"There's a storm blowin' up - a whopper, to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry. Poor little kid, I hope she gets home all right."

I've gone over it before, but one of my favorite films is The Wizard of Oz. I went over part of why in a previous post:

My mother tells me the first time I cried, I was watching The Wizard of Oz when I was 3 or 4 with her and my grandparents. The scene was when Toto got over the bridge and Dorothy shouted about him getting away from the Wicked Witch. My mom had to get me some tissues so I wouldn't blow my nose in the sleeves of my Batman pajamas

There's also other reasons besides nostalgia. If you read the books, they're way bigger than the movies, much like Harry Potter today. Here's some interesting tidbits: 

• It was originally just counter-programming to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 
• You know how the author got the name Oz? He looked at a filing cabinet and say O-Z, hence Oz. 
• It wasn't a success at the time. It didn't really become a part of Americana until its copyright expired and it went into the public domain and could be played for free to take up air time, much like another classic movie, A Miracle on 34th Street
• There were several silent adaptations of the books before the 1939 version with Judy Garland that we all know and love: The 1910 version, The 1914 version, The 1925 version. 
• One of the versions had Laurel from Laurel & Hardy as the Tin Man. 
• The original Dorothy was supposed to be played by Shirley Temple. 
• The person who played the Scarecrow, Ray Bolger, was supposed to play the Tin Man but had a virulent reaction to the aluminum paint that affected his lungs so badly he was hospitalized. 
• The person who played the Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen, used a gelatin-based aluminum paint. It caused a ton of skin rashes, but it worked better and didn't involve hospitalization
• Buddy Ebsen was later known for playing Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. 
• Most of the munchkins were actually immigrants who escaped from the Nazi Germany before Hitler started culling "undesirables"
• Most of the munchkins were only paid $50 a week to save on production costs because their primary cast cost so much.
• The Wizard, Frank Morgan, also played 4 other roles. Mainly because they kept losing their casting choices to high salaries.
• One of my favorite things is reading about the actress who played the wicked witch: Originally she was going to be played by a striking Swedish actress who resembled Charlize Theron. The original actress hated how she looked so much that she dropped out of the role once she saw the end result. The person who took over, Margaret Hamilton, was a retired teacher who acted part-time. After her fame from the role, she went on speaking tours to advocate for the support of public education. However, whenever she would speak, she was constantly asked to do the voice of Elmira Gulch/ The Wicked Witch, and everyone, from adolescents to adults, would initially be frightened and then delighted with how much that role struck a chord of simultaneous fear and delight within them.

Time for a little back-story:

The Wizard of Oz was written by L. Frank Baum. He, like a lot of people, was lost in life. He had many failed careers in his life. Essentially, he was a salesman. From wildlife to firearms and fireworks, to door-to-door sales. He was a writer, but never took it as a serious profession until he was much older. He didn't actually write his infamous books, and there are about 20 of them, until he was well into his 40s. 

Of the things he seemed to be invested in was finding a purpose and being empowered. In his time, he was strongly influenced by a lot of the feminist thinkers and activists of the day. His mother-in-law was very active in the suffrage movement and was a staunch feminist. She was a noted author, playwright, and activist for women's rights and Native American rights. One can see the evolution of this in the Oz books through Dorothy and her interactions with the Wizard, a failure who led the show, and the various witches, who were supplicants to the Wizard.

Ultimately, Frank Baum's influence from his wife and mother brought their family a great deal of financial security. Before he died, he gave the rights to the story and characters to his wife, who commissioned other writers of the time to continue the story of Dorothy in Oz. It takes a lot of interesting turns in the future, with Dorothy eventually becoming the leader of Oz. The whole story is too big to condense into a few paragraphs, but they're definitely some of the best children's books out there.

My take-away: 

The thing about the story is that everyone can relate to it. Everyone gets to a place in their life where everything seems dark and dreary and hopeless. Remember Dorothy at the beginning, in Kansas where everything is gray? People get stuck in a place that seems harrowing. It's "poor me, pity me." She even dreams of the rainbow and being in that far, far away place. She's living with her aunt and uncle, and these farm guys are around all the time. It seems pretty hopeless, but she has the dream to hold on too.

Elmira Gulch represents everything against her and what does she do? Takes aware her one constant, her one love, the dog Toto. Ms. Gulch represents the power in life that seems to hold you down. Remember, she's the land-owner who can take it all away from dot and Aunt Em. If her life didn't seem daunting enough, a tornado hits and her life seems to go down the drain. But it doesn't. It's that rock-bottom to reset her life. For some people it's drugs and alcohol, for Dorothy, it's the overwhelming lack of control.

Then she goes to Oz, where she has a chance to fulfill her dreams and where she sees what the world can look like through a different perspective. Is she a witch? Is she a saviour? We don't know,but she has to go on her mission to determine which side she's on. She has to go on a journey to gain control of her life. She has three companions, the lion (courage), the scarecrow (brains), the tin man (heart). She needs those three things to really get where she wants and succeed in her mission. 

She's a reluctant leader, but she wants to be in control of her life. She has to be one to gather her travelling partners. It takes that hard work to do this. To gain control, be courageous, be smart, and be thoughtful. 

At one point though, they have a chance to give up when they're drugged and fall asleep in the field. Can they go back or should they press forward? When they sleep they get all these elements that  are just sugar pills. The lion gets his mane primped and curled with pretty bows. Dorothy gets that new gingham dress, the Tin Man gets simonized, and the Scarecrow gets new stuffing. But they realize that it's not important as the mission. It's always tempting to stop and rest on your laurels, but they ultimately can't. They have to press forward. 

Then they see sky writing: "Surrender"

They took it to mean you have to surrender to your destiny, to being in a partnership, to taking on the responsibility given to you. Sometimes I think Spiderman got it backwards: with great responsibility comes great power.

Mind, body, and spirit, they come together to take on their greatest fear, fulfilling their mission. It takes a lot to muster up the courage to succeed against such great odds. You have to summon up the combination of those three key character(istic)s. You have to avoid the trappings that can hold you back. You may have to take a path that's never been taken before.

I'm off to see the wizard.