Wicked, explained

There’s a code of conduct for the multiplex experience, deliberately broadcast right before a movie: When the lights start to dim, we turn off our phones and end any side discussions. However, if dispatches of Wicked screenings around the country are any indication, this code isn’t being followed.

In the few days since the highly anticipated musical movie Wicked arrived in theaters, it’s been difficult to scroll through social media without seeing photos — if not entire scenes — of the film taken from patrons’ phones. In-theater recordings of Wicked’s signature number “Defying Gravity” are all over TikTok. One X user went viral for asking fans to post photos they had snapped during the movie. This immediately ignited a conversation among film critics and cinephiles about a lack of theater etiquette in the general public. But is it totally their fault?

Editor’s note, November 21, 2025, 10:25 am ET: As Wicked: For Good hits theaters today, we’re republishing this story, originally published November 30, 2024, about how Elphaba’s villainy stems from disdain for animal rights.

Everyone wants to hold space for “Defying Gravity,” the powerhouse anthem from Wicked, the Broadway musical-turned-movie blockbuster. But behind the in-your-face themes of female rivalry and friendship, unrequited love, and the unfortunate circumstance of being green, there’s a deeper undercurrent: the alienation that comes when you stand behind what you believe in.

Wicked, the movie musical based on the beloved Broadway show of the same name, is one of the biggest hits of the year, opening at No. 1 in North America over the weekend and already generating some early Oscars buzz. Audiences came in prepared to love Wicked’s famous power ballads and girl power core, but one aspect of the story seems to have caught people by surprise: its somewhat clunky yet remarkably durable political allegory.

“I noticed that Elphaba is like Kamala Harris and the Wizard is like Donald Trump,” one fan posted on Reddit. “A charismatic leader who gaslights a community that this woman is wicked just because she’s standing up for a marginalized group of people in the society, how could that be [political]?” director John M. Chu joked.

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Like a friendship between a popular blonde princess and a dour lime-skinned outcast, the story of Wicked is a bit more complicated than it looks.

Over the past few years, the public has stopped treating movie press tours like marketing fluff and started treating them like reality shows. These often tedious stretches of talk-show appearances, red carpets, and press junkets that have been part of the Hollywood grind for decades are suddenly getting as much attention on social media as the films themselves, with the stars’ interactions being picked apart by fans.

Since the social media frenzy surrounding the 2022 film Don’t Worry Darling, press tours have become sites of intense speculation often translating to full-blown scandals, from affair speculation from Anyone but You fans to the persistent rumors of everyone versus Justin Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us.