“Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?”
What The Wizard of Oz Tells Us about Ourselves: A Student Essay
The Wizard of Oz is, without a doubt, one of the most popular family-friendly films of the 20th Century. Based on my recollections from childhood, the film penetrated many spaces, from television broadcasting to school plays. Likewise, many of its lines, ideas, and characters have imprinted themselves on American culture. And while capturing a hero’s journey using established and predictable formulas, The Wizard of Oz still managed to pose a relevant question. A seemingly casual but ever-so-important question. “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
I believe many people consider (or would like to consider) themselves to be good. Yet, as seen with Dorothy, the answer isn’t so simple. Or to quote Dorothy directly, “I am Dorothy Gale from Kansas.” As plain and almost ‘naive’ as this response may seem, it really does boil down to just that. In relation to where Dorothy is from, Kansas, we aren’t good or bad, nor do we classify ourselves as witches, but really, we are just ourselves. Just that. Nonetheless, the film, as predictable as it may feel, plays on themes of good or bad. It ultimately asks the question. Are we good? Are we bad? Or the secret third option: somewhere in between? (As the plot unfolds, Dorothy’s main goal is to return home. Everything else is, arguably, up to interpretation).
Get Scotty Escobar’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Yesterday, I attended an online student support circle led by Bahar, a social worker. She presented a grid made up of four quadrants: emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical. In each, we took notes, writing down different ideas or terms that came up, and talked about our experiences amongst ourselves. I expressed that I was stressed, angry, sad, and apathetic, and have a bad heart — literally. Tachycardia. I also verbalized different beliefs about myself: “I am unlucky, I am doomed, I am a bad person.” And lastly, I left the spiritual quadrant blank.
As we continued to talk about the exercise, noticing details and expressing commonality, no one truly challenged me on the one thing that I was most apprehensive about. “I am a bad person.” But what could have been said anyway? This is the type of thing that requires several sessions of therapy to address. If this were a film, I’d simply read my lines and follow the yellow-brick road. But unfortunately, life is not so simple. We are an amalgamation of things that we think, feel, and do, and if we’re really unlucky, we are an amalgamation of things people think and feel about us (and in some cases, do to us). We aren’t just Dorothy Gale. We are what the strawman thinks of us. What the lion feels about us. What the tinman does to us. Are we bad, according to the witch that we accidentally killed — The Wicked Witch of the East? Or are we good according to the Munchkins from Munchkinland (which frankly feels like a pejorative or derogatory term to use for a group of people)? Potentially, we may even be heroes (good) in our own stories and foes (bad) in someone else’s. If you’re truly out of luck, you may be a foe in your own story. And at that point, you’re pretty much destined for misery.
Eventually, the discussion between Bahar and the other attendees becomes muddled in my head, but the statement remains written in my notes even as I write this paper. “I am a bad person.”
For the sake of addressing our prompt and rubric, I’d have to argue that this paper is an attempt at comparison. That, at the end of the day, the theme doesn’t so much correlate with what the director asks: “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” but with the interpretations we have about ourselves, and with the interpretations people have about us. And isn’t that what makes up a good theme anyway? That it’s something that can be explored and has many questions implicated.
“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
I’ve been a bad student here. A good son there. A questionable partner somewhere else. But really, it’s all interpretive. Potentially, the theme may not even be about good or bad, and I may simply be misinterpreting everything. But what can I say besides: “I am Scotty Escobar from California.”
