The recreation of the renowned musical Wicked as a movie has had a lot of press leading to its release. It has been getting a lot of attention, especially with stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as the leads in the movie (Breihan, 2024). With lots of press comes audience opinions and reactions. One example of this was an individual’s reproduction of the new Wicked poster that was attempting to imitate the original musical’s wicked poster. audience member redoing the new Wicked poster because it is not exactly like the original musical poster. The audience member created a remake of the poster to have it match the original, causing Cynthia Erivo to be upset. She took to her social media to express how upset she was. She described the remake as being “degrading” and said “to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me” (Placido, 2024). Through the understanding of memes, digital technology, and the demonstration of misogynoir, the controversy is better conveyed. Cynthia Erivo had a right to have the reaction that she did and fans reacted harshly.
Memes and the Nature of Digital Culture
The original remake of the poster was a meme. It demonstrates Limor Shifman’s description of what is called “mimicry” and “remix” with memes. Mimicry involves the “practice of ‘redoing’.” This is a recreation of something, whether that’s a piece of art or a text, and the poster recreation also involves remixing. In Shifmans “Memes in Digital Culture” he also discusses how memes have been used to promote a range of ideas from harmless to hateful (Shifman, 2014). The memes that resulted from Cynthia Erivo getting upset about the poster were all condescending towards her, and although they could be seen as harmless, it diminishes her feelings. Many memes were saying that she needs to “chill out,” not taking her perspective into account (Placido, 2024). People continued to remix the original meme and even make AI videos of Cynthia Erivo fighting Ariana Grande; the videos were mocking her reaction (Placido, 2024).
Original Intent and Participatory Culture
Poe’s Law is also in play, where it describes that the original intent of a meme can’t always be known (Shifman, 2014). It is easy to play the original poster off as not intending to cause harm or make Cynthia Erivo feel bad, but there is no way to know the truth behind that. Shifman also talks about participatory culture (Shifman, 2014). This is the ability of an audience to have more agency and also produce their own content. When making the new poster for the movie and releasing it to the public, although not asked for their reaction, the audience had a strong one and conveyed it through the creation of the meme. Digital technology allows for them to create their own media based on their opinions of the poster. It allows audiences to interact with the media and celebrities to take that reaction and further it with their own reaction, continuing a cycle (Shifman, 2014). It poses the question about who actually becomes the participators or the producers.
Misogynoir and Erivo’s Response
In Moya Bailey's work on Misogynoir she talks about the coexistent racialized and sexualized violence that black women, nonbinary, trans, and agender people often face due to their interlocking oppression. The images that are seen in the media are often reinforcements of racism (Bailey, 2021). Cynthia Erivo’s reaction to the poster was met with diminishing remarks and people invalidating her identity. She feels strongly about the fact that she doesn't like her identity being erased. For years there has been erasure, devaluation, or hyper-scrutiny of Black women’s contributions and identities, especially in public and creative spaces (Bailey, 2021). In this situation whether intended or unintended there was literal erasure of Cynthia Erivo’s face by remaking the poster. She wanted to keep her eyes in the photo because she believed by staring right into the camera she could make a statement without words, but when you take that away she loses her ability to make that connection and communicate with the audience (Placido, 2024). When the audience afterwards made memes making fun of her reaction, it downplays her response. Whether her response is an overreaction or not, her feelings about her own identity are hers to have. Moya Bailey talks about how “digital resistance on social media platforms illustrate the ways of redefining representation [and] empower[ing] media creators to tell another story about their lives,” (Bailey, 2021, p. 11). It’s easy to look at what Erivo’s response was as an overreaction to a joke, or a blown out of proportion response to a fan paying homage, but using media like this is a way of demonstrating this digital resistance.
The Irony of a Story About Acceptance
The central irony in this controversy lies in the themes of Wicked itself. The musical tells the story of Elphaba, the misunderstood “Wicked Witch,” who is ostracized because of her difference. At its core, Wicked champions acceptance and challenges societal prejudice. Yet the backlash against Erivo’s response reveals a failure to embody these ideals.
Conclusion
This incident should prompt reflection, not ridicule. Wicked asks us to see beyond surface differences and embrace those who challenge the status quo. Fans of the story should take this message to heart by celebrating Erivo’s voice and acknowledging the harm in dismissing her feelings. Only by confronting the intersection of misogynoir and digital culture can we appreciate the message of the movie and understand Cynthia Erivo’s feelings. It is hard to gauge whether it was an overreaction of a response, and it is easy to say that the memes in response were just harmless jokes, but all of these opinions have repercussions. Eventually Cynthia Erivo did say that “she should have just talked to her friends”, but her feelings in the matter are still valid, and it is important that they are understood, no matter the media in which she expressed them.
References
Breihan, T. (2024). Ariana Grande’s “Wicked” press tour seems to be getting more attention than “wicked” itself. Stereogum. (2024, November 15). https://www.stereogum.com/2287712/ariana-grandes-wicked-press-tour-seems-to-be-getting-more-attention-than-wicked-itself/news/
Bailey, M. (2021). Introduction: What Is Misogynoir?. In Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (pp. 1-34). New York, USA: New York University Press. https://doi-org.proxy.library.upenn.edu/10.18574/nyu/9781479803392.003.0004
Placido, D. (2024, October 30). Cynthia Erivo’s “wicked” poster controversy, explained. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/10/21/cynthia-erivos-wicked-poster-controversy-explained/
Shifman, L. (2014). When Memes Go Digital. In Memes In Digital Culture (pp. 17–35). essay, MIT Press.
Tinoco, A. (2024, October 29). Cynthia Erivo reflects on blasting fan-made “wicked” poster she said degraded her: ‘I probably should have called my friends.’ Deadline. https://deadline.com/2024/10/cynthia-erivo-reflects-blasting-fan-made-wicked-poster-1236161563/
Universal Pictures. (2024). Wicked’ film key art with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande [JPeg]. Deadline. https://deadline.com/2024/10/cynthia-erivo-calls-out-fan-edited-wicked-poster-1236117755/
I found your op-ed extremely interesting, both your analysis but also the topic, as I am quite a fan of Wicked myself. While reading this something I was thinking about was how potentially competing fandoms are at play here. We have seen before how movie remakes of musicals cause some form of controversy. For example Mean Girls, as there are diehard Broadway fans who do not approve of the adaptations on screen. I believe that the original Wicked musical holds a large fandom that was watching this film with an extremely critical eye to make sure it held proper authenticity. Similarly, while reading your piece about Cynthia Erivo, I was lead to think about Penny's piece on fandoms. Specifically when she discussed how fans hold the capacity to police their own fandoms and how they will criticize any sign of deviance. Therefore, the creation of this "meme" deviated from what Cynthia Erivo and the larger Wicked film community desired, and therefore it received heavy backlash. In Penny's article she also discussed more broadly how fan culture can be explosive and rather dramatic. In this particular moment in pop culture, the "wicked" fandom desired to harness the original musical's aura while still having the film have its own unique flavor. This is difficult to accomplish but I believe they succeeded in doing so.
ReplyDeletePayton Handler
Alexa, this was such a well informed and clear approach to such an interesting and sensitive topic. I remember when that meme was circulating and I watched Cynthia’s response and people’s reactions to her response unravel in real time. It was disheartening to see to say the very least. I appreciate that you continue to validate her feelings throughout your piece and then have substantial sources to back up your stance.
ReplyDeleteYour discussion of the meme made me think back to Jenkin’s (1988) piece, “Star Trek rerun, reread, rewritten: Fan writing as textual poaching” (1988). I think people taking the original promotional poster for Wicked and trying to turn it into something else that better fits their personal vision is a great example of textual poaching. People took something that was not theirs and changed it which ultimately changed the creator’s meaning of it. Cynthia had a reason for posing the way she did and believed she was communicating with the audience through her eyes. When people changed the poster and removed her eyes, they changed the message being portrayed from the poster. This generated pleasure for people but took it away from Cynthia and everyone involved with the poster’s creation. If anything, this is a great example of how textual poaching can be very harmful.
Your op-ed was very informative and I think captures the depth of Cynthia’s feelings of frustration and anger very well.
-Yasheka Smith
I really enjoyed reading your take on the "Wicked" poster controversy! The way you tied in Shifman’s ideas about memes and participatory culture really got me thinking. It reminded me of Marwick and Lewis’s work on media manipulation, where they talk about how memes are used not just for fun but to push agendas and stir up strong reactions.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole idea of remixing and mimicry you mentioned is spot on. It’s wild how something as simple as a fan “redoing” a poster can snowball into such a big deal, especially when digital tools make it so easy to share and alter stuff. Your point about Cynthia Erivo’s feelings being dismissed hit me hard—there’s such a lack of empathy online sometimes. It reminded me of how Marwick and Lewis discuss trolls using emotional impact to provoke reactions. Even though the *Wicked* memes weren’t as calculated, the way people mocked her definitely had a similar effect of silencing and invalidating her.
What really stuck with me, though, was your mention of Erivo eventually saying she should’ve talked to her friends. That felt so real—like a reminder that behind all this digital noise, there are real emotions and people trying to make sense of it all. Your essay left me reflecting on how we interact online and whether we’re really as “participatory” as we think or just adding to the chaos.
-Ella Ray