Through the Rainbow and What Dorothy Found There
Apparently, it is nostalgia and a deep yearning to get back to where you once belong. The movie opens with Dorothy wistfully longing for something she expect will never happen: seeing wondrous things that are not Kansas. When her dreams comes true and she is transported to a wondrous place, all she ever really want is go back home. Profound irony or adolescent flightiness?
A Brain...A Heart...The Nerve
As the Gang of Four plus One follow the Yellow Brick Road, they each demonstrate that the commodity they believe they lack and hope will the Wizard can grant are characteristics they already actually possess.
Maybe that Word doesn't Mean what She Thinks it Means
Glinda asserts that she can’t be a wicked witch since only ugly witches can be bad. Okay, fair enough, if a little unnerving. But after describing herself as a “good witch” Glinda proceeds to put Dorothy’s life in danger by making her wear the shoes that the Witch of the West lusts after so much she is willing to kill for them. As if that weren’t bad enough, she compounds this ironic inversion of being good by neglecting to inform Dorothy that the shoes are her means of getting back home until after her Scarecrow friends has caught on fire, she’s been kidnapped by flying monkeys and now she must live with the fact that she accidentally killed a woman before she's barely had time to deal with the fact that she's already accidentally killed that woman's sister! Good witch?
Proud Alumni of Humbug U.
Toto’s curiosity brings down the Wizard by exposing him as a charlatan engaging in fraud. The diploma, heart clock and medal he awards to the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion are received with respect and, in fact, seem to confer upon them the exact traits they felt they lacked. Weirdly ironic.
A Girl and Her Dog
The Munchkins are so relieved when the house falls on the Wicked Witch of the East that turn out in droves to celebrate in song and dance and shower Dorothy with gifts of thank. The guards protecting the Wicked Witch of the West at her castle look up Dorothy as a hero for dousing her with water .The denizens of Emerald City clearly buy into the Wizard’s propaganda about being great and all-powerful. The forces of opposition to the tyranny of witches appears to be widespread and impressive, yet seem incapable of mounting any kind of organized insurrection against them strong enough to bring them down. Dorothy and Toto manage to end the reign of wicked witchery and expose the Wizard as a profit before they have been in Oz long enough to work up a sweat. The irony in this, of course, is that back home in Kansas, Miss Gulch has the influence and wealth to inspire fear in others and despite Dorothy and Toto being there the whole, she has still managed to rule without fear of insurrection.
