Form in the Wizard of Oz

    The Wizard of Oz was directed by Victor Fleming in 1939. In this movie our heroine Dorothy Gale feels that her pet Toto is being treated unfairly and she is being ignored. She longs to visit a place where dreams come true. She gets her wish when a tornado dumps her house in Oz. But she instantly wants to go home. With the help of three new friends she defeats a wicked witch, uncovers the deception of the wizard who can help her get home, and discovers that the power to get home has been inside her all along.

    The Wizard of Oz follows the form of a musical. As each step of Dorothy’s journey progresses we learn something new and then there is a song before the journey continues. This form guides the viewer along and as well as fulfilling our expectations so much that the only place it doesn’t occur (when Dorothy and her friends leave the Emerald City to go to the Witch’s castle) leaves a huge and ominous gap that helps change the tone immediately.

    The film also fulfills some of our expectations from prior experiences. The good witch is beautiful, the bad witch is ugly. What is so humorous to me about this is that Glinda and the Munchkins do not know at first whether or not Dorothy is good or bad, which in a large way is an insult. She also does not have a broom as they expect so she has to use the yellow brick road to reach her destination.

    The Wizard of Oz could have several meanings. One possible referential meaning is Kansas is boring and normal being in black and white and Oz is obviously an exciting escape being in color. Dorothy’s return to Kansas and black and white is a return to normalcy. An obvious explicit meaning to the film is that home is always where your heart is even if you long to be somewhere else while you are there. An implicit meaning that I’ve always seen is that none of us need God, that he is a phony like the wizard and all of his powers are smoke and mirrors. The film strongly emphasizes the fact that all one needs is inside one’s self. But as with many great films one cannot watch the Wizard of Oz without taking away any hidden meaning; the film may only do it more subtly that some.