Ep 83 Are BOOKS Actually POLITICAL?? Discussion and Kick off to Wicked Books Deep Dive!

“Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?”

Today we will be exploring the highly debated topics of whether or not books are inherently political, if politics can even be separated from literature (and fantasy) in general, and if the very acts of reading and publishing have been politicized. We will be exploring all of these questions through an intersectional feminist lens, specifically focusing on Gregory Maguire’s popular book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, turned one of the longest running broadway musicals of all time, turned top grossing film adaptation of a broadway musical.

There are five books in the Wicked universe that Gregory Maguire has released throughout the last 30 years and we are covering them all. Beginning this Friday with book one: Wicked, and followed by the next 3 in the original series, the prequel Elphie totaling five book deep dive episodes, and ending with our wrap up episode ranking all of the books, the series as a whole, the broadway musical, and the movie adaptations. We even timed everything just right so we can discuss the new movie with y’all! 

Today we dive deep into where the original Oz story came from, why and how books, publishing, and the very act of reading itself have been heavily influenced by political climate and decisions, and how this comes through in fiction and fantasy. We discuss political and historical decisions in relation to book bans, public education and literacy, the publishing industry, because fiction (fantasy included) cannot separate itself from the society, the laws, the constraints, and the limitations of its time. It exists within the context it is produced, and it acts as a reflection and often an intentional critique of the political climate and society it came from. AND that work itself can then influence for good or evil, change. 

We are here to enjoy these books, but we are also here to discuss how important they are to a greater conversation about humanity, good and evil, the origins of prejudice, free will, and the influence of power, among many other themes. 

We hope that by just talking these things out with you and each other, we can keep the IMPORTANT conversation at the forefront. That fighting with each other about whether or not books are political in the first place takes the focus off of the real questions these authors wanted us to ask. Or as Elphaba said: “Well tha

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Besties and the Books
• 8:49 [Ad] The Podcast Inside Your House
• 9:37 Fav and Fail of the Week
• 9:37 (Cont.) Welcome to Besties and the Books
• 17:02 The Wizard of Oz Backstory and Context
• 26:09 [Ad] You've Got to Be Critting Me
• 26:48 (Cont.) The Wizard of Oz Backstory and Context
• 33:25 Books and the Act of Reading Being Political Discussion
• 58:25 Political Fantasy Books
• 1:08:00 Wicked Book Series Inspiration
• 1:13:15 Political Themes in Wicked
• 1:25:01 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

Well, we could really piss some people off today. And it's not about books being political. Elvis comment. If it's not real, it's a weird coincidence. Comprehension skills, context clues. We're just throwing our hands up. You can't handle the truth. That's what

[Music] Welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast, guys. I'm Ashley. And I'm Liz. And today we're kicking off our next mini. Okay. Like petition to stop calling it mini. Stop calling it mini. It's not mini. It's not mini. We had every intention of having these be many episodes. This is a full episode obviously, but a bonus episode series, if you will. That's what bonus series. Our next bonus series from henceforth. You guys, we will stop misleading you with calling it mini cuz there's nothing mini about these because we keep getting like heavier and heavier. You know, we started with Harry Potter. I felt like most of those episodes were more like 45 minutes, you know, but then we got Ranty, as you do when you have a podcast and things to say. Um, you know, and then once especially once we got to Hunger Games and now Wicked, you know, it's going to be it's going to be a doozy. Yeah. Um, you know, this is this is our kickoff episode. So, you know, we're here on a Tuesday, but this is to introduce Wicked. It's to introduce what we are going to be discussing with Wicked. Um the lenses through which we're going to be examining Wicked. You know, we're here in our, you know, fall kind of early winter series. And obviously, as you guys know, Wicked Part Two, uh the movie is coming out very, very soon. Like when we're filming this, we still got a little while to go. Um, but you know, the hype around this, obviously the play, the movie, we feel like the book needs to have needs to be part of that bigger conversation. And strangely enough, you know, as I was, you know, going through and doing some research and mapping this out, I was kind of realizing that like there is so much hype about the play. Obviously, I'm like wearing my shirt. Yeah. So much hype about the play, so much hype about uh the movie, obviously, a crazy amount. Um, but I don't feel like I hear a lot of conversations about the book. Um, even in the book community, you know, and obviously Wicked the book is what started it all, unless you want to go all the way back to the Wizard of Oz, which we will. So, don't worry about that. If you watch it, well, good. Well, if you don't, too bad because we're doing it. um you know but the topic of discussion and the lens that we're going to be examining all things wicked so the wicked universe through is the question that seems to be kind of I feel like I don't want to say the elephant in the room but kind of the elephant in the room right now when it comes to a lot of discussions on bookstagram and book talk which is are books inherently political and should fictional reads like fantasy like wicked be kept separate from politics? And if so, is that even possible? Yeah. If you if you've read Wicked, you're like, "What? Like, what are like how can you even ask that question?" You know, um like basically, you know, as Yeah, we're doing research and mapping. Our brains are just exploding. Even just reading this and Ashley and I because we've been so busy lately, haven't even really had much time to talk about it. So, this is all coming out new information to each other right now in real time. Yeah. Same and to you. Yep. Mhm. There are five books in the Wicked universe and they have been released by author Gregory Maguire throughout the last about 30 years. So, we're going to be covering them all beginning this Friday. So, make sure you're, you know, your alarms are set, your little bell is dinged on your subscriptions, on your follows, that we get notified when that gets posted every Friday throughout this series because we're going to be doing Wicked book number one this Friday. That's the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, followed by the next three in the original series. And we will be covering the prequel that came out fairly recently, which is Elfie. So, it's kind of like, you know, a little bit more about Alphaba's story. So, that's totaling the five books to go along with these deep dive episodes. And we'll be ending with a ranking and wrap-up just like we love to do. I feel like those are probably the most popular in our miniseries. And they're super not a miniseries, bonus series, and they're super fun to do. I'm going to chastise myself. Um, they're super fun to do cuz they're really hard sometimes like to pick favorites and least favorites. Um, and we're even going to be talking about the musical because both of us have been this year separate times, but it's definitely part of the discussion. And I actually found some quotes from Gregory Maguire himself discussing the musical versus his written books, and I just found them really interesting. So, we'll be talking all about that in the wrap-up episode, which will be very important part of the discussion, too. I almost feel like when I was thinking about the ranking episode, I almost feel like it's going to be like comparing apples and oranges. Like it might be like the hardest one to rank. You know what I mean? Because it's just so, you know, spoiler alert, not similar. Yeah. Yeah. So, it'll be so interesting. I'm really curious. It's going to be the most, I think, unique experience that we've had so far when covering these types of, you know, cult fandom type of book series that we've been doing. For sure. Yeah. Well, I think what makes it unique, too, and I don't know, I'm just speculating here, but I think what I've just noticed with um, you know, I work a lot with people in my job, and so I have discussions a lot with people about popular culture stuff, right? Oh, did you go see Wicked Part One? Whatever. I feel like it almost like the movie and the play kind of have their cult following and then the book the book people have their cult following, but the overlap is not as prominent as you'd think. Like I feel like a lot of people who really love the book or the movies um and play haven't even read the book, so they don't really know that it's so vastly different. Mhm. Yeah. So yeah, I'll be kind of curious to see where that rabbit hole takes us down because there, as you guys will find out in this episode, many rabbit holes to be had. Yeah, you'd be thinking we're talking about Alice Wonderland here following that white rabbit down to Wonderland, which is where our brains are right now. Okay. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we thought it would be beneficial to discuss where the original Oz story came from. um why and how books, publishing, and then the very act of reading itself have been heavily influenced by political climate and decisions um and how this comes through in fiction and fantasy. So, we're not just going to be talking about Wicked, although that's obviously where a lot of our focus is going to be on. We felt like in this episode in particular, we need to go into it by showing a broader picture of, you know, if we're going to be examining our books political, was the Wizard of Oz, which was the inspiration for Wicked, political um you know, and is the very act of reading and being able to read political um within itself? So yeah, we'll be diving into kind of like the details of that. As I was telling Ashley, I was like, we don't want this episode to be 10,000 hours long, so cut us a little bit of slack. We are trying to do this in like an hour and a half. That's a lot to cover. Um, but we'll do our best. Um, but before we get into any of that, we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. Seriously, thank you guys so much for being here, taking time out of your day and your book to come listen to us all lolly gaggers. And make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen your favorite podcast, including YouTube. Like we said, it'll be every Friday that we'll be covering these wicked books. And our normal Tuesday episodes will still be going out 7 a.m. 7:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. And by the way, this episode will be spoiler-free other than mentioning, you know, like some Wizard of Oz characters or something here and there. We're not going into the Wicked books fully, just some themes. So, you're safe for spoilers on this one cuz it's our kickoff episode. Yeah. Safe until Friday and then on Friday, watch out. You'll get the spoilers, but we'll let you know. Yeah. But yeah, also follow us on Instagram, Tik Tok, Red Books, podcast everywhere. So, come hang out with us, guys. Come hang out. So, just to keep the mood light for five more seconds before we get into uh our books political, um should we do just a fave and fail of the week because it's been a little while. Yeah, let's go, guys. Let's go. Fave and fail. Kick us off, Liz. Okay, so my fave, hands down. Hands down, and I want to talk about it so much. I want everyone to go see it. So, um, was on vacation recently. Very crazy whirlwind of a vacation. It was my first time in New York City. Um, and we went and saw Six, the musical. And like literally guys, if you have any opportunity to see that musical or just like, you know, go on YouTube, look up a couple little quick snippets, like see him perform at the Tony's, whatever, just so that you can kind of get like the vibes for it. I don't want to give anything away because I feel like part of the reason why I loved it so much was because it was so like I didn't know what to expect. I went into it just kind of like blind and on a whim. Um, and so yeah, it's about the All I'll say is it's just about the six wives of King Henry VII, in case you didn't know that already. And it's basically each one of the wives is trying to they're like competing in a singing competition for whose life was the worst essentially is what it is. Um, and it was so good and like I want to watch it a million times. I've heard nothing but good things. I've been trying to see it for years. So, they're touring, guys. So, check your local cities and check your local theaters. Support the arts. Support the uh Yeah, Ashley and I are going to try our best to go next year. So, very, very exciting. So, that's definitely my fave. Yep. Um, and then my fail of the week is that, you know, here's the thing, and Ashley and I even talked about this before. I Let's just pretend like reading is impossible on vacation and just assume that none will happen. Yeah. And then be happy if some say if we've learned anything last year and a half of being this podcast, forget it. Forget it. Yeah. I was like, "Oh, this is great." because I'll be in the airport um you know and like flying for because you know we live in Humble County so anytime getting anywhere is like a whole day ordeal. So I was like okay I'll have plenty of time to read. So I did read a fair amount on the way over there. Um, but during the whole vacation, I want to say I maybe read like two chapters of Wicked. And then I was so tired on the flight back that I just like slept the whole time and basically didn't read either. Like I tried to like I even tried to put on like the new Taylor Swift album just to like listen to it and kept nodding off. So I couldn't stay awake to save my life. Yeah. So that's the fail is that Yeah. Unfortunately, I have so far we're the middle of October and I have read one book. That's it. Criminal criminal activity over there. Yeah. Mhm. We just need to learn our lesson one of these vacations. I know. So, we'll see. I think it's hard to accept because it's like in my ideal world, an ideal vacation, that's all I would do is like have quiet time and read. And so it like makes me irrationally angry when I think about the fact that like, oh, I took 10 10 days off work and I didn't actually read anything. Yeah. You know, so I think that's why we hold out hope. Yeah. One day more. Yeah. How many How many count I wish I had a counter up. I should How many musical reference we make in this episode. One day more. One day more. One day. One day. Can we just Let's just sing the whole episode. They have to sing it all, but only through different lyrics from different musicals. Oh, that'll be so hard. That would be so hard. It's be so hard. Um, okay. Fail and fail. Let's go. I'll start off with my fails, and we'll sandwich them. So, fail is that number one, I got to number one, my bestie was in the middle of the ocean. I couldn't get a hold of her for anything. I missed. It was weird, man. It was weird. Weird. It was weird. Well, cuz last time we went on a cruise, you were with me, so I didn't have to worry about it. It wasn't okay. It wasn't okay. Never again. Except I did just book a Disney cruise for next year for me and my fam. So all to be doing it, too. Sorry. Where are you guys going? Bahamas. Oh, nice. Yeah, we're going to do the Disney Wish. Super excited. Super excited. So, that wasn't a fail, though. That was just that I'm going to do it to Liz soon. Sorry. My other fail is that guys, right now we're filming this, it is midocctober and I'm going to cry because that means Halloween season is almost over and I feel like it's gone so fast and I don't feel like I've enjoyed it even though I'm decor I decorated on time. So that's weird. It just feels like what the hell? It's going by so fast. I wait all year for this and then where's it going? I got like 15 days when this gets posted. It's already like the 20some. That's unacceptable. Yeah, I feel that very deeply. Time like needs to slow down. Mhm. For the Halloween time and fall in general or holidays in general, but I feel like it speeds right up and it makes me really mad. Yeah. So, anybody any anybody relate out there? My fave is that. Okay, so we did have a little girls night with me and my girls um recently and we finally got a wa around to watching the Adams family movie that they did the you know I don't know animated ones that are like okay you know I always reference Toy Story like Pixar style like those kind Anyways they were hilarious there was one part in particular in there in the first one and so my older daughter my 10-year-old is like obsessed with it now is Uncle Fester and he's like dancing with his big like thing and he's like I tip my hat to you. I do just that. And it cracks us up and it's like our inside joke now. But I mean anybody else that knows can be a part of it too and it's just so funny. So just like that joy that they get and they like run around the house singing it is so cute. So that's a fave. So a new favorite Halloween movie. So yeah, I will say that's one of my favorite things about visiting you is that cuz it's like, you know, bless my husband, like he tries with the musicals, but he's not a theater kid like us. Like, and so I love that like randomly I'll just be sitting there like, you know, downstairs on the bean bag chair and all of a sudden one of your girls will just like start singing like any number of musicals and I'm just like, I love this so much. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, they get it. We get each other. It's an energy that we bring. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Mhm. It's good. Good stuff. All right. Well, here we go. Are you guys ready? You're not ready. Buckle up. You're not ready to What is it? You can't handle the truth. That's what it is. But for real, though. Okay. So, let's just start with the basics, shall we? Yeah. Let's do it. So obviously Wicked was inspired by the wonderful Wizard of Oz um which is the book that was published in the year 1900. Exactly. Uh by El Frank Bomb. So I just wrote a little summary here, but I think that most of us are fairly familiar with the story. However, because I've prepared this summary, it's not a five sentence. I don't even know what it is. I just wrote it real quick. Um it's fives. Um, we'll go over it just so that you guys know going into the discussion of uh whether whether or not it's political, it'll make some sense. And this part will be a little spoilery for Wizard of Oz, but hey, it's been out for 125 years, so you got time. It's like The Great Gatsby. We can't be held responsible. Okay, you've had your time. You've had your chance. Let's go. If you don't know what it's about yet, it's not going to happen. will tell you right now. Imagine people start emailing us, you spoiled the Wizard of Oz. Like literally the movie came out and I I put it somewhere in here, but like the movie came out in 1939 or something crazy. It's that one person on Reddit that never finishes like last page or the last five minutes of a movie, you know? Yeah, you dare. I mean, that would be fairly relevant in this movie for sure. Okay, so this is what happens. Here we go. Dorothy lives in Kansas on a farm during a drought, is caught up in a tornado that drops her into the magical land of Oz, where she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsmen, and the Cowardly Lion, ultimately traveling to the Emerald City to ask for a way home from the Wizard of Oz. The wizard requires she kill his adversary, the Wicked Witch of the West. Technically, and I know this because I've seen the movie a million times, even though like it wasn't it didn't come to me immediately. Technically, I think he just asks for Dorothy to bring him her broom, right? But how are you going to do that? You know what I mean? Like, pry it out of her cold dead hands. You know what I mean? Okay. Um, so the wizard requires she kill his adversary, the wicked witch of the west. She already dropped a house on her sister, his other adversary, the wicked witch of the east, in order to make it back. She does so and is returned home to Kansas by Glenda the good witch after discovering that the wizard is just a man behind a curtain with no real magic. So there we are. That is Wizard of Oz. Little refresher if you haven't seen in a while. Just a little fact about me. Wizard of Oz is in fact my favorite movie. And I my mom recorded it for me on like an old VHS tape like from TV, you know, back in the day. And that was the movie that I would watch over and over and over as a child. Mhm. Yep. Yeah. Um Okay. So, I decided to delve into whether or not the inspiration rate for Wicked, the Wizard of Oz, like was the Wizard of Oz actually written with any type of like political intent. From what I can find, there's a lot of speculation from a ton of different people over the years um as to what exactly Elrank Bal is trying to say in the Wizard of Oz. He himself made comments here and there but from what I could find nothing explicitly saying I wrote this as a you know allegory for X Y and Z. Yeah. So take from that what you will but this is what I found. Okay. So a few different theories. So, and um for anyone who is curious, any of the resources that are important will be included in the show notes because I feel like if I cite every single thing, it's going to get crazy over here. Yeah. Okay. So, educator and historian Henry Littlefield in a 1964 article titled The Wizard of Oz Parable on Populism outlined an allegory for the book of the late 19th century debate regarding monetary policy. So, a lot of people didn't necessarily um agree with his theories, like the ones that I'm going to like outline here. Um, but a lot of scholars or like um like economic theorists and stuff like that were like, well, we don't necessarily know if that's what he was trying to say, but the similarities are like kind of uncanny. Yeah. So cannot confirm but there are a lot of similarities that would be a little bit strange to be that coincidental. So this historian Henry Littlefield is saying that you know Dorothy she's naive young and simple. She represents the American people during this time, led astray by the government and seeking kind of a way back to their like home, their ways of life that they appreciated um before things got a little bit more like politically tumultuous, which we'll kind of get into why. Um the cyclone is symbolic of economic and political upheaval. Mhm. The yellow brick road, which symbolizes the gold standard, leads to the Emerald City, which represents a world built on quote unquote green back paper money, a form of fiat currency that was issued during the Civil War as legal tender, but that was not backed by gold or silver reserves. The silver shoes even represent the pro-silver movement. So, I went down this rabbit hole hard because I didn't reme like did you remember anything about this like from school like learning anything about this part of history? Um like just like you know uh kind of the pre Great Depression, Great Depression, you know the what's it called? Like yeah like Kansas like the dust bowl era that's what I'm talking about you know like almost kind of like that time and yeah how gold Yeah paper money was a form of currency cycled from gold because you can't just carry around gold everywhere. Mhm. Totally. Yeah. I remember learning about that stuff about digesting Wizard of Oz. No. Well, and like the implications of um create like what the implications of creating the gold standard had economically on um kind of creating a wealth disparity in the country. Like I didn't really understand that. Um you know, so we'll get into that just just a little bit. All I know is that the gold rush obviously and still to this day, my daughter actually just went through the gold rush last year in fourth grade. Um it was it's very glamorized. Oh yeah, for sure. So it's not the the the back side the dark side of the gold rush isn't really discussed obviously you know in schools that's something that you figure out later. So yeah for sure. No. Yeah. Mhm. Um so some have also speculated that Oz actually means ounce which was the popular abbreviation for gold and silver at the time. So that makes sense. Yeah. Well um when Dorothy meets the wizard. Okay. So, this is one of those like nuggets or like uh Easter eggs that I'm like, if it's not real, it's a weird coincidence. Okay. Yeah. Um, so when Dorothy meets the wizard, she is led through seven passages and up three flights of stairs, which many argue is a subtle nod to the coinage act of 1873, which many, including Hugh Rockov in the 1990 1990 article, The Wizard of Oz, as a monetary allegory believed to have started one of the most major class conflicts in America. So, that's too on the nose to be a coincidence. Well, that's what I thought. But it's like, okay, and like maybe I just don't have a great memory, but like did you remember anything about the Coinage Act of 1873? Listen, I didn't care. So, no. I mean, do I remember it? No. Did we? Were we taught it? I don't know. Yeah, I honestly don't know either. So, for any of you guys who don't know what the Coinage Act of 1873 that LFrank Bomb may have been talking about with the Emerald City parallels, here's what it was. Okay, just in general, we're not going to do too deep of a dive because we would be here all night, but here we go. So, the Coinage Act of 1873 was a general revision of laws relating to the mint of the United States by ending the right of holders of silver bullion to have it coined into standard silver dollars while allowing holders of gold to continue to have their bullion made into money. The act created a gold standard by default. It although also authorized a trade dollar which limited legal tender intended for export mainly to Asia and abolish three small denomination coins. So, so basically like that kind of sounds familiar. Couldn't recite it, but I definitely do think that there was some discussion over that brief, but anyways. Well, yeah. I mean, obviously a lot of people weren't happy about this, right? Because a lot of people had a lot of silver and then they were like, cuz you can always melt it down, you know? Yeah. So despite contemporary accusations, scant evidence exists that the 1873 act had a corrupt motivation. The political dispute was settled when the gold standard was explicitly enacted into law in 1900. Beginning in March 1933, the United States rapidly abandoned the gold standard in favor of fiat currency for almost all purposes. And then the United States abandoned the dollar's final formal link to gold in 1971. So I don't know. It seems like it would be a weird coincidence if that's kind of not he what he was talking about, especially with like the very very obvious like I mean the Emerald City was a choice and the yellow brick road was a choice. Yeah. You know, the wicked witch and the green dollar shoes were silver. That was a choice. Yeah. You know, in the movie they're turned into ruby slippers, but in the book they're silver. So, I don't know. It seems all like it kind of lines up or a even. Yeah. It's not even hard to like It's not like we're trying to do mental gymnastics here. It's right there. It's right there. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, take from it what you will. Some people will be like, "Ah, you're just it's a conspiracy. Like, that's not even real." But hey, it's worth at least thinking about. Yeah. Right. Okay. So another theory and I think that this in as it pertains to our discussion is extra important is that the book uses fantasy to examine the 19th century populist party movement in the US. Um so historians see the populace as a reaction to the power of corporate interests in the guilded age which is the economic boom from the 1870s to '90s. So, for me, when I was reading about this, I was like, "This to me makes the most sense." Um, the populist reform movement was interested in collective bargaining, federal regulation of railroad rates. Um, let's see what else. Uh, federally controlled warehouses to aid farmers, um, like a shorter work week. So it looked like it looks like it was basically like trying to curb the influence of mon like basically corporations have a monopoly in financial interests and empowering small businesses and farmers and laborers. So to me that's a lot what the Wizard of Oz seems to be about if you're looking at like the symbolism. So that made sense in my opinion. Um, and for those of you that aren't super famili familiar with the guilded age, you know, just according to like Wikipedia, it was a time of rapid economic um, and capital growth, especially in the North and West. So, we're talking a lot about um, American wages getting higher, but then also a huge disparity happening because the South remained economically devastated after the Civil War. Um, so there was a lot and there was a lot of people immigrating here as well. So again, you know, we have a lot of themes that would make sense to come through if you're asking the question, you know, can fiction or fantasy be political? So, do you have any more thoughts to say on that? I don't want to get too too far down into that, but if you're ever curious and you want to do more research, just look up the Guilded Age and you know how essentially industry was quote unquote booming, but there was still a lot of economic disparity and um like I said before, one of the biggest like class kind of like struggles was happening at that time too. Yeah. Up and up until that time. Yeah. I mean, hello. Art imitates life and book and writing is a form of art. So, it's hard to not at the very minimum take inspiration from the world that this author saw around them. Mhm. For sure. Like, how could you not? Like, literally, how could you not? Like, you have to you exist only within that context. The author literally could have just had him be a wizard. like not a wizard of Oz like you know as the emperor but as like a little magical wizard in the forest that she needs to get to an emerald forest that's like literally trees so it is very intentional when you take a step back and think about it okay he's a wizard of Oz cuz it sounds fant fantasy magical but he's actually the emperor the overseer of that city the city is shiny and green and whatever and beautiful and very wealthy and he is, you know, and then we find out it's all facade and everything like that. But yeah, it could have it's very intentional when you realize he could have just had a magical wizard in the forest and he deliberately chose not to. So hey hey I mean yeah. Uh, so when I was looking up the Guilded Age 2, it even says the political landscape was notable in that despite rampant corruption, election turnout was comparatively high among all classes, though the extent of the franchise was generally limited to men, you know, as we know because of the time and national elections featured two similarly sized parties. The dominant issues were cultural, especially regarding prohibition, education, and ethnic or racial groups, and economic uh like regarding tariffs and money supply. Urban policies were tied to rapidly growing industrial cities which increasingly fell under control of political machines. So this was all happening at that time. It adds up. It definitely adds up. Um but again, you know, it's uh one of those things to where I feel like if you're arguing the point that like, you know, fantasy isn't political, you could say that he just all made it up from nothing. Yeah. seems unlikely, but you could argue that, I guess. Yeah. Okay. So, that's just a little bit of backstory since we are obviously talking about Wicked and not the Wizard of Oz. Um, you know, we did want to give a little bit of context when it comes to some of the inspiration that Gregory Magcguire may have pulled from when writing these books. And then, yeah, we'll get into why that's relevant here in a little bit. Okay. So, let's just move on to who has historically been allowed to publish books. What are what are the statistics on this on the publishing industry?

Okay. So, I just found a few uh just a few little facts here. So, you know, women have gone from publishing just 20% of books in the 1970s to more than half today. So, that's exciting. But that's also a very like that's kind of a short span of time. You know what I mean? From the 70s till now, we've gone from 20% to more than half. Okay. So why um reduced domestic labor burden, increased educational attainment, greater control over family planning, self-publishing, that's huge. Um growing women leership. So, um, you know, books are coming out that more women want to read, supposedly, right? More women in publishing roles, which we'll talk about here soon. Increased representation in books for readers, um, and growth in specific genres, probably in specific genres like romance or romantic, which we've talked about in previous episodes. Um, so I decided to go go down the rabbit hole a little bit. So, diversity in publishing is still not great, though. So even though a lot more women are publishing books than even just in the 70s, diversity in publishing is still not great. So they still earn less. So women still earn less on average than their male counterparts. So as of 2021, female authors salaries were only 96% of male author authors salaries on average, indicating that gender disparities still exist, which I feel like most of us probably already kind of assumed that. But unfortunately, yeah, it's not a surprise. Yeah. Um, as women increasingly enter and even dominate fields like publishing, some observers note a historical pattern of that field becoming devalued, underpaid, or seen as less desirable for men. So, I feel like um, you know, we've heard these arguments even uh, in relation to like higher education, too. Yeah. So it's like once things kind of like start to tilt a little bit and become a little bit more either equal repres more equal representation or more um female dominated that industry's legitimacy starts to become questioned. Yeah. Yeah. So and we've had that conversation I feel like in multiple ways on this podcast so far. Yeah. Okay. So, I was like, "All right, these ideas are all really interesting, but we need to see the numbers." Or at least that's how my brain works. I'm like, "I want to see the numbers to actually have this be like somewhat substantiated." Mhm. So, I found a really cool thing called that I had no idea existed um called the Lee and Low Diversity Baseline Survey. um which essentially gathers data for diversity and publishing and let's see I have there so I think the last one that they did I'm pretty sure cuz I couldn't find a newer one was done in 2023 and so I'm just going to give you guys a little bit of the results just so that you have them um

just because obviously I feel like these facts can't be separated separated from the books that are published um you know the authors whose stories get to be told etc. Okay. So, I'm just going to do the industry overall. So, this is in publishing um from lean.com. So, you can look it up. So, race is still 72.5% white in publishing. This is overall. Um age 25 to 34 years old. Gender 71.3% cis women. Orientation 68.7% straight. uh disability, 83.5% non-disabled, work location, over 50% in the US, Northeast specifically, which I thought was interesting. Um, and so I feel like all of those things are obviously really important to determining what Yeah. what stories get told and what through what lenses they're told as well. Mhm. So, pretty interesting if you guys want to go check that out because it breaks it down by like executive level, editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, reviewers, literacy, literacy specialists, um yeah, agents, everything like you can look at everything individually. Who has historically been allowed to read? Also in the debate on is reading political I feel like it's not really brought up a lot which I think is kind of strange that the very act of reading has not been something that is accessible to everyone all the time forever equally. Right? So you know I literally just Googled historically in the US has everyone always been allowed to read and the answer is no. Yeah for anyone curious. So historically, access to reading education was shaped by race, gender, and social status with universal public education only becoming widespread in the late 19th century. So it broke like I thought this was actually kind of interesting because I did um find a website that broke it down by time period. So like in the colonial era, you know, it was very influenced by religious motives. So, um, Puritans in New England promoted reading the Bible, right? So, that influenced a lot of what people were allowed to read. Um, obviously discrimination against enslaved people in the southern colonies. Enslaved African people were actively prohibited from learning to read, a practice that continued in the US with the passing of anti-iteracy laws in slave states. Slaveholders feared that literacy would enable rebellion, but many enslaved people still managed to learn secretly. So that seems like it would answer the question without needing to ask any more like right without having to continue. Just that right there seems pretty simple to me. If that doesn't enrage you out there, I don't know what to tell you. That not only did America hold slaves, but they actively suppressed the knowledge to gain knowledge to dismantle the atrocities that were happening against them. So, for anybody who wants to be an apologist for our slave owners out there back in the day, they didn't know any better. Uh, yeah, they did. They knew that these were humans and they didn't care that they were suppressing them to use for their own personal gain. Mhm. And I know that's not what we're talking about necessarily here, but it just But it is enrag but it is. But it is because it enrages me. So yeah, when anybody says keep politics out of books, you literally can't. No, you literally act of reading is political. Is political unfortunately. I wish it wasn't so. Right. You pretend all day that it's not it doesn't happen. It's not a thing. It is a thing cuz unfortunately humans made it a thing in our history. And we can't go around acting like that didn't exist cuz then we're doomed to have the same thing happen. We have the same things happening. You know, reading still isn't accessible at the same level for everybody. It's just not. Absolutely. Absolutely. You keep the workers working and you don't have you I mean, we have a plague of idiocy happening right now. I don't know another way to put it. I can't put it more eloquently, but we have people I just was watching this freaking Tik Tok about this lady going on a rant that Helen Keller wasn't real, that it was fake. Like, for what purpose? Okay, I'm not going to go on a conspiracy like thing right now, but it's just like what it's so it's just but it was it's shows like that there's just this disconnect of people right now that are embracing stupidity. Mhm. Well, and they're bolstered up for it. And you have to wonder too, it's like obviously, you know, just to circle back to the last point about discrimination specifically against enslaved people. And so that was like very obvious and overt, right? Like we are going to prevent you from reading because we are afraid that if you have more knowledge, you will rebel against us and take back your freedom as you should. Right? So, you know, I think that, you know, and this is just me speculating, but hey, I think that now it's a system that's so um what's the word I'm looking for? It's like it's like a specific word that I really really want to use where it's like secretly but not secretly very It's like sinister. It's like a sinister eroding of people's not just um ability to access materials, right? Because depending on where you live and your socioeconomic status and what have you, you may have more or less access to information. Maybe you don't have a computer with the internet. Maybe you don't have a library within walking distance to you and you don't have a car. Maybe, you know what I mean? like there are so many factors that can play into accessibility of information. But then also I think you know it's not necessarily a coincidence that most Americans can't read over a sixth grade reading level either. Um, I don't know that that's not, you know, uh, like I really don't believe that that's an accident, right? And like you said, it feels very sinister. And I mean, how many of us I feel like everybody listening are readers. Like we're all we're preaching to the choir probably over here. You guys all get it. It's something for us to all kind of like rage against the machine about um and find some camaraderie and maybe some uh confirmation about what we're all feeling especially right now. But that how many of us readers have people say condescendingly, "Oh, you're reading. Oh, you know, or like why do you read so much?" Or like, "How do you find time to read so much?" Like how, you know, you're you're a mom. you have you own a business. How do you even find time to read so much? But yet, they'll watch all the shows and all the movies, you know? And I mean, I can even think of I was I had a physical book. I was at the gym putting stuff away and I had someone I know in my life happened to see me and they're like, "Oh, wow. That's like a real book." Like they said it strangely. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah." Like, "Oh, I guess I just don't see people with real books anymore." And I'm like, "Uh, yeah, okay." I don't know. So, it's just that kind of like what I'm saying is just like an overall theme in society to kind of be judgmental about readers, which is weird, right? Almost like the nerd wars, right? It's like but it's that's that's a separate issue going on about then making people feel like either, oh, like kids see that, right? Then they grow up seeing that. If your parents are teasing you because you like to read a lot, depending on your personality, it might make you go, "Oh, never mind." Like, I won't then it keeps you uneduced, but less educated. You know, it suppresses that search for knowledge. So, there's just so many unfortunately layers politically that we humans have made with reading. Mhm. For sure. Like it or not. I mean, definitely don't like it, but like it is what it is. Well, and even, you know, just to go back to, you know, this specific era that we're talking about, um, you know, lots of gender disparities with access to formal education for women. Yeah, there's that, too, right? Um, so yeah, what does it say here? particularly in the middle and southern colonies and many so many women remained illiterate um unless it was part of a religious community. So that's an important layer also. We're going to keep you illiterate unless you are reading our, you know, we have religious motives and we want you to read that. Um you know, so then we're talking about 19th century. It's just funny to me. Sorry. It's funny because it's like, you know, they're all worried about it generalizing. Oh, the gateway romance books corrupting society. It's actually just act reading religious texts that taught people how to read, you know, and then led them to an education cuz they're like, "What the hell is this?" You know what I mean? It's just funny. It's like, well, yeah. I think a lot of people, you know, not excluding you and me, who end up quote unquote rebelling or at least seeking alternative information because of the intensity of the religious texts that we're encouraged to read at an early age, right? So there's that. Um, so 19th century times we have the rise of public education. Um so by 1875 the US literacy rate was approximately 80% but significant racial disparities remained um because of anti-iteracy laws. So many formerly enslaved people embraced education after emancipation but in response white southerners used violence to destroy many freed people's schools. Later quote unquote literacy tests were used in some areas to disenfranchise African-Americans and immigrants. So this is um systemic. It's like intentional and systemic. Okay. Mhm. Um and then also we can't forget to mention also the forced assimilation of Native Americans. Um so with the US government boarding schools, so that's also huge. um forbidding them to use their own languages. That's yeah, I mean, we can go down some really dark dark deep rabbit holes here, but the thing to remember is the reason why we're talking about all these things is because they're all very very present and wicked. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Um and then we move forward to the 20th and 21st centuries. So, continuing disparities. So though the illiteracy gap between white and black adults narrowed significantly throughout the 20th century, disparities in education persisted due to segregation and then underfunding. So there's that modern challenges. Um about half of US adults today cannot read above a sixth grade level. Um ongoing debates. So um you know there's also kind of on a smaller scale debates about how to teach reading more effectively in schools in public schools. Yeah. So, I feel like we are It's It's sad because it's something that I think is going to be an ongoing problem that isn't isn't still being sol. It's 2025. It's wild that we live with so much technology and ways to

uh inspire the youths to read. And we have a large sect of our country specifically who are in in deep to you know I the best way I can say this guys is it's not I'm not going against educated homeschoolers out there it's the unlearning movement the unschooling mo movement where it is it is going to be a bad problem co in itself created a bad problem of our declining rates of literacy among children. Mhm. And it's so heartbreaking that some of these middle schoolers even do not know how to read above a first grade reading level cuz that is going to affect their entire lives. And that isn't like you said, it's it's sinister because you keep the people uneducated. You go based off of religion. You have this brainwashing, you know, subtext going on that people are not realizing that is going to keep people down, you know, so that they have the workers, the worker bees. Mhm. So, it's just another way that illiteracy is being propagandicized. Yeah. Oh, completely. Yeah. It's all part of like a greater agenda because you want to have a more pliable and easily manipulated population. And the best way to do that as they admitted they did intentionally to enslaved people is to keep people uneducated without the ability to read. So Mhm. take from that what you will. But again, the reasons why we're discussing this is because these are topics that I think Gregory Maguire explicitly uses, you know, a fantastical world to kind of um break down. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, just to pull back a little bit from the super heavy topics, you know, I decided to just make a little brief list like, you know, what are some, you know, popular books perhaps that might have some fairly significant political critique, right? Um, and you know, I just typed in a little Google search real quick and this is what came up, right? We've got Game of Thrones clearly. I mean, like that's all it is.

Yeah, that's all it is. It's literally it's it's a politics with some dragons thrown in occasionally, you know. Do people not think Do they think, "Oh, it's but it's royalty. It's not us anymore." Like, it's the same. It's the same. It's politic. It's just a different name. Do you Does thy rose of any other name smell of sweet? Like whatever. [Applause] Okay. So, we got Game of Thrones. We've got Lord of the Rings. Hello. Okay. Hello. Um, you know, Freddy of, you know, us SJM girlies over here. Obviously, we have Throne of Glass. Obviously, I love how so Ashley added in Fourth Wing, book one, question mark specifically. Well, because Yeah. book two and three, I mean, arguably they're all, you know, they all have political leanings, but book one, they just take some of the focus off. Book one to me is very political and I unfortunately have witnessed a lot of conversations via book threads and you know comments and I'm a comment reader. I don't know about you guys but I definitely peruse comments on you know reels and stuff and the amount of people that will say you know keep politics out of books but then you go to their page and they love FourthWing. It's just like not only illiteracy and literacy being a problem but comprehension skills. Comprehension skills, context clues. Yeah. Like symbolism, all these things. But you don't even It's right there for all these things you've listed so far. It's right there. It's the entire theme of the book. How are you missing the mark? Yeah. Like it's literally like politics, injustices, like rebellions calling out the problems with their world even though it's fantasy and is a reflection on things that you can take and see in your own real life space. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we've got, you know, we didn't love it, but we've got Misborn. I mean, that's unarguable. Like, for sure. All that is is about a rebellion, an overthrowing of the powers that be, right? Yeah. You have a suppressed h whole culture in there and the whole debate is if they're human enough, you know. Right. Right. Uh we've got Dune, which if you haven't read the books, you know, maybe you've seen the movies. That comes through pretty clear in the movies as well. I haven't read the books yet. Um but I, you know, again, context clues, I can piece that two and two together pretty easily. Um, another one that came up or another few that came up really um, regularly that I haven't got around to reading yet were The Poppy War, um, The Priory of the Orange Tree, and then we did read The Cruel Prince. Um, so those were a few more. But yeah, I mean, it doesn't take a whole lot of digging to find it, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. It's not like I had to sit there at my computer and like dig for these like, you know, fantasy books that have political themes. It's like pretty much the most popular ones are. They're all in very extremely political. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, so well, anybody that wants to say, well, that's it's fictional political, but yeah, guys, like, hello, there are reflections. Well, and not just that, but I feel like, you know, okay, maybe we'll skip ahead a little bit and then I'll go back just for sake of the conversation. Yeah. Okay, we might be talking about a fictional dictator or a fictional regime or what have you, but popular, you know, I made a list here of popular fantasy themes, right? Okay. This isn't even necessarily in fantasy quote unquote that's political. It's just themes that are consistent in in um fantasy books, right? Mhm. Power struggles, a succession crisis, revolution and rebellion, class struggles, um colonialism, imperialism, war is in almost all fantasy books, I'd say. Yeah. Like especially the big long ep epic ones like you know Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. Um, so that's not even necessarily saying like political themes. Those are just popular fantasy book themes, right? Yeah. So, as you say, it may not be a specific reflection like, you know, if we really want to take the deep dive into the Wizard of Oz, maybe that was specifically reflecting on the laws that were getting passed at the time and the wealth disparity that was being created at the time. Okay, cool. It might not be that way with all fantasy books. However, it doesn't have to be talking about something specific for it to for it not to be political. You know what I mean? It can still be political anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, I decided to look up cuz I was just curious. And guys, the way that this blew my mind, okay, the same way as you guys remember when we were covering Fifty Shades of Gray and I was like, let's just look up what the most popular romance book of all time is just for fun, thinking it's going to be like Pride and Prejudice or whatever, right? Yeah. And then it comes up as Fifty Shades of Gray. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay. It's crazy. So, I decided to look up in the US what was the first fictional fantasy book and what were its themes like were its themes political? Um, and this is in the modern era. So, again, I kept it to the United States. I kept it to the quote unquote modern era. I wasn't going back to like freaking ancient times. And I wasn't going to the whole world because we'd be here like all day. Yeah. Well, guess what comes up? The freaking Wizard of Oz. Yeah. Good old 1900 190. Yeah, I was like, what? What a coincidence. So, here we are. Apparently, even Google agrees. Um, Elrank Bomb's novel is often cited as the first modern US fantasy book. It was published by the George M. Hill Company and became a landmark in American literature. So, in 1900. Yep. So, there we are. There you go. So, then I was curious. All right. Right. So, we've got that. So, what about like what was the first fantasy book published by a woman perhaps, right? Cuz I was like, okay. Like, and I think what I was doing here was trying to show that like I'm not looking up like we're not looking up what was the first political novel or non-fiction novel, right? I'm trying to specifically find what was the first fantasy novel published by a woman. Okay. So, what I could come up with was and these were kind of hard things to find. Okay. It wasn't like super easy. Um I had to kind of d kind of take some deep dives. So, what I could come up with is um a book called Her Land, which is a 1915 feminist utopian novel written by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. So, the book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who bear children without men. The result is an ideal social order free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly installments as a serial in 195 1915 in the 4ERunner, a magazine edited and written by Gilman between 1909 1909 and 1916. Um, which I looked it up and that was a magazine that was published in New York at the time. Um, let's see here. Oh, so it was not published though in book form. So it was published in magazine installments. Okay. Okay. But it was not published in book form until 1979. That's how long it took. Wow. Um. Wow. So, again, that was the first, they're calling it fantasy novel, speculative fiction. A little bit of science fiction in there. Little dystopian. Little dystopian. Um, written by a woman. But what's interesting about it is it is fantasy and kind of looks like all those themes are pretty political to me. Sounds like my fantasy.

Hey, free of war, conflict, and domination. Okay, sign us up. Okay. So, then I decided, all right, um let's do the same little experiment, but let's do it with um first fantasy book published by a black author. So, what I came up with was The Conjure Woman is a 1899 collection of seven short stories by Charles W. Chestnut, a pioneering African-American author that uses folklore and superstition to explore the realities of slavery and race relations in the post civil war south. Oh, so again, fantasy novel. However, very political sounding to me. Yeah, sounds super interesting. Yeah. Um, then the third category I decided to look up was the first fantasy novel uh with queer representation. M so which I found this one pretty interesting because I actually have read this um in my feminist science fiction class in college. So pretty cool. Um so the one that comes up is um and again guys like I did a fair amount of research obviously like this was all of these were really really hard to find cuz we're going back in time and there's people who dispute it or people who think that it doesn't constitute fantasy or that you know what I mean. Um, but I'm just going with the one that's most widely kind of agreed upon. Okay. Yeah. Um, so The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Legwin in 1969. So, a lot farther down the line than the other ones. Though not explicitly a queer romance, this novel is a foundational text in speculative fiction for its exploration of gender fluidity and sexuality in a society without fixed gender. H interesting. Yeah. Um it was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction and it is described as the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. A major theme of the novel is the effect of sex and gender on culture and society. Oh yeah. So again maybe you know the story is fantasy but it looks like a lot of the themes could have significant political implications. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I just I want to know what the people out there that have a hard time accepting that books are political, fantasy has political themes, like that they don't agree with that. How? Why? Um what? Like is it is it because they don't feel like gender should be a political issue? Like it shouldn't be a problem? Like it shouldn't be a problem, but it is. But it is. Right. Well, that right. It's We're not saying that we agree with gender with things like gender being politicized. No. Did you Am I saying it right? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like Yeah. Yeah. I do. Like Yeah. Like

it just melts my brain. Like of course if we lived in this perfect femaleled world that this author wrote in her land, none of these things would be a political issue because it wouldn't be a problem. You know what I'm saying? But unfortunately, all these things have been issues. Some of them are still issues with modern day society. Therefore, and there are laws being passed constantly and being pulled back constantly over these social economic issues. Therefore, they are political. If they are in stories, they are political. There you go. Please. I I want to understand how people don't agree with that. Well, yeah. I don't want to understand, but I want to I Huh. I'm confused. Yeah. I mean to me it makes perfect sense. You know, it's like, you know, that it's the it's the idea that the personal is political, right? At this juncture in time, like since we're not living in a utopian egalitarian society, as you say, we're we're not able to separate politics from identity because first of all, I feel like lots of parts of different people's identity are brought into question in general as even being legitimate. And then different values are placed on different parts of people's identity that have real life effects when it comes to policymaking etc. So I think that's what you're trying to say is that it's really impossible to separate that from a political agenda because everything at this point in time has it affects people's real lives. Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to be mad at anybody about that, be mad at the powers that be that have made these things an issue that want to control these things that honestly at the end of the day, yeah, they shouldn't matter. People's skin color shouldn't affect their social and economical level. People's gender identity shouldn't it shouldn't be that, but it is. So therefore, we need to be protecting people. Well, and of you know, and I put this here because we talked about this a lot in um our you know, romance book episodes. We know that women used romance novels to critique the society in which they lived and the role of females in that society when they had little other avenues to do so, right? So why would fantasy be any different? Yeah. Yeah. You know, like literally people not watching YouTube, we're just throwing our hands up randomly everywhere. like weird um malfunctioning robots because that's what I feel like I am like what what what data does not compute. Yeah. So there's that. The other question that I put here in bold was if book's not political why banned. Yeah. Huh. Huh. Because if books which we also have a whole episode on. Yeah. It's like if if books weren't political, the government would have absolutely no vested interest in banning them or caring about what any of them said or from influencing people's accessibility or rights to learn to read. Like there would be no government intervention when it came to literacy whatsoever other than just teaching people how to read in public school. That would be it. End of story. We're like the little two people in front of the the uh car dealership but aggressively like an aggressive like one through a tsunami or like a hurricane like just I need a way to expel my like rage you know it's it's helping good that's good temporarily so these are just questions that we're just p you know we're posing these questions not because we necessarily have all the answers to everything but because we you know this these are the things that We're going to have to be reading Wicked and asking ourselves as we're reading these books, right? Yeah. Mhm. Okay. So, kind of switch gears a little bit here. Um, you know, we did this with Annie Gables. I thought that it was really useful because obviously in Ann Gables, you know, we have a huge amount of, you know, the end of the series that talks a lot about World War I. So, I was like, "Okay, hey, most of us were alive uh in 1995 when Wicked came out, but hey, do you remember what was going on politically?" Well, yeah, I was eight, so no. Right. Well, maybe Bill Clinton. Yeah. Right. That's I think what most of us remember, right? Is like the scandals, right? Yeah. Um, so I just made a little list here for you guys of the things that may have been influencing um, you know, and it is confirmed in some like interviews that Gregory Magcguire has done or also like even just the new afterward that um, we read in the Kindle version of Wicked that's available on Kindle Unlimited. Um, you know, what were the things at the time that may have influenced some of the writings of the series? Um, so what was going on? So we had the end of the Cold War, the Gulf War, that was a big one, economic recession under Bush Senior, we had a couple interesting things passed, the American with Disabilities Act of 1990. Um, the Clean Air Act of 1990, those were both under Bush Senior. Um, Bill Clinton became president and Republicans gained control of the House and the Senate for the first time since 1955. Um, we had uh the creation and I guess I don't know how you'd say it like the enactment of NAFTA which was huge. Um, so for anyone who is not familiar with the North American Free Trade Agreement, Google it. But criticisms include significant job losses in the United States due to manufacturing moving to Mexico, a decline in environmental and health standards and the destabilization of rural Mexican communities and their agricultural base. Critics also argue that the agreement empowered multinational corporations, undermined local regulations, and led to lower wages and greater economic inequality. So, this happened under Clinton, though, so it's kind of a both and situation. Mhm. Um, we had this was when the don't ask don't tell was actively happening in the military and I threw this in here just to make us all feel better for a second. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated and confirmed. So that's good. Yeah. Um, but I think that, you know, I just wanted to throw a little a little taster of um some context for you guys just because like even for me I was like I don't really remember what was going on back then except for just Yeah. like you know the scandals. The scandals. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. So, here we are. We've laid the groundwork for you. It's a lot of information. Sorry, not sorry. Um, first I think it's important to let you guys know kind of like the lens that we're going to be looking at and examining these wicked books through. And then we made a very long list of um all of the themes that we found important to at least mention and discuss when moving forward in the series. So, first of all, whoever you know, if you're not familiar, we're going to be looking at this series through an intersectional feminist lens. So, just to kind of let you guys know, I just pulled this definition right off Google. Um, so intersectional feminist theory analyze how various forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism, and others intersect and overlap, creating unique experiences of discrimination and marginalization for individuals. So, it was coined by Kimberly Krenshaw. Go read her stuff. She's literally amazing if you guys have not already. In uh 1989, the theory highlights that these interlocking social categories cannot be viewed in isolation as doing so renders the specific challenges faced by people, particularly women of co invisible and unadressed. So, you know, when I was like taking feminist theory for example, it's like it's a matrix is how they described it. It's a matrix of oppression. It's like there's so many different things like working together to create everyone's individual experiences. You can't just look at it like someone's just experiencing sexism. Mhm. Because what if, you know, they're also a person with a disability who is a woman? What if they, you know, are queer and they're a woman with a disability? Like there's too many things going on there to where you have to take them all into account. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so this framework promotes more inclusive social justice movements by demanding that the experiences and needs of those at the intersections of multiple identities are recognized and advocated for. Yeah. So, like I said, Kimberly Krenshaw, go read more stuff if that sounds interesting to you. Um, but that is more than necessary, I feel like, when moving forward reading this book series. So, should we get into the list?

Are you guys ready? The scroll. Are you guys ready? Are you ready? I know. I was like, gosh, this seems crazy, but like I feel like I couldn't leave any of these out. I really tried to like pair it down, but like and this is just in book one so far that like I'm pulling these from. So, here we go. Yeah. Okay. So, here we go. We've got systemic oppression, the idea of merit versus privilege, quote unquote, the other, prejudice and discrimination, complacency and resistance. So, you've got those two kind of um different ideas working at the same time, but also against each other. And then theory versus action, which is very similar. Um, you obviously have the ism, sexism, classism, speciesism, which is pretty unique I feel like to wicked, racism, xenophobia, etc. You have fascism and authoritarianism, uh, the role of propaganda and religion in bias, colonialism, progress and expansion in direct opposition to maintaining nature and preserving culture. quote unquote progress or science versus nature. A big one I found was equity versus equality. Using theology, myth or science to prove inferiority. Mhm. Militarization, forced repatriation, horizontal hostility, uprising and coup, and education as an institution of indoctrination. H. Oh, there you go. Just some light Just some light reading. Yeah, just a light read. So, so just a fun little time. Very much like the musical, you know.

For anybody wondering. Yeah. Now that your brain's ready to explode. Okay. So, do you feel like you have any kind of like last things to mention before you want to kind of move into the wrap-up section of this episode? I think I've yelled enough today. Maybe. We'll see. I was going to say, yeah, I don't know. Okay. So, you know, in a nutshell, we thought it'd be useful to relay all this information so we have context moving forward as we read these books and cover the important and extremely relevant and difficult themes brought up here. Um, as we've made it clear, fiction, fantasy included, cannot separate itself from the society, the laws, the constraints, and the limitation of its time. So it exists within the context it's produced and it acts as a reflection and oftent times an intentional critique of the political climate and the society it came from. And something that I found to be really interesting that Gregory Magcguire even brings up the work itself. So whether that's a book, it's a poem, it's music, it's you know actual paintings that kind of art that work itself can then influence for good or evil change also. So, it can be responding and then influencing at the same time. Yeah. And I just put here and around and around we go. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we're here to enjoy these books, but we're also here to discuss how important they are to a greater conversation about humanity, good and evil, the origins of prejudice, free will, and the influence of power among many other themes. So, if that sounds good to you, stick around for Wicked Book One. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I really am. I am, too. Because, you know, like you mentioned at the beginning, like we, as much as we hear people talk and rave about the musical and now the movie, like any mention of the book, the only people that I know that read it are very like, oh, you know, which I appreciate the warning, not for children. I can agree finishing book one. Um, but also like, ooh, it's pretty heavy. Ooh, it's pretty political. And I'm just like, "Sign me up, baby. Let's go." You know, let's go. So, we want you guys to keep these things in mind moving forward because here here's the funny thing, though. As much, you know, we I'm so glad we did this deep dive and digested everything moving forward. Obviously, not obviously, but I've already finished book one. The minute I started it, I was like, "Oh, wow." I think I texted Liz. I think this might have been the only conversation we had about it was just like uh whoa. This is extremely political and I just started. Yeah, I'm on like chapter I'm on page like 20. So, you know, hey, what are we going to be doing from here on forward? Well, we're going to be covering these books. Like we said, Friday, be ready. Book one, we'll be digesting everything. Going to be responding reaction type deep dives as we usually do with our favorites, least favorite parts. It's going to be a heavier one obviously as we talked today about things because the topics that we are discussing are heavy, but we'll also have some light-hearted moments. Five sentence summary. I do have a new musical instrument to play for anybody wondering. Liz does not know yet what it is. I don't. I had to dive into my daughter's musical instrument box to find something fun. So, cuz we got to keep it we got to keep it cool, man. Oh, I'm so excited. These conversations are so necessary to have. Um, and I can't wait to have them with you guys. Yeah. I mean, I just I feel like like I said at the beginning of this, it's it's so important to not separate like the kind of the point of Wicked. And I feel like as much as, you know, you've talked about this in the past, too, like maybe, you know, the Hunger Games movies weren't exactly like the books, but we can appreciate them for what they are as part of the fandom and their own kind of little separate category, right? And I think that that is what we can do here with Wicked. Like, we can love the musical, we can love the movies, and we can love the books, but for different reasons. But I feel like kind of to see the whole picture you it's like to understand where Gregory Magguire was coming from when he created Alphaba. Like it's like you kind of have to read the book to get that

kind of. But here's the thing, okay? Because I have always loved movies and musicals as well. Musicals, hello are very political as well. Mhm. lay miser. Um, so and like we said, art imitates life. But to me, I left Wii Wicked one last year, Thanksgiving weekend. I left that movie feeling like that was extremely political and like and I was happy about it. I I feel like and that was I never seen the musical before that. Obviously never read the book. I didn't fully know what to expect, you know, but I clearly saw the themes even though they're subtle, but I just I think that's how I look at movies in that lens. And I understand not everybody does. There was a family member that was with us that took away a totally different thing that I had to go like, wait, hang on, let's digest this. Is like, oh no, they're glorifying evilness with Alphaba. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no. That's an interesting take. No, no, no. Hang on. Mayday. And I went back and politely, you know, explained everything. And then they kind of then they were able to understand what was actually happening was the deception and the manipulation of a person to categorize them as evil, as a scapegoat, as a villain. So, um, while yes, you do you can read this to get a better picture, a better understanding, I do feel like the musical so far and the movies so far are doing a a decent job at making it more easily digestible for the everyday consumer to then explore these concepts and ideas. They obviously can get mistransated as I just so explained unfortunately, but they are there if people will take a moment to step back and think about them as more than just some entertainment and singing for two hours. Yeah. And I don't dis like I don't disagree with that. I think that maybe what I'm trying to say is that I could see how the movie or the play could be easily misinterpreted. Yeah. Whereas just like that. Yeah. Whereas the book, you can't you can't interpret it. Like there is no way. Like I don't know how you could read it and misinterpret it. Like it's like it's not subtle even at all. Here comes watch out. So totally I feel like that's more of what I meant. Like Yeah. Okay. It would be nearly impossible to read Wicked the book and not understand exactly what you were just saying, you know, and because I mean those themes were like really picked apart heavily throughout the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. So, and more and a lot more themes. not there's kind of just a simple political theme going on in the musical and the movies. Whereas like literally that laundry list we gave you earlier is what's happening in the book. And I I guess I don't mean simple. I mean like uh very narrowed down to just a couple themes cuz they only got so much time. Well, yeah. It would be impossible to fit all of that into I mean, you know, the same thing could be said about like The Hunger Games, too, though. You know what I mean? Oh, totally. Totally. And I I changed my perspective once I saw once I read the books after seeing the movies is that I think maybe what you're referring to to me is Twilight as an extension of fun because they're just different. You know, I like Twilight now because they're so silly and Oh my god. Okay, as a complete like side tangent literally. Okay, so my sister and I went to go see The Long Walk, which is the new uh horror movie out by Stephen King. Um haven't had a chance to read the book yet. The movie is extremely dystopian and very sad and depressing, just so you guys know. Um, it's it's horror, but not really. Like, yeah. So, go into it, look up maybe some trigger warnings. I didn't know what to expect going into it. And boy howdy. Okay, so u anyway, not the point of this. When I was in line, I was like, "Ooh, you know how they're showing all the Twilight movies at the end of the month for the 20th anniversary?" I was like, "Well, I'm going to check and make sure this isn't like getting close to sold out cuz I don't want to like, you know, risk it." And the lady was like, "Literally, someone bought two tickets. That's it." I'm like, "Okay, I'm safe." Okay. Last night, I literally had a dream that I got a whole bunch of people together. We go to see Twilight on his 20th anniversary. We're all pumped. We're excited. We get like 10 minutes in and the power goes out and they're like, "Sorry, you guys have to go home. It's canled." Like what was the point of this dream? That's a nightmare. I know. Rude subconscious. Anyway, I'm I'm like, "Okay, that better not happen in real life. I need to see my Twilight." Yeah. So, on that note, Yeah. Here we are. Yep. There you go. Yeah. There we go. Here we are. Here we are. Where are we? Well, let's wrap this up, guys. this time, this day with an unhinged smasher pass cuz we got to leave on a high note. Yeah. Do you have one for me? Are you ready for it? Okay. I have a random I have a random one that was inspired by you actually earlier. Ooh. Okay. Uh, Smasher Pass. Fred Durst. [Laughter] Hard pass. Really? Really? Even back then. Even back in in the day. Yeah, that's crazy. He was a smash for me back then. And it and today it was so funny. Very It's actually more today. More smashable today cuz he's very like Adam Sandler, don't give a crap vibes, which I like I get. That's cool, man. But he seems very like like my sister and I were like looking him up cuz they have like new music coming out right now. In case you guys didn't know, dude still moves around the stage like Yeah, that's what I saw him like performing. I was like, "Get it, pajama man." Like, well, I was like, "He's still like he's still got it." I was like, "He must be like super healthy, drinking smoothies, going on." He's not that old. He really isn't. I think I looked it up. I'm pretty sure he's my husband's age. So, but I was like, "Let me look it up. Hang on." Well, I guess what I was thinking of is like, you know, when we saw the used, it's like I don't know. I think of stuff like that where I'm like, Bert's not doing so good. You know what I mean? I don't know. Oh, no. He's 50. I mean, he's still not old, but he's 55, so he's older than my husband. Good for you rocking out as hard as you once did. I think the key is cuz he kind of made his money and then it seemed like he kind of like left, right? Like disappeared for a The key in the industry is make your money and run and then like come back later and it is better. I mean, look at Elvis. You got works to death. Michael Jackson works to death. Literally, you know, go take your hiatus. Go enjoy your money and then come back. We're like comparing Fred Durst to Elvis. I mean, I'm not, but I'm just saying if you're wondering why he's still hopping around, fine. It's cuz he is. He set boundaries. Well, I guess Elvis was pretty old, but but I mean, he was really not doing well. So, that's what I'm saying. Alcohol. We'll do that. So, yeah. Well, it looks like Fred Durst is like a healthy dude. Like I said, it looks like he like goes on a jog every morning in his like matching tracksuit. Elvis was only 42 when he died. Oh my god. That's how old my husband is. That's a great comparison. Not in musical ability, but in being worked to death. Yeah. And alcohol is bad and drugs and throwing, you know, medications to keep you up all night, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Addiction will do it. I mean, I actually don't know anything about Fred Durst. I don't know what he's if he has been addicted to anything. I don't know. It seemed like though whatever move he made worked out for him. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. And what a weird t. What a weird. But it was funny because my sister pulled him up and she was like, "Oh, he's still pretty good-looking." I was like, "But does he have the the soul patch?" because that's an automatic pass for me. And he does it. He just he just has a nice gray beard now. Look at that. Yeah. Look at that. That's why he's more smashable now. Yeah. Cuz he's like just an aged wine. 42. I can't get over the fact that Elvis was only 42 years old. I'm Elvis. Did you know that? What' you say? I'm named after Elvis. Did you know that? A Aaron. Mhm. Yeah. That's sweet. Yeah. My You like Elvis? No. My mom is like obsessed with me. No, but people are going to be mad at me. But it's like I'm sorry. I'm not going to lie. I don't like go listen to Elvis. Yeah. Well, we could really piss some people off today and it's not about books being political. That's Elvis comment. Or it's like the fact that I You don't like Elvis? I don't like the Beatles. I can appreciate them. Whoa, whoa, whoa. For what they've done for the music industry, but I don't put their music on. I do. I don't I don't enjoy it. Yeah. But you don't want to put Elvis on. I would put Elvis on. Yeah. So that's why we're different in this department. To bring it back to musicals though, across the universe didn't musical. Obsessed. Yeah. See, we're not exact carbon copies of each other. There you go, guys. Proof. Proof in the pudding. Okay. All right. What do you have for me? Settle a debate. Smash or pass? House. Remember the guy who played House? Yeah. Yeah. My college roommate was like really obsessed with that show. Um Yeah. Uh, I'd say uh, that's hard for me because I feel like I his personality is a smash. He's very grumpy. He's very grumpy. Super smart. Yeah. I'm going to say smash. Solves a lot of cases. I'm going to say smash. Why not? He has a cool cane. Cool cane. Yeah. That's what does it for me. Yeah. Bring Yeah. Him as an actor. No. But him as house smash. Yeah. Him as house specifically. Exactly. Specifically, cuz he also was the guy in 101 Dalmatians like the one. That's right. He did such a good job but not as Yeah, for sure. It's great. He's a good actor covering all of our bases. Justice for that guy. Yeah, we just like to be wellrounded over here, you guys. 42 years old. Elvis, that's too young. Too young. You're still stuck on that. If you learn anything today, take that take that with you. Guys, listen to this podcast episode. Elvis was 42 any time. Did you know that? That's crazy. Anyways, you guys, if you liked this, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe if you haven't yet. Anywhere like this favorite podcast, including YouTube, we will be having for the next five weeks, two episodes a week. And hey, maybe I'm counting my ducks before they hatch with the chickens, but there may be another bonus episode covering a very popular book coming out somewhere in there because we don't seem like we can cut out anything else in our schedule, but we need to cover this one. Mhm. So, make sure you're subscribed and followed and go ahead and leave a review if you have time. Really helps us out a lot. Follow us on Instagram, Tik Tok, Besties of Books Podcast everywhere. We kept you long enough though. Yep. So, today we say ado. Ad do. We'll see you next Tuesday and Friday. One more wavy arm. Bye. [Music]