‘Wicked’ Author Gregory Maguire Said Oz Is Similar to 1 Country

Most children’s books are forgotten immediately, but the best of them put a spell on adults. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is so good that it inspired numerous adaptations, including Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and the upcoming movie of the same name. Maguire revealed his opinion on why Oz isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

‘Wicked’ author Gregory Maguire explained why we keep returning to Oz

During a 2024 interview with Paste, Maguire discussed the enduring appeal of Oz, the setting of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its many sequels and adaptations. “Oz has always, I think, implied America, by the way that Baum designed it,” Maguire opined.

“But because Oz was originally made both broad and indistinct that has left people who came later, like MGM, like The Wiz, like me, like [Wicked musical writers] Stephen [Schwartz] and Winnie [Holzman], that has left us lots and lots of acreage in which we can find a patch that had not been developed, make it our own and claim to be just as American as any other iteration of Oz.”

Maguire compared Oz to the notion of American identity. “In the same way, every American says, ‘You know, I’m an American too,’” he added. “It’s been so endlessly renewable because its original depths and metrics were purposefully vague and purposely varied.”

Gregory Maguire was asked if he invented villain origin tales

Maguire’s version of Oz first appeared in the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Since then, it has become common for pop culture to give established villains sympathetic backstories. The Star Wars prequel films showed us that Dark Vader was once an innocent boy. Dracula Untold told us that the world’s most infamous bloodsucker loved his son. The Joker is a protagonist now. Every other Disney remake has to tell us why its bad guy has a point or two.

Maguire was asked if he took credit for popularizing villain origin stories. “I think that the fact that Wicked was so successful means that there’s been a lot more of that that’s been done by other artists,” he said. “But I think with all immense respect and gratitude to Winnie and Stephen for what happened in the play and how they decided to mount the story and tell it, I think that in fact the play, by a thin margin, manages to avoid turning Elphaba into a civilian saint.”

What ‘Wicked’ could do to our culture

So where does the world of Oz go from here? Baum’s original Oz books are in the public domain, so anyone can use its characters for any purpose. Judging by the intense marketing campaign behind Wicked, it looks like the movie is going to be a big hit. Will it inspire a new generation of artists to take their own balloon rides to Oz to interpret its setting and characters in new ways? Or will it inspire a new generation of villain origin stories? At this point, it feels like every villain has inspired a sympathetic portrayal, so the latter might be difficult.

If Oz is anything like the United States, it has the capacity to be recontextualized for centuries to come.