Editor’s Note: Contains Spoilers for Wicked: Part 1 (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025).
Content Warning: Contains graphic language as well as references to various forms of oppression and social inequity.
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In late November 2025, friends and Wordgathering editorial comrades, Sean J. Mahoney [SJM] and Diane R. Wiener [DRW], began a text message exchange about fair trade “Wicked” chocolate that transformed into a conversation about disability representation in Wicked: Part 1 and Wicked: For Good, among many other subjects. We decided it would be meaningful and fun to share our conversation with the Wordgathering readers. The text exchange occurred in two parts; we then transcribed the exchange into a Google Doc and continued from there. Our conversational sequence is very minimally edited. We wanted it to feel “raw” (a bit like the fair trade chocolate we both enjoy and about which the interaction had begun).
1. Texting
DRW: The Wicked Taza chocolate bars await my attention. Unrelated to film. So far.
SJM: Ooo … we are seeing part 2 tomorrow …
DRW: I saw it in 3D yesterday and in regular format last weekend. I was click baited and bought a cap. Yesterday I wore my Wicked (stage musical) hoodie gifted by a friend.
SJM: I had never seen the musical. My Mom had mentioned that she wanted to see part 2 this weekend so Dianne and I watched part 1 the other night. Pretty dark I must say…
DRW: Yes. It is intense. I saw it on stage in Syracuse. Much to say about disability representation… Have you read the novel? I have all four books but only read (and taught) the first.
SJM: And a co-worker mentioned she thought the author slightly misogynistic.
DRW: Very.
SJM: A stodgy thesaurus type…like Aaron Sorkin.
DRW: I was “not musing” today about how a Jewish man was cast for Broadway show and movie … to play the villain, a liar and a traitor, a money hungry fame seeker. The Wizard. Joel Grey on stage. Jeff Goldblum in theaters. The original stories [by Maguire] were critical of anti-Semitism. Very interesting extradiagetic aspects. Anyway, no spoilers. Would love to know your take after you’ve seen it.
SJM: Diagetic? Extra no less?
DRW: Diegetic. Sorry. World of the film narrative. Extradiegetic a fascinating thing. How our connections with the awareness of the actors, etc., influence our experience of the film and so on. External to narrative world but far more complicated. One of my favorite parts of film analysis.
SJM: My one note of significance at this point: the big ensemble numbers and even many of the solos are cranked up to eleven and then peppered with steroids. I understand this is Broadway. And maybe this is the new Broadway..but I recall JC Superstar and Chess and Rent all having their “big” moments so long as those moments continued to serve the narrative..that make sense? Not really a complaint, just observation…
DRW: I think it’s a fair point. There is much going on in the diva numbers. I really like “Dancing through Life.”
SJM: Hilarious bit.
DRW: Yes. Lovely Jonathan Bailey. Swoon. Speaking of extradiegetic…Bailey and Erivo are both queer, so it’s fascinating to see their on-screen chemistry.
SJM: And I’m assuming the pretty boy will be more than partially responsible for the friendship exploding.
[emoticon response from DRW: ironic thumb’s up] 👍
SJM: It really works…you can almost feel them internally questioning their motivations.
DRW: Werd.
SJM: Extradiagetic…
[emoticon response from DRW: heart] ❤️
DRW: Of course The Wizard of Oz has decades of queer connectedness.
Extradiegetic.
SJM: Spelling has never been my strong suit.
DRW: I spelled it wrong. First. Extradiannegetic. My version only one n.
SJM: Well the wizard from the Garland version was merely an oaf. Goldblum and those before him bring some menace.
[emoticon response from DRW: agreeing thumb’s up]👍
DRW: I meant the movie not the character as having a huge queer set of connections.
SJM: You are not helping me with my studies. 😂 [LOL emoji]
DRW: Hahaha.
SJM: Understood.
DRW: You know the Stonewall Riots started the weekend Judy died? “Friend of Dorothy” a long used term…
SJM: That’s a very spooky coincidence.
DRW: I think it was actually deliberate. The drag queens and Trans working class People of Color were fed up already. Then their hero died tragically. Cops showed up (again). Fuck that. Etc. Some see it that way, anyway.
SJM: You know Rufus Wainwright? He did a show at the Hollywood Bowl years back where he recreated Judy’s famous show there. I don’t believe he took it nationally but I think there is a film.
DRW: I love Rufus. I will look for that. Thank you. His new album is stunning. The cover of “Mack the Knife” is devastatingly beautiful. I love his cover of “Across the Universe”…
The character of Nessarose in the book quite different from stage or screen.
SJM: By being chair bound?
DRW: Yes. In book she has no arms.
SJM: Dark choice!
DRW: At least in film she’s played by Marissa Bode, a wheelchair user. Some fucked up [ableist] shit in film as on stage. No spoilers.
SJM: But another chaired person appears for a line or two…seemed strange to me for whatever reason… She was in one of the ensemble pieces.
DRW: I don’t use “bound” but you do you. I think the character would probably say “bound.” “It’s because I’m in this chair…and you felt sorry for me…” a lyric, after all…
SJM: I remember.
DRW: There’s an interview for Wordgathering here, maybe…
SJM: Date with a mun chkin.
DRW: Mahoney and Wiener get Wicked.
SJM: That could be fun for sure.
DRW: Let’s do it if ya like.
SJM: Using this chat as our launch point?
DRW: Sure. Wild that the original book [by Maguire] is 30 years old.
SJM: Popular…😃 [big grin emoji]
DRW: Grande is less cloying imo in part 2. Her character arc is something to behold.
SJM: Good to know…it’s not easy shaking the diva out of a diva.
DRW: Exactly. I am fond of her. And I think Erivo is a badass goddess. Her new album…Holy Shit.
SJM: For me [Erivo] is the movie.
DRW: Yes. “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.” Did you know Schwartz wrote two songs just for the new movie?
SJM: She’s the comet and everything else comprises her tail.
DRW: Right. Agreed.
SJM: Schwartz?
DRW: The lyricist. And composer.
SJM: Do not know him. Hm.
DRW: He wrote the songs for the musical. And hence the film. Same songs. With two more written for part 2.
SJM: Gotcha. You know who surprised? Dinklage.
DRW: In what way? Peter Dinklage is a genius.
SJM: Never heard him sing before. Very gifted!
Singing and with the goat impediment.
DRW: I forgot he plays the professor.
SJM: So well done.
DRW: I love that character.
Did you see the new Frankenstein movie? Speaking of Crips.
SJM: I just saw a snippet of [Dinklage] on stage with Sandra Oh…doing Twelfth Night, I believe.
Should I?
DRW: Yes. I saw that clip too. So great.
SJM: Fucking funny.
DRW: Yes!! I started new film and will resume. Looks to be very explicit about the true villain. I’m a sucker for monsters.
SJM: Wot? Eh?
DRW: Dr. Frankenstein is the monster. Not the creature.
SJM: Got it. I’ll give it a go.
DRW: I think we need to start a podcast.
SJM: Hmmm…Mel Brooks thought otherwise [about Dr. Frankenstein and the creature].
DRW: [laughing emoticon] 😆
DRW: In our spare time [a podcast].
SJM: [BIG GRIN] 😁
DRW: Oh, RIP, Madeline Kahn. What a pair of knockers. I love that movie [Young Frankenstein] so much.
SJM: Easy there, lusty…no doubt her knockers are now very dusty…
DRW: That’s a line from Young Frankenstein. And very deliberately uttered.
SJM: Sorry, I believe I cascaded into Blazing Saddles…Mel bade me…
DRW: [laughing emoticon] 😆
DRW: Hahaha. Well, I always get confused about that scene because it’s Garr not Kahn with Wilder but I always think of Kahn because she is so hawt, yes.
SJM: Two of the 70s best films by far.
DRW: Indeed. And of course, The Producers. “Springtime for Hitler in Germany.” Speaking of musicals. [And that one is actually from the late 60s.]
SJM: I have a confession…I’ve never seen the entirety of The Producers.
DRW: I still like you.
SJM: Well of course you do…we have that chocolate thing…
DRW: Yes.
2. More Texting
SJM: Man…dark movie, that part 2…
DRW: Amazing, yes?
SJM: Yes, but in a much different way. The saccharine has been replaced by lots of mistrust and foul deeds.
DRW: Yes. I concur. Scathing critique of power in capitalism. Championing of The Other. Except mixed messages regarding the Crips.
SJM: Yeah but it’s not difficult to draw those lines all the way back to the first Avatar film.
DRW: Yes. And so many other films too. Including The Wizard of Oz from 1939.
SJM: Back even further [than Avatar] to Network and The Manchurian Candidate.
DRW: Agreed. both the original and newer Manchurian Candidate films.
The Truman Show. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Matrix. Etc.
SJM: I like the new one [The Manchurian Candidate] as much as the original…Lawrence Harvey, baby…
DRW: Me too. Denzel. Wow.
SJM: I’ve not seen Eternal Sunshine.
DRW: It’s something.
SJM: Denzel…Jeffrey Wright.
DRW: Yeah.
SJM: But dropping a house on a Crip…some harsh real world shit right there.
DRW: Yes. And the “floating”…like wtaf. The lyrics Nessarose sings. Holy crap, truly.
The “deserve each other” discourse is amazing. And when Elphaba says “I’m limited” instead of “Unlimited” at the end…
SJM: Yeah, I think there needs to be an all Crip film…director, producer, talent…a fictional account taking place on Black Friday…no guns, only knives, and other items that cut…and lemon juice.
DRW: [heart emoticon] ❤️
SJM: Yes! I’m sure that was missed by many. [“I’m limited”…]
I was in disguise today…no walking stick…looking just like anybody…closeted, if you will…
DRW: [pressed hands emoticon] 🙏
DRW: I wonder if you might want to mention [in the Wordgathering conversation] the “irony” (?) of closeting for the day of screening…your call, obviously.
SJM: Yes absolutely! Thematically it ties into everything we’ve been chatting about. We might even consider using this closeting idea as the beginning of our Rhapsody in Crip Hues as it is in a way the firmament, the very foundation.
Have you ever disguised your Jewishness? How old were you when you finally came out as queer? As disabled? Even as I text, I feel the immensity of what we are proposing…don’t you?
DRW: Big deal, big energy. Yes.
Queerly, I came out to myself at 7 or 8. I tried to come out publicly in high school. That was a disaster. I came out for good (!) at 20. So nearly 40 years ago. Gulp.
I have many stories about being seen as closeting as a Jew when I actually wasn’t. Longer answer than texting atm…more soon…
And in terms of disability, I knew I had PTSD in my adolescence but didn’t have a name for it. I knew I was “atypical” when I was three. Again, terms not available to me back then. So I was much older when I had the language but believe I’ve always been a Crip.
3. Google Doc Chatting
DRW: So…how did the “disguise” go, Sean…?
SJM: So…the disguise. Well enough. Just a guy, wife, and mother at the movies. My “nuances” tucked in with Black Friday thirst. There was a moment during the film where I had to pee and while we were in one of the smaller theaters there were still stairs to go down after having been sitting. My legs needed to quickly adjust to standing so nobody sees my awkward rise, nobody sees me loping down the stairs and crossing finally before the screen. I have no stick. A type of wizard if you will.
DRW: Wandless at Wicked screening, Sean the Crip is being meta. Or not?
SJM: Only the true believers have their wands at the sequel. I just have a thing for flying monkeys.
DRW: I have a mug that says, “Don’t Make Me Call the Flying Monkeys.” It’s so evil and funny. I feel like I’m turning into an insufferable jackass as I approach my next layer of this incarnation. I fucking LOVE the flying monkeys. What is the thing you have for the winged simians? I like that Elphaba apologized to Chistery…
SJM: Not them so much as they are a huge part of one of the crucial themes I think…transformation.
DRW: Yeah, they are changed without their consent but then when Elphaba owns her “mistake,” which happened in large part due to her having been manipulated and lied to, the monkeys forgive her en masse and become her friends. Not just protecting her, as Fiyero asks, but really caring for her. I love the scene when they put her cape on her as she is railing against injustice and basically saying she’s done trying to help because it always backfires (“No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”).
SJM: A very wicked cape… 😉
DRW: What is your favorite scene with (or without) the flying monkeys?
SJM: With monkeys…when they are transformed. The pain and confusion on their faces is palpable.
What’s the closing number of movie 1? Unlimited? Something like that…are you asking specifically about two or the entirety?
DRW: I’m interested in your vibes about the monkeys and the theme of transformation. So I guess both films, yeah. The final song in the first movie is “Defying Gravity.”
SJM: Those two moments moved me…magnificent-able…
DRW: I was feeling particularly moved during those moments too. I was also reminded just now of when Chistery is perched and listening to Elphaba during the scene with the animals (“No Place Like Home”) who are intending to flee to protect themselves from further abuse and to maintain their freedom and their voices.
SJM: YES! Same scene where we see Professor Peter Dinklage and he has lost his voice.
DRW: What a fucking ass-kicking that scene was. Professor Dillamond / Dinklage baaahs at Elphaba and she is LIVID. There is so much in that scene about disablement, and the connections between dehumanizing disabled people, inhumanity to animals, and the animalization of outsiders. I was reminded just now of the many writers who have talked about these subjects, most of all Sunaura Taylor in Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation.
SJM: You had asked about monkey transformation…the theme of transformation. Monkey vibes. The monkeys came to understand that they had been duped like everyone else with the exception, mostly, of Elphaba. So much easier for simians to empathize and align themselves with her, right?
DRW: Because they are primates? Whoa. I wonder what would happen if there was a movie about the monkeys and they are the main characters. Planet of the Apes but with flying monkeys who were duped and are pissed.
SJM: Lots of blood…buckets of it. Wait…did I miss something? How did they know that water would kill her?
DRW: Another reason for us to have a podcast. With old-school radio elements including whooshing blood sounds. And water buckets pouring out.
The thing about the water was made-up nonsense in the movie. Like an urban (Ozian) legend. If I remember correctly, she is allergic to water in the book and actually dies, rather than faking her death, as happens in the film.
SJM: Oh really? Did that make her more popular?
DRW: I love that idea. I am now not sure how to distinguish between my view of the film adaptations and the novel. The novel is really, really troubling when it comes to the making of the yellow brick road, how rubies are mined, etc. Elphaba is demonized repeatedly and she is in some ways martyred after (or by?) her death, yes, I suppose.
SJM: Should I have capitalized? I was making an oh so slick reference to the song…
DRW: I like that you didn’t capitalize. You capitalized on your irony. Italics might be fun. Now we are meta-meta. (And I caught your drift.)
SJM: Does that make us double negative meta? Cancelled out meta?
DRW: Ruh-roh. If we talk about Meta we might have to make a disclaimer. We (you) already mentioned Aaron Sorkin. Freedom of the Press.
SJM: So…Boq. Talk about a transformation. Seething with anger.
DRW: And another narrative about lying. Nessa blames Elphaba when it was Nessa’s fault that Boq started to change. In her grief, and a power move, Nessa tried to trap Boq and his heart shrank because Nessa cannot read the Grimmerie.
SJM: There did not seem to be much listening occurring. Lots of noise. Yelling, confusion and misinformation. Wait…I believe we have crossed the fourth meta threshold…
DRW: Now we have a video game cross-over.
In the 1939 film, the Tin Man believes he has no heart but learns later he has had it all along. The way Maguire did this back story in the novel is especially cutting. I was also thinking about how Boq may have been recognized in his Tin Man form by Glinda when she is looking down at the crowd from her place on high, having recently become humbled—and awake to her and the Ozian disaster in which she has played a part.
SJM: Mmmm…i think that’s asking a lot of her character. There is confusion and rioting…there is fire…and today is Black Friday…
DRW: Yes indeed. Black Friday, started to support small local businesses and now a huge capitalist undertaking with big box stores making gazillions of dollars. Staying in “the black” instead of risking getting into “the red.”
SJM: And why weren’t the printers ever depicted in the film. They put in a lot of propaganda work.
DRW: Making those awful, racist posters. Yeah.
I was thinking about how some of the critics have commented how there are so few positive representations of People of Color, and Disabled People of Color in particular, it’s not okay, ever, to depict these folx as villainous.
SJM: What about Sam Jackson in…oh damn…with Bruce Willis…Unbreakable.
DRW: That is always the example I think of too. Unbreakable.
When Michelle Yeah has been on the press tour, she often shows how MM (Madame Morrible) upside down is WW (Wicked Witch). Goes back to the “who is the real monster?” question with regard to the Frankenstein story we were just talking about…
If Michelle Yeoh can and wants to play a villain, well…
SJM: Oh…how clever are you. I think it’s time for a quick Mel Brooks aside: Dear…I’m holding on to it…
DRW: Michelle Yeoh’s cleverness. Not mine. Ohh, more Mel, yes, please.
SJM: That was it. Just that line. I’m refreshed now.
DRW: Sean, I love talking with you.
SJM: We have rapport.
But I wanted to ask your thoughts on scarecrow costume?
DRW: I keep thinking about how Fiyero / Scarecrow was with Dorothy, Boq / Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Toto, but then, what? He peels off and winds up with Elphaba. That sequence was so intense. And I may upset people, but when I saw him in the cornfield being beaten to death (but saved by Elphaba, because she transformed him…), it looked so much like Matthew Shepard’s murder as depicted in mainstream media.
SJM: I think that’s why it was so fleeting. Don’t you feel like crucifixion is very much alive and well?
DRW: Absolutely did look like a crucifixion. And I think crucifixion is tragically alive and well. A kind of killing that lives on.
SJM: And maybe just me but I loved that the wizard is paying homage to Charlie Chaplin!
DRW: Yes, the “carnie”—with Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and overall Vaudevillian vibes, plus the P. T. Barnum angle (yet another jackass, and a complicated one, given how some Crips benefited from the circus show employment and the money…as we learn from the 1932 movie Freaks and Cynthia Wu’s book, Cheng and Eng Reconnected: The Original Siamese Twins in American Culture). And, again, the implicit Anti-Semitism: a Jewish man playing this liar. The man behind the curtain.
SJM: And another thing. Again maybe just me. But when Elphaba is reciting spells it almost seems like a stutter, like Tourette’s. Am I way off? It’s also like scat singing too…it’s very melodic…very rhythmic…
DRW: Yes! I love your analysis. And it sounds like an “exotic” stuttering tongue, The Other on Display…? So much is going on in this movie with regard to the intersections between race and disablement and between racism and ableism. I thought the language at times sounded vaguely Arabic. Turns out it was, among other actual languages, as Erivo wanted to make some connections to real-world languages in the reading of the Grimmerie.
SJM: I’m really enjoying how layered this is becoming. And, for what it’s worth, I felt connected to both films though 1 was seen on a laptop and 2 the full theater experience. We timed it…30 fucking minutes of ads and previews before Wicked started. A little out of control.
DRW: Me too (enjoying the layers, connected to the films, annoyed by the ads and previews).
I wonder if we have thoughts together or separately about the final scene…where are Elphaba and Fiyero / Scarecrow? The Beyond Oz is so ethereal.
SJM: They are together. They have each other. That’s more than either had previously. They are separate and separated. Truncated.
DRW: He’s limping now from being attacked and nearly killed. He has been disabled, arguably as a consequence of defending her. He loves her so much he would have died for her. So he is a martyr in a different way (crucifixion one metaphor, to be sure).
SJM: OR…maybe that’s just how scarecrows walk. Possibly. Perhaps. Could be, who knows…feeling a little West Side Story…though that may have to wait for another Black Friday event under a blood moon…
DRW: Haha. Yes.
Yeah, so Elphaba turned Fiyero into a scarecrow and saved his life (she doesn’t seem exactly sure what she is turning him into as she casts the spell). And now he’s a Crip because that’s how it is with scarecrows. I also love how there is foreshadowing in “Dancing through Life” and rewriting of “If I Only Had a Brain,” with all the references to Fiyero not caring, being mindless, and “brainless” (is that ableist?).
SJM: Is it?
DRW: I dunno. It seems like Fiyero is saying he is shallow and wants to be carefree, a bratty rich playboy, and then he changes and becomes an ethical person. And so does Glinda.
SJM: I’m not especially fond of quick changes in demeanor and character. Seems disingenuous.
DRW: There is presumably a five-year gap between the end of the first movie and the start of the second (the first and second acts of the musical). The cast from Shiz University has presumably graduated. I guess Elphaba dropped out? I was thinking about that this morning as I was listening to part of the soundtrack. I guess she would have had to have dropped out, right?
SJM: Yes of course. She is persona non grata.
DRW: As Glinda says to Fiyero, “she doesn’t want to be found.” Another semi-Christian euphemism, now that I think of it… Oh, “Amazing Grace,” speaking of ableism: “I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.” Oy vey.
SJM: We didn’t even talk about gravity…
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Further Reading
Donnelly, C. (2016, December). Re-visioning Negative Archetypes of Disability and Deformity in Fantasy: Wicked, Maleficent, and Game of Thrones. Disability Studies Quarterly, 36(4). DOI: https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5313.
Jenkins, P. (2024, November 26). Wicked rights a long-standing wrong of the musical. Digital Spy. https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a63007338/wicked-nessarose-disabled-representation
Ní Hoireabhaird, N. (2025, November 16). ‘It’s important that we tell our own stories’: how the Wicked movies are helping disability representation on screen. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/16/wicked-movies-disability-marissa-bode-nessarose-representation-on-screen
Pearson, A. (2024, December 3). Why the Wicked Movie is a Masterclass in Ableism. Linkedin.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-wicked-movie-masterclass-ableism-dr-abigail-pearson-ebgze.
Ryan, T. (2024). Wicked’s Ableist Myth: Deconstructing The Wicked Witch of the East’s character. Vocal Media: Geeks. https://vocal.media/geeks/wicked-s-ableist-myth
Smith, C. (2025, March 28). The Wicked Movie and Ableism in Fandom The Complexity of Unlikable Characters with Disabilities. Interstellar Flight Magazine. https://magazine.interstellarflightpress.com/the-wicked-movie-and-ableism-in-fandom-c0619f143aed.
Thompson, V. (2025, February 27). A Beautifully “Wicked” Approach to Disability. Yes Magazine. https://www.yesmagazine.org/body-politics/2025/02/27/wicked-elphaba-disability.
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About Sean J. Mahoney
Sean J. Mahoney believes that Judas was a way better singer than Jesus. He trusts in salsa (the 7th food group), dark chocolate, and CBD. Sean has had work published at Poets Reading the News, The Good Men Project, Nine Mile Literary Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, and Wordgathering, and a score of other public walls. Sean has worked as a prose editor at Wordgathering for almost four years, now. He live in Santa Ana, California with Dianne, her mother, three dogs, and four renters. There is a large garden and two trees with big bitter oranges that look more lemon-like. Sean helped create the Disability Literature Consortium, roots for Tardigrades, and syncs to Little Shop of Horrors at least twice a year.
About Diane R. Wiener
Diane R. Wiener (she/they) became Editor-in-Chief of Wordgathering in January 2020. The author of The Golem Verses (Nine Mile Press, 2018), Flashes & Specks (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and The Golem Returns (swallow::tale press, 2022), Diane’s poems also appear in Nine Mile Magazine, Wordgathering, Tammy, Queerly, The South Carolina Review, Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest, Diagrams Sketched on the Wind, Jason’s Connection, the Kalonopia Collective’s 2021 Disability Pride Anthology, eMerge, For The Birds Arts & Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. Diane’s creative nonfiction appears in Stone Canoe, Mollyhouse, The Abstract Elephant Magazine, Pop the Culture Pill, eMerge, and Beyond Words. Her flash fiction appears in Ordinary Madness; short fiction is published in A Coup of Owls. Diane served as Nine Mile Literary Magazine’s Assistant Editor after being Guest Editor for the Fall 2019 Special Double Issue on Neurodivergent, Disability, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poetics. She has published widely on Disability, education, accessibility, equity, and empowerment, among other subjects. A proud Neuroqueer, Mad, Crip, Genderqueer, Ashkenazi Jewish Hylozoist Nerd, Diane is honored to serve in the nonprofit sector. You can visit Diane online at: https://dianerwiener.com.