Twister: The Cultural Vortex of the Wizard of Oz: My Fellow Ozians...

Hello everybody (meaning you, the sweet, sweet soul who was kind enough to stop by my personal vacuum of all things Oz)! This blog will act as a record of the short, yet mentally exhaustive in-depth study of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with many of its adaptations. Rather than a long, mildly-paced run through this beloved story, I will be sprinting down the yellow brick road in hopes to learn a lot and have a darn fun time doing it. (Do people actually have fun while sprinting? Is that something one should find enjoyable because I don't.) Okay, I'm changing the metaphor. Rather than a sprint, this blog will document the fast-paced conga line down the yellow brick road.

As I embark on this journey, I feel the need to share with you lovely people my map. Unlike Dorothy, I'm not heading down this road completely unprepared with no clue as to what lies ahead. As I have not lived under a rock my whole life (or a mid-western, wooden house if we're keeping this tied in with the topic), I have been aware of and interacted with The Wizard of Oz since I was a kid. (Sidebar: I think I will start referring to the book as WOZ because that title gets ridiculously difficult to repeatedly type) Very few people go the first 20 years of their lives without seeing the ever-popular MGM production of LFB's famous children's book. I cannot recall when I first saw it, as I feel like it was ingrained in my psyche long before I was capable of making memories. It was just there, and I didn't care much about it. It wasn't until high school when I became infatuated with the land of Oz, but it wasn't because of Dorothy and her rag-tag team of misfits. It was because of the Wicked Witch and her troubled past as written by Gregory Maguire and adapted into a Broadway musical.
Like most people would say of themselves, I wasn't the coolest kid in high school. I loved to read and was obsessed with all things show tunes. Through this obsession and theater audiences' lack of propriety, I found tons of illegal footage on YouTube of the music from Wicked, starring Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth. It was love at first grainy, shaky view. The story of a misunderstood girl trying to find her strength was incredibly touching to a chubby and awkward adolescent me. And as I've gotten older, the spell that the musical cast on me (pun intended) never weakened. Idina and Kristen are still flawless, the story still touches my heart, and the music still moves me to tears.

10 years later and they still look perfect. (Thanks to EW for feeding my obsession)

Since my introduction to the musical, I have become emotionally invested in the characters of this make-believe world. I went to every McDonald's within a 30 mile radius this past October to make sure I got every part of the special 75th Anniversary toy set. I spent money that would have been better spent on something practical just last week on tickets to go see WOZ at the Peace Center (What was I really going to buy instead that was more practical? Snow tires? Definitely better spent feeding into the consumerist culture that has become American theatre. Definitely better spent.) But despite all this passion, I've never sat down and read the original book along with its sequels. Be it because, as an English major, I have very little time to spend reading anything that is not required or simply because I am scared that reading the original may some how change or degrade my view of something I love so dearly, I am not sure. But the time has come for me to get to know this story and these characters that I love so much. So here's that map I promised a long time ago. I hope you're still with me.

Along this journey, I plan to read L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and a few others from his series. I will also read Gregory Maguire's Wicked. I'm going to be taking a look at a graphic novel version of WOZ. I will also be reading secondary sources regarding the concept of film adaptations, literary adaptations, the social context of the original novels, interpretations of the adaptations, and basically anything else I can get my hands on. I will also be viewing the MGM version of the story along with Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful, Universal Picture's The Wiz, SyFy's Tin Man, and probably a lot of clips from the musical version of Wicked. Basically, I want to read and watch as much as I can, and this blog is here as a journal of sorts, where I will write about my thoughts, discoveries, questions, and whatever else I experience through this journey. This process is going to be a lot of work and a lot of fun with incredibly low stakes. It's an experiment in learning for the sake of learning, and I couldn't be more excited.

With that, I will leave you with some parting images, the best the internet can offer. I love to laugh, and I love WOZ, so sites such as Pinterest and Tumblr keep me constantly entertained. But CAUTION: some of these images have curse words. I do no condone cursing, but I also do not condone being a stick in the mud. So go on, laugh! I won't tell anyone if you don't!