An Unexpected Opinion — Jillian Ilana

For a long while everyone knew there were going to be two Wicked movies, part 1 and part 2. For a long while everyone knew that Ariana Grande would be playing G(a)linda opposite Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. It wasn’t until recently, as in last week, that everyone learned who was cast in the supporting roles. Let’s review:

Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero
Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible
Jeff Goldblum as The Wizard
Ethan Slater as Boq
Marissa Bode as Nessarose
Bowen Yang as Pfannee
Bronwyn James as ShenShen
Keala Settle as Miss Coddle
Aaron Teoh as Avaric
Colin Michael Carmichael as Professor Nikidik

All in all, in my opinion, fantastic casting. I do want to focus on the decisions made for two roles in particular: Nessarose and Boq.

Image Description:
A headshot of Marissa Bode, a woman, wheelchair user with curly brown hair, smirking, wearing a yellow Polo shirt.

For those of you not so familiar with the story of Wicked, Nessarose, the character, is a wheelchair user. To the best of my knowledge, Nessarose on Broadway has never been portrayed by an actor that is a wheelchair user (I do not know the casting decisions made regarding West End, National Tours, and Regional productions). I was worried that the movie was going to follow in Broadway’s footsteps and cast a non-disabled actor for the part. Marissa Bode is not only a beautiful singer, she is a wheelchair user. As a disabled person it is amazing to see this disability representation, this authentic disability representation. Frankly, it’s about time.

Image Description:
A headshot of Ethan Slater, a man with red hair looking straight to camera, wearing a grey Henley in front of a grey backdrop

As for the role of Boq. In the story of Wicked, Boq is a Munchkin. Typically, on stage he has been played by an actor who is shorter than the rest of the ensemble, though not by a person with dwarfism. Ethan Slater, who is an incredibly talented Broadway actor who originated the role of Spongebob in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, is 5’7”. As a little person, I always say that I’m not the best judge of height, as almost everyone is taller than me, so I cannot say with absolute certainty whether or not Ethan can be considered short (I have been told by others that 5’7” is below average). What I can say is that I think Ethan is perfect for the role.

Immediately after the news broke, I went to Twitter to see other people’s excitement over the casting news. There was one Tweet in particular that caught my attention. To paraphrase, a member of the disabled community and lover of Broadway commented that, with the casting of Boq, the creative team had the opportunity to cast authentically and chose not to, saying that there was no excuse in 2022 to not cast a person of short stature considering the fact that they did so in the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz. Speaking for myself, as a person of short stature, I respectfully disagree.

Let me explain.

As I explained in a previous blog post (that I linked to when replying to the Tweet last week), there are ways to tell The Wizard Of Oz story without casting people with dwarfism as the Munchkins. In fact, according to The Wizard Of Oz novel written by L. Frank Baum, the original source material, the Munchkins are described as being the same height as Dorothy. Let me say that again. The Munchkins are described as being the same height as Dorothy. Moreover, according to the Wicked source material, Munchkins are simply people from Munchkinland. Therefore, Elphaba and Nessarose are Munchkins. Their father is the governor of Munchkinland. But they have never been portrayed by actors with dwarfism.

So, why am I okay with the fact that they did not cast a little person as Boq?

I’ve said it time and time again, representation is powerful. How we tell a story matters. Because of the 1939 film, the portrayal of Munchkins by people with dwarfism has continuously perpetuated harmful stereotypes towards the dwarfism community - that we are human-like, mythological, fantastical creatures rather than human. If the creative team followed the example set by The Wizard Of Oz and cast a little person as Boq, a Munchkin who is constantly dismissed, looked down upon by all the lead characters, whose name Glinda can never remember, it would sustain the harmful stereotypes associated with the Munchkins. The Wicked movies will not only have the power to tell a beautiful story, they will also have the power to challenge and change these stereotypes, hopefully for good (Broadway fans, see what I did there?).

Speaking for myself, I support casting an average-height actor as Boq only for the fact that it would tell present audiences and future generations that being a Munchkin has nothing to do with stature.