From \u27The Wizard of Oz\u27 to \u27Wicked\u27: Trajectory of American Myth

The \u27Wizard of Oz\u27 story has been omnipresent in American popular culture since the first publication of L. Frank Baum\u27s children\u27s book \u27The Wonderful Wizard of Oz\u27 at the dawn of the twentieth century. Ever since, filmmakers, authors, and theatre producers have continued to return to Oz over and over again. However, while literally hundreds of adaptations of the \u27Wizard of Oz\u27 story about, a handful of transformations are particularly significant in exploring discourses of American myth and culture: L. Frank Baum\u27s \u27The Wondeful Wizard of Oz\u27 (1900); MGM\u27s classic film \u27The Wizard of Oz\u27 (1939); Sidney Lumet\u27s film \u27The Wiz\u27 (1978); Gregory Maguire\u27s novel \u27Wicked: The Life and Time of the Wicked Witch of the West\u27 (1995); and Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman\u27s Broadway musical \u27Wicked\u27 (2003). This project critiques theories of fixed or prescriptive American myth, instead developing a theory of American myth as active, performative and even, at times, participatory, achieved through discussion of the fluidity of text and performance, built on Diana Taylor\u27s theory of the archive and the repertoire. By approaching text and performance as fluid rather than fixed, this dissertation facilitates an interdisciplinary consideration of these works, bringing children\u27s literature, film, popular fiction, theatre, and music together in a theoretically multifaceted approach to the \u27Wizard of Oz\u27 narrative, its many transformations, and its lasting significance within American culture. In the process of addressing these myths, this dissertation explores themes consistent within these five versions of the \u27Wizard of Oz\u27 narrative, looking at the shifting significance and representations of gender, race, home, and magic in these works. These themes have been central to establishing the national identity of the citizen throughout American history; as such, their popular representations tend to reflect the values espoused by the surrounding culture at the time of creation. Therefore, a close examination of the recurring themes in these five versions of the \u27Wizard of Oz\u27 story provides significant insight into the negotiation of these issues, their representations, and their corresponding moments in American culture