Last weekend, “Wicked” landed in theaters in a box-office-demolishing fury of green and pink. That makes this week the perfect time to revisit its inspiration: “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), directed by Victor Fleming, written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf, and based on the children’s novel by L. Frank Baum.
Of course, it’s always a good time to revisit “The Wizard of Oz,” one of the greatest movies ever made. The film’s production was undeniably horrific—marked by exploitation and hazardous conditions, which left a traumatic mark on its young star—but the final product is a work of genuine magic, full of heart and joy and imagination and rendered in sumptuous Technicolor.
Oz is so deliriously colorful, in fact, that when I was younger I always felt a little let down when Dorothy (Judy Garland) concluded that “There’s no place like home.” Why, after visiting a world so vibrant and full of excitement, would she choose to return to the sepia-toned Kansas prairie with its nasty neighbors and apocalyptic tornadoes? You could interpret the movie’s message as regressive: Don’t dream too big, don’t wander too far, stay with the safe and the familiar, and be satisfied with your lot in life.
But watching the film as an adult, especially the week of Thanksgiving, I have a different point of view. “The Wizard of Oz” isn’t about settling, but noticing. We spend so much of our lives hungering for something greater, something more. With our eyes fixed on the horizon, wondering what’s out there, we can too easily ignore the significance and sanctity right in front of us. We fail to see that what we’re looking for is usually much closer to home.
That’s what Dorothy and her friends discover. The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) doesn’t earn a brain, the Tin Man (Jack Haley) doesn’t grow a heart, and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) doesn’t develop courage. Instead, their adventure reveals that they always carried these gifts inside of them, and just needed the right opportunity to let them shine. The Wizard (Frank Morgan) is a charlatan, but he has a genuine gift for helping people realize things about themselves that they have missed. Dorothy has a similar talent, and it’s her indefatigable faith in her friends that carries them through every obstacle that the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) throws in their path.
You might be familiar with the adage “compare to despair.” Meaning: measuring yourself against others is an exercise in futility. You’ll never feel equal to the idealized picture in your head— there will always be someone else who seems cooler, more competent, more acclaimed. We aren’t called to be more like someone else (except Christ), but to find the best way to use our natural talents for the greater glory of God.
As a high school campus minister I often tell my students this, but I need reminders as well. I am an introvert in a very extroverted job; it’s easy to feel inadequate compared to colleagues who are more gregarious and charismatic. There were (and are) times where I felt that I wasn’t cut out for ministry because my style was so different from others I admired. But over the years I’ve realized that how I do things is how I’m meant to do them. God wants me to be me, not someone else.
God, after all, gives us our unique talents for a reason. As St. Paul reminds the Corinthians, there are many gifts but they all spring from the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:4). We serve God and others by discerning how to best share our particular gifts. “For me to be a saint means to be myself,” Thomas Merton wrote. “Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”
Dorothy and her friends’ journey, then, is one of discovery and gratitude, an external quest that reveals internal riches. When Dorothy returns home in the end, it’s not because she’s settling. It’s because for the first time she appreciates the love and belonging that she already has in that tiny farmhouse—gifts with which no palace or jewel-studded slippers could hope to compete. In this season of gratitude, we should also take time to appreciate the gifts that we have been given, particularly those that we tend to take for granted. You don’t have to go over the rainbow to find your heart’s desire. It’s been inside of you all along, waiting to be noticed.
“The Wizard of Oz” is streaming on Max.
