
The recent airing of The Wizard of Oz got me thinking about this movie's appeal to just about every gay man I know.
In fact, I don't know a gay man who doesn't absolutely adore this movie. Or one who hasn't seen it a million times. I even own the DVD. Let me amend that, I own the DVD with bonus footage, interviews with munchkins and fun facts. If I wasn't already gay, I'm pretty sure owning this would make me gay.
For as long as I can remember, I recall my parents talking about one of my distant cousin's as "a friend of Dorothy's"...I know now I had no idea what that meant then. And if you asked me why so many men idolize Judy Garland -- and by extension anyone she ever married, dated, sung with or anyone who came out of her loins -- I'm thinking it traces back to The Wizard of Oz. What else could explain such complete idoltry. There have been torch singers before and after Judy, but name one who has had her impact on the gay community. Barbra? Thought you might go there, but remember...she sang with Judy!
So while I'm watching the Wizard of Oz again, and looking with a critical eye, I'm still fascinated about the pureness of the story and the simplicity of the tale, even if you consider it's about a restless girl who commits two murders and whines for two hours about wanting to go back home to her less colorful and boring life around a bunch of people who mostly ignore her. And we are pulling for her! That's magic storytelling people!
After a million viewings, this movie's grasp on gay people finally made sense. We're only trying to fit in. We don't want to be ignored. Even if our lives lack color or purpose, we all deserve a rainbow. We know that along the way ... the men we choose to hook up with might be brainless, heartless and sometimes lack the courage of their convictions ... but we hope they will be ultimately good to us and, on the journey, do the smart thing, trust our hearts and stand up to injustice.
We hopes the witches in our lives could be easily vanquished. Dorothy dispatches people who get in her way with the ultimate ease. A house, a bucket of water. If it was only so easy in real life. It's also no accident that Dorothy wasn't longing to go home to biological parents or siblings. She was eager to get back to an aunt and uncle and some farm hands...message here? You create the family you wanna be with and nothing stops you from being with the family you want.
I was always troubled by two things in the movie ... as a kid and especially more now. One message is ... don't travel or explore because what you have in your backyard is probably better than what you will find out there. As a gay man, that is patently absurd. I hit the lottery, and I'm going to go around the world more than Columbus, next stop Romania!
And then there was that absurd piece of business when Dorothy is told by Glinda the Good Witch, that she always had the power to go home...on her own. Dorothy accepts this, and rather matter-of-factly...after she's been assaulted, attacked by trees and flying monkeys, threatened with death, nearly put into a coma by poppies (that's another blog people!) and scared within an inch of her life...and she just shrugs and clicks her heels.
Get me rewrite! You know the gay ending would have been Dorothy hauling off and slapping the crap out of Glinda...and she would have been justified. Small quibble.
But now I get, totally, why Dorothy is always going to be my friend.