Appreciate What You Have While Pursuing What You Want
Dorothy comes to appreciate the home that her aunt and uncle have created for her in Kansas only after getting a chance to pursue that dream of finding out what life is like on the other side of the rainbow. There is rich irony in learning that that finally realizing there’s no place like home is the very secret to getting back there so that getting to Kansas as quickly as possible is utterly dependent on not finding a quick mean of getting back there.
Don't Be Fooled by the Spectace
It only took one little dog’s curiosity to expose the Wizard of Oz a completely charlatan. What were the residents of Oz doing that whole time? The Wizard of Oz has officially been proven as relevant in the 21st century as it ever was with its exploration of the theme that blind obedience to what a leader tells you is the truth accompanied by a stubborn unwillingness to investigate the truth is never a good thing for anybody. Not even for those who support the assertion that ignorance is knowledge. The Wizard's machinations for creating fake news about his leadership only goes to prove that if many people can be fooled all of the time..if they don't care about being whether they are being fooled or not.
Appreciate the Magic that Exists in the Real World
Oz is partially distinguished from Kansas as a result of Munchkins, witches and animals endowed with the ability to speak and man-made objects given sentience. These things appear to be result of some sort of magical spell that does not really exist on this side of the rainbow. But who’s to say that one day man won’t discover a way to help animals speak or create inanimate objects that long for such distinctly human ambitions as increased knowledge or greater empathy toward others? If that does come, will such things no longer seem the result of magic? Some suggest that magic is simply an explanation we give to things that happen before science figures out what is really going on. A rainbow imprints a massive arc of beautiful lines of color across the sky only under certain conditions and that can only be detected by the human eye from when viewed from certain angles. Move a little this or that or wait another five second to look up and—poof—it has magically disappeared. Dorothy at some level recognizes there is something magical about rainbows and in her song it becomes a metaphor for all the wondrous things that can only be found in those parts of the world where you aren’t at the moment. Her longing to see that world expressed in her wistful song even seems to have a little bit of magic itself: not long after singing about her wish to see what lies on over the rainbow, the wish comes true. Even more magically, the experience serves to make her better appreciate where she was all along.
