m not saying this to be a cutting and sassy, but because it is genuinely part of the reason it has been both transfixing and also yucky to watch.

I know many people have love, loved the film and there’s much to enjoy about it, but for me, not even the infamous ‘holding space to the lyrics of Defying Gravity’ clip holds a candle to the level of cringe I experienced during the extended dance bonding scene between a ridiculed Elphaba and a remorseful Galinda in the bowels of an underwater club. I got through it — I did the thing where I pretended I didn’t exist and reminded myself the slow movements accompanied by a deafening lack of music would soon stop — but it did make me wonder quite how that kind of thing made it through to the finished cut.

Would I have gone to see the film opening weekend had the junkets not had such a feverish level of sincerity and waterworks? Probably not, to be honest. I have never seen the stage show and only knew two songs going in: ‘Popular’ and ‘Defying Gravity.’ So I guess it’s worked!

A thought, though: does having a newsletter and founding Broccoli mean I work in queer media?