The thing most apparent to me about The wizard of Oz was that the movie adaptation was completely different from the book. The agenda of both these fables were completely different. I feel that the movie has more to work with psychologically. So I am going to psycho analyze the movie adaptation of The wizard of Oz. The notion of "double consiousness"which was coined by W. E. D. Du bois (He used this to describe how can the ideal of African American in post-slavery America is not possible) is what most crosses my mind when thinking about this movie.
Double consciousness- is an awareness of one's self as well as an awareness of how others perceive that person. The danger of double consciousness resides in conforming and/or changing one's identity to that of how others perceive the person.
"There's No place like home?"
In the movie we get a vivid visual of Kansas looking just as Grey as it was describe in the book. It was a "dust bowl" literally dry with devistation. But then something wonderful happens and a teenage Dorthy winds up blown into a very wonderful place that looks and feels magical. With munchkins and plenty of color. Although this place seems very magical it has all the very real elements of the real world. Its very unsafe. Dorthy commites two murders and has a hit out on her since day one of entering Oz. She and her male gang of friends band together and protect one another. (they even have weapon scarecrow has a gun) the gun symbolizes the reality of Oz.
So how can Oz in all Double Consiousness be both a real place full of life threataning dangers and characters who resemble many of her home life people back in Kansas and at the same time be a dream?
Girl or Woman? So the book describe Dorthay as a small child. But in the movie we see a young adolecent dorthy who had much beauty in fact she is the most youngest and beautiful girl in both Kansas and Oz. (Even the beautiful good witch Glenda is old) In the opening scene of the movie we see Dorthy interacting with 3 local nieghbors whom are all three middle age who aren't very attractive and seem sexless. Dorthy is singing and complaing to thes men getting advice about her dog toto being taken away. But in my opinion she is doing all she can to recieve thier full attention being even flirtasious playinf "damsel in destress' (falling into the pigpin)
Then again at the same token we see Dorthy being very nieve and believing in the "fortune teller" about aunt Em sickness. And later she is certain that this place Oz and that her lil adventure was most real. even as she awakes to tell her story just a s a child would anxiously fabricate a story. So how can Dorthy be both a flirtasious woman and a nieve child at the same time?
So this is how the notion of double consiousness plays into the movie version of the Widard of Oz. in my opinion.
Love that you brought in double consciousness into the conversation. I had heard of it before but never really knew what it was. It helps me think that Dorothy was able to view herself and how she viewed the world through her dream world of Oz. I wonder if Dorothy learned anything. There seems to be so many conflicting ideas and I'm left to wonder if she needed to learn anything at all. For instance perhaps the reader is left saying, "well I don't wanna be like Dorothy. Giving up what I want for people that have never really treated me fairly."
ReplyDeleteIts like my mom always says, "You got to put yourself first."
I found it very interesting as well that the book and the movie told different stories with seemingly different Dorothy's, her personaliity and age anyways. Double Consciousness really does play a part in the story, but I see it as affecting Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man more than Dorothy. They are all convinced that without a brain, a heart, or courage, that they think they don't have, they aren't good for anything, when in reality they solve almost all of the problems that the group encounters on the way to see the Wizard. People told them for so long and got it into their minds that they were worthless, when in the story they seemed brighter than Dorothy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both you and March :)
ReplyDeleteReally, really interesting, Tibrisha. What DuBois meant by double consciousness in the context he was using it is racial consciousness--being aware that you are a person of a particular race and what that means internally (or becoming aware of it, since getting to think of themselves as people with identitities at all was pretty new for African-Americans in the 1920s), and also being even more aware of how other people, particularly white people, look at you and finding yourself conforming to what they expect of you.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting to apply to Dorothy. In the movie we're seeing a 'double consciousness' of a somewhat different sort that DuBois meant, not racial, but psychological--sort of a split screen of Dorothy's conscious and unconscious, her dismal waking life and her brighter and scarier dream life. But I wonder what you'd get if you took DuBois's original sense and applied it to Dorothy's gender--waking Dorothy as a young girl barely aware of her identity and what she needs, only knowing that she wants to escape but equally knowing she has nowhere to go, and Dream Dorothy, who is, as you quite rightly point out, extremely dangerous, capable of murder, and who hangs out with a gang of male friends who are armed and learn to discover in the course of their adventures just how dangerous they also are.
Really, really interesting analysis. Keep thinking this way!