Uncovering the Controversy Surrounding New Wicked Movie; Did Cynthia Erivo Over React?

By Gabby Montilus

The most recent adaptation of the famous Broadway musical Wicked will be released on November 22nd, 2024 as a movie musical. For those who do not know Wicked depicts the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West, from the Wizard of Oz. In this new movie, Cynthia Erivo will be playing the Wicked Witch of the West, also known as Elphaba, and Ariana Grande will be playing Glinda the Good. In this more modern version of the show, Elphaba will be painted as a misunderstood outcast rather than just evil. The film’s marketing department approved Grande’s and Erivo’s recreation of the original show’s poster, which simply showed more of their faces. 

Fans of the musical Wicked did not appreciate that the two actresses’ had decided to stray from the original poster, and one fan specifically, @midosommar, decided to use AI to generate a poster more similar to the original, where Grande’s hand covers more of her face, and Erivo’s witch hat covers her eyes completely. Erivo had a serious issue with this, and went to Instagram to state, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting … None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.” Causing @midosommar to delete the post. 

Because of this dramatic response from Erivo, fans of Wicked went to social media to express many mixed responses. These responses ranged from making memes mocking Erivo, some fans standing up for her, and others believing her reaction was a publicity stunt. Once the drama started to settle @midosommar made the decision to repost the image stating, “Ok so I’ve decided to repost this – the last few days have been wild & have helped me realise that the initial reaction was largely overblown. This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that!”

Overall, this brought some kind of conclusion to the issue, highlighting how no one was in the wrong for feeling the way they did.