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IN WHICH TR RE-POLITICIZES THIS WONDROUS TALE OF COURAGE, COMMUNITY, WISDOM AND LOVE

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
AND THE POPULIST POLITICS UPON WHICH
THE STORY IS GROUNDED!!


CBS will show the Wizard of Oz this coming Friday at 8 pm [est] for about the 25th time. Each year at the showing, I give a lecture on the populist politics and mythic themes of this most popular movie.

And, for those who have seen it five times or more, I give a special Certificate asseverating that one has been to see the Wizard of Oz because, because, because of the wonderful things that happen long before Dorothy and her small band meet him in the Emerald City.

So...for those of you who would like to astound, amaze, infuriate and give pause to friends, family and students, this mini-lecture is for you. As we join Dorothy and the others on this wonderful trip, you will have to sing the songs, dance the dances, and accept the Kiss of Goodness from Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. When I give the lecture in person, I play all the parts including that of Glinda and get to kiss the students [on the forehead]...you will have to imagine that as we follow the adventures of:

  1. Dorothy...who represents the quest for Community. She personi- fies those who are still young and full of hope for a place, Somewhere, Over the Rainbow, where dreams really do come true.

    Dorothy is Everybody...even you and I as long as we stay true to the dream of a good and decent society.

    On the other hand,

  2. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry embody those farmers, workers, women and others alienated by the hard times which they find. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry once had red in their cheeks and red in their lips, sparkle in their eyes and color in their life. But now they lived in a grey house in a grey land. They are sober and they do not smile.

  3. Kansas and the farm on which they live are miniatures of the economic conditions which came along with the depressions of 1873 and 1893. A great grey flat plain without trees, flowers or water, it was baked by a pitiless sun.

    Once again, for increasing millions, hard times take the sparkle for the eyes and turn every thing gray...crime, dis-employment, domestic violence, racism, and bureaucratic arrogance slowly drain the color from their lives while the rich getter richer and re-write the laws of the land to protect their shrinking oasises.

  4. Toto was the one bright spot in Dorothy's life...as such, he embodies the clown, the jokester, and the jester in history who unmasks pretense, deception and mystification in life. Baum is toto...and so is anyone who laughs at kings, charlatans, and tyrants. You may remember the class clown in your own high school who made mock of the pretensions of petty tyrants.

    Rush Limbaugh is toto for the far Right...clever, funny and deadly in his bards, he makes mock of liberals. Alas, sadly enough, there is no one on the Left who does so...Garrison Keilor tries but he is too nice to be a real jokester. Ah, for another Lennie Bruce.

  5. The Cyclone was made up of the four winds from the North, South, East and West...it represents the power of the people to over- throw alienating conditions in what ever kansas-like place they might find themselves.

    Today, the Michigan Militia, the Freemen of Montana, and a grow- in radical right underground are riding the winds of destruction. These miniature tornadoes lack good theory and good politics so can be, might be very harmful to a good and peaceful society. Yet at the same time they represent what little opposition to the capitalist state that is found in modern political life...Pat Buchanan is one of the more articulate spokes-persons in whom a critique of the state, of trans-national capital and of the privatized commodity fetishism of Advanced Monopoly Capitalism is located. Again, their are few on the Left who speak in a voice which can be heard in the media...Jesse Jackson tries; perhaps too hard to do so. Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader seem to be other voices drowned by the roaring winds of change.

    But, just to keep hope alive, we will let the four winds repre- sent the workers, the women, the Afro-Americans and the Native Americans who urge more positive social change.

  6. The house in which Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry lives repre- sents of course, the whole society...it is made grey by the economic conditions, by pollution, by racism and by gender violence.

    Of course, the houses in North Dallas which sell for 1, 2, or 4 million dollars are not grey...they are lovely...even the poor and the dis-employed in Texas can drive by and admire them.

  7. Oz is the whole world. It is composed of four countries; three are identified in the book: the Land of the Winkies where the Wicked Witch of the West rules, Quadlings County where Glinda the good Witch rules and the land of the Munchkins ruled by the wicked Witch of the West...Jocasta is the good witch of the North...she plays no role in the story and may have been based upon his mother-in-law, Matilda Jocelyn Gage, a good and strong woman who worked with Susan B. Anthony in the suffragette movment. Dorothy may be modelled after Maud Gage, the wife of L. Frank Baum...she too was smart, brave and loving.

    Yet in Greek mythology, Jocasta was the mother of Oedipus. Maybe we don't want to look at the implications of that witch too closely...ruins the spirit of the story.

  8. The Wicked Witch from the East represents finance capital and eastern industrialists who exploited the farmers and workers. Vachel Lindsay wrote a poem about them; plutocrats with greasy smiles with dollar signs upon their coats, diamond watchchains on their vests and spats upon their feet who advocated a tight money policy and the gold standard...who tried to crucify mankind upon a Cross of Gold...to put it in the words of..

  9. Wm. Jennings Bryan who ran on the populist platform in the presidential election of 1890. In the story, Wm J. Bryan was turned into the Cowardly Lion...because he refused to run again after being defeated by eastern capital and western rail-road barons.

    If we had to appoint a Cowardly Lion in the politics of today, I'm sorry to say it would have to be Bill Clinton...he waffles; he hasn't the courage to fight for health care, social security living wages or for either gender equality or for Afro-Americans. The Cowardly Lion will pick on Toto but is revealed as the coward he is when Dorothy slaps him. He is in sad need of courage.

  10. The Straw man represents the quest for brains...he embodies all the farmers in the mid-west who didn't have enough brains to vote for Bryan...in both the book and the movie, the story line has the Strawman hanging on a cross in a corn field...again the crucification theme enuciated by Bryan in his famous Cross of Gold speech.

    Today, the farm reform Bill once again leaves farmers hanging on the market-place...cereals are dominated by six firms...soon the last of the family farms will be blown away.

    In American Sociology, the role of the strawman is taken over by those Rural Sociologists who don't have enough brains to see what agri-business is doing to the food supply in the USA. Their are, of course, some good witches in rural sociology; Bill Friedman and Cornelia Flora are my two favorite rural sociologists.

  11. The Tin Man once had a heart...and he loved a beautiful maiden. Bt he worked for the Wicked Witch from the East...she made him work so hard that first he cut off an arm, then a leg, then another arm...each time he was repaired [by an industrial sociologist]...but, finally, he worked so hard, he split him- self down the middle of his chest...the tinsmith gave him a tin chest but he didn't put a heart in it...those of you who have read The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis knows what happens to the capacity of young men to love in such alienating working conditions.
  12. The Yellow Brick Road represents the Gold Standard...since it is made of gold bricks. The Federal Reserve Bank keeps the interest rates high enough so that workers will not get so much money that they can buy homes, cars, or send their kids to college. Talk about your wicked witches!!
  13. The Silver Slippers [not Ruby!]...symbolized the cheap money and the Silver Standard...those who wore the silver slippers were safe on the Yellow Brick Road...remember the WW the East had them on and Glinda told Dorothy to take them off her dead feet...yeah, she would need them to be safe on the YBR...Glinda also gave Dorothy the Kiss of Goodness...that is why the WW from the West could not kill her....wow, what a thiller!
  14. The Wizard of Oz represents all those humbugs of a Politician who can't give the people what they didn't have in the first place. His real name was Oscar Z. Phadrig Isaac Norman Hinkle Emmanuel Ambroise Diggs. As with all politicians these days, he doesn't want people to see what goes on behind closed doors...but the totos of the world pull open those doors and reveal him for the fraud and charlatan he/she is.

    In today's politic there are several who qualify for the part. Mr. Perot is perhaps the leading candidate but Mr. Forbes and Mr. Buchanan also runs...they will have to run fast to beat Bill Clinton for slip sliding around...

    Come to think of it...Mr. Dole is a bit like Uncle Henry, isn't he...I wonder if he will ever have red in his lips and red in his cheeks or will he stay sombre and grey...maybe Ms. Dole can help...she has brains and courage and, I think, a heart. On the other hand, maybe she too has become like Aunt Em...big sigh for all the Aunt Ems in the world...Patricia Schoeder...were are you?

  15. The Emerald City is Washington, D.C.; it is green because green is the color of money and one can't live there unless one gets enough money...true then; true now. The PACs and the Political Parties provide the $50, 60, 80 million that it takes to run for president...Washington is a city completely surrounded by Special Interest Lobbies; big business, big military, big education, big medicine, big guns and big cigaretteers keep the city green.
  16. Well that's all the story I will tell...I restrict myself to 200 lines in these mini-lectures but there is a lot in the movie and more in the book I have left out...the Chinamen who were crushed underfoot by giant white guys...the Hammerheads who were rooted to one spot and knocked down any one who tried to make progress up their hill...the Octospider who devoured all small creatures who came his way...the Kalidahs who chased the little party over the two great ditches [depressions], the flying Monkeys which MGM turned into ominous Russians [MGM was having labor troubles in the 1930's when the movie was made]...the poppy field which like my lectures, put everyone to sleep...the Mouse Queen who saved the little party from the evil effects of the poppy.

    But I will tell you how the story ends...Dorothy doesn't really want to kill anyone but she does kill the WWW; The Wizard is like any good faith-healer; he give the Strawman a new head full of bran [a bran-new brain]; he gives the Cowardly Lion a drink from a green bottle [lots of people get courage from a bottle] and he gives the Tin Man a watch which keeps on ticking.

    Dorothy, alas, as are you and I, left alone to find our own way home...maybe that is a good thing since we can find the kind of a home with people who have brains, courage, compassion and a sense of sharing that redeems the great grey flat deserts that too often intrude in a green land.

    Remember...if you only had a brain you could unravel every riddle for every individle in trouble or in pain... And you could be presumin' you could be kinda human if you only had a heart. You could be kind and could be gentle, and awfully sentimental...if you only had a heart. You could show off all your prowess and not be just a mou-wess if you only had the nerve; There is no denyin' you could be a dandy lion if you only had the nerve.

    Words by Yip Harburg; music by Harold Arlen.

    And the Kiss of Goodness to you from me as you travel the Yellow Brick Road to Success in American Sociology.

TR Young


ALL RED FEATHER MATERIALS ARE ALWAYS FREE TO STUDENTS AND TO THOSE WHO TEACH THEM....T R Young