It’s not good.
Advertising for the upcoming Wicked movie starring Ariana Grande is everywhere at the moment. Every time I see it mentioned, I think about the one time I saw the musical on stage and how much I disliked it.
I like musicals, I’ve seen Hamilton and Hadestown in London, along with multiple stagings of Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables in New Zealand. Even if I’m not familiar with the show or music, live performances are always so electric that I thoroughly enjoy them. .
That was not my experience with Wicked.
Unlike with Hamilton or Hadestown, I hadn’t listened to the soundtrack on repeat for years before attending a performance. In fact, all I really knew was that the main character was green and it included that one song about being popular that kept getting pushed on me by the algorithms. Oh, and it was beloved and wildly, well, popular.
I went in with an open mind and heart, ready to be wowed.
I might have been too, if I hadn’t been so put off by the first appearance of Nessarose, Elphaba’s wheelchair-bound sister.
In that first scene she is infantilised by her father and sister. In her second scene she is pitied. It goes downhill from there.
Her character begins and ends with her disability .
I understand that in a musical there isn’t a lot of room for developing minor characters but that isn’t an excuse to limit a character to her disability.
Nessarose’s entire character is being disabled. She’s beautiful, but tragic because she needs a wheelchair. She is to be pitied because she can’t walk.
She can’t do anything for herself because she uses a wheelchair. She can’t get a date unless someone is manipulated into asking her, because she’s disabled. She has to trap an entire group of people to keep the man she loves with her…because she can’t possibly find someone to love her while she’s dealing with a disability.
Everything about her revolved around her disability. All anyone cares about when it comes to Nessarose is that she is disabled.
She needs a cure.
This is something that drives me nuts about disability representation, the idea that no one with a disability is fine they way they are. That we all are always pining for a cure. I lost my sight as an adult due to a genetic condition, there is currently no treatment, no cure. I’m not looking, holding out hope or praying for one. The other people I know who have disabilities, either from birth or later, are just living their lives with very little thought spared for cures.
In media representations however, as with Nessarose, every person with a disability is either looking for a cure or despairing the lack thereof. And as with Wicked, so are their families. Its as if the able bodied can’t comprehend with beng okay with imperfection.
Nessarose could have been an opportunity to give wheelchair users a chance at Broadway…but she needs to walk at the end. A missed opportunity that results in a sucky representation with a hefty dose of appropriation.
She’s evil, because she’s got a disability.
Now, don’t get me wrong, people with disabilities can absolutely be evil. But Nessarose is evil because she’s disabled, and that’s just so…bleugh. I don’t have the words.
By her last scene, she’s in a position of power. But she’s not corrupted by that power, her corruption started with her inability to walk.
It was such a missed opportunity, to underline the Wizard’s ‘power corrupts’ theme with Nessarose, if only her character went deeper than her disability.
We are more than our disability
None of my issues with the portrayal of Nessarose are unique to Wicked. Most media representation about a person with disability boils that person down to just their disability, as if those of us who travel through the world a little differently have no capacity for dimensions.
The main role for people with disabilities in media is to be an object of pity or to act as the catalyst for growth in another character. I suppose, that at least Nessarose isn’t the catalyst for anyone’s growth, she’s just pitiable and evil.
Maybe the movie will get it right
I don’t know what the movie writers have down with the character of Nessarose, but my hopes aren’t high. Hollywood doesn’t have a great track record. Although if anyone can recommend some TV shows or movies with decently represented disabled characters, I’d appreciate that.
