At first glance, the book The Wizard of Oz seems like an innocent children’s story. But when looking deeper, hidden political commentary begins to emerge. The book The Wizard of Oz, by Frank Baum, has a genre of both satire and fantasy. Directors of two films based on this story took one of those genres and used their creative license to emphasize either the hidden political view element or the fantasy fairy tale aspect, for their own reasons. So both the film “The Wiz”, directed by Sidney Lumet, and the film “The Wizard of Oz,” by Victor Fleming changed the original to suit their needs and used various film techniques to show it better. All of these three pieces of literature help us better understand the political situation of the age the book or film is produced.
In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, the tin man, the scarecrow, and the cowardly lion go through many obstacles and adventures while trying to get what they want. They defeat the Wicked Witch of the West and get what they want. Oz, a false Wizard, gives everyone except Dorothy what they want, while Dorothy’s magic shoes get her home, which is what she wanted. It seems like a childrens story, which is what it is mostly meant to be, but Baum had inserted his own political views hidden in the book. This story was published in 1900, when America was a new country and monetary issues were important. An example of this is the silver slippers. Silver is not the most beautiful color, so why was it picked? A possible reason is to represent the silver standard. The shoes were precious and in the end let Dorothy get what she wanted, so the message Baum is sending is that the silver standard has real worth and should be used. The green emerald city and the Wizard of Oz symbolize green paper money. The line, “but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything looks green” shows that the Emerald City is not really green. The Wizard is, “a humbug” so he has no real value. Baum did this to show that green paper money is a fraud with no real value. The tin man said of his joints, “they are rusted so badly that I cannot move them at all.” The tin man is always in danger of rusting, which represents the fragile steel industries at the time. Oz stands for ounce, which is what metals like silver are measured in. All of this influences an adult reader’s opinion to Baum’s political opinion, which is one of the purposes of the book. In spite of all this, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is still a children’s story, which is an equally important purpose for Baum. There are witches and magic shoes which rule out that it is nonfiction. There are many adventures like going through the forest, fighting the Kalidahs, and killing the witch of the West. So The Wizard of Oz has both elements of a satire and fantasy mixed in to create a story which is interesting to both children and adults.
In “The Wizard of Oz” movie, which has the same plot and setting as in the book, many elements of political commentary are removed because the purpose of the film is purely to entertain. The silver slippers are now ruby red, because ruby red is a more beautiful color. The witch is more active in the movie than in the book, because that creates more action and entertainment. Color plays a huge role in the movie. It was one of the first films to use color. Color only appears when Dorothy steps into Oz. When she is back home, it becomes sepia again, which shows that her home is boring and dull compared to Oz. The bright, colorful world of Oz helps show the happiness and liveliness of Oz. This is also used for more contrast in the scenes in the Wicked Witch’s castle, where there is low-key lighting and a less colorful background. The affect of this is to better highlight and contrast the rest of Oz with the witch’s castle and Oz with Kansas. The director did this so people would understand better than in the book that Oz is a very great place, and therefore make it more of a mystery of why Dorothy went home. Even though some elements which in the book made it partly a satire still exist, they are not focused on. For example, in the movie there is a song about the wonderful thing the Wizard of Oz does, while in the book it only mentions that Oz is powerful. So the director of the film purposefully tried to remove the political commentary or put attention of it.
The movie “The Wiz” has a different, more modern setting of an urban city. However, the plot is mostly the same. Since this movie was made in modern times, when cities are the average place and much of the land is urban, the land of Oz is like different cities with taxis, bridges, amusement parks, and libraries like today. The film made later in the past and the book were made in a time when countryside was the main landscape. This movie was made to empower African Americans to feel more self-worth and raise awareness that they could ascend the socioeconomic ladder to positions of power in society. That is why all the characters, including the star of the movie, Dorothy, are African American. This alone is a unique thing which arouses emotions and makes people think. There are very few films in which the main character is African American, and even less where all of the cast are African American. This political message was the main purpose of the people who made the film. The story elements are just there to keep it interesting. So this is mostly a satire. The sound used in the film is very important for understanding emotion. Also, some of the music is music made by or widely listened to by African Americans, so it helps the person watching the film understand the emotions of African Americans.
In conclusion, the book and the two films have different combinations of satire and fantasy. The combination depends on the purposes of the people or person who made the piece of literature. The directors of the films used an artistic license to make changes to the original to help suit the purpose. People insert political commentary into movies and books for a reason. People are more relaxed and open to new ideas when reading books or watching movies that they think are for entertainment. For “The Wiz”, people can consciously see the political commentary and soak it in more readily than in a political speech. In the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, even if people don’t consciously find all the political commentary, their subconscious mind may discern it and change their views without the people even knowing what did it. This is the reason people insert their political views into entertaining literature. This aspect is important because people can sometimes be influenced by the hidden or sometimes open political and social meanings. So every time people are reading books, they will be aware for politics hidden deep inside. 