Cynthia Erivo, who plays the Wicked Witch in the Wicked movie, took offense to a fan-edited promotional poster for her upcoming film, sparking online discourse.
The movie Wicked, a film adaptation of the 2003 Broadway musical, tells the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, but with a sympathetic twist.
The Wicked Witch of the West, known as Elphaba in the movie, is played by Emmy-winning actress Cynthia Erivo. Glinda the Good is played by Ariana Grande and the Wizard is played by Jeff Goldblum. The movie presents Elphaba and Glinda as beyond their original framing of “good” and “bad” witches, with Elphaba shown as a misunderstood outcast.
The reason for the controversy lies with a fan re-making the movie poster to look more like the Broadway poster. In the Broadway musical poster from 2003, Glinda is seen whispering into Elphaba’s ear, with Elphaba smirking and her witch hat covering her eyes. For the 2024 Wicked movie poster, it was recreated to show both the characters’ faces fully, meaning Elphaba’s eyes were not covered.
While showing both stars on the poster didn’t seem wrong to the film’s marketing department, many fans of the Broadway musical felt otherwise, saying that the image had lost its impact. This caused one fan to decide to edit it to resemble the original.
The edit made Glinda’s hand further raised to fully cover the side of her face and Elphaba’s eyes completely covered by the shadow of her hat. After posting it, Erivo saw it and was not amused about it in the slightest.
On Instagram, Erivo reposted the edited movie poster, stating, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting … None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
Erivo went on to say how the original Broadway poster was an illustration, adding that “I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer …because, without words we communicate with our eyes. Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
While the director of the film jumped to show his support of Erivo on Instagram, many fans were surprised by this extreme response, as the fan edit was not made as an insult towards Erivo.
The fan who had made the movie poster edit quickly deleted the post after seeing how it was taken as offensive by Erivo, but not before many people had already reposted it. People online made memes and jokes about how Erivo took offense to the edit made.
When co-actress Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, was asked what her opinion was on the controversy during an interview, she stated, “I think it’s very complicated,” but that “this is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits.”
A couple of days after the drama started, the fan who posted the edit reposted it, stating that they meant no harm by it. Specifically they said, “I never meant to cause any harm and the poster is just a homage to the original broadway poster, just like the movie’s recreation is.”
They concluded stating, “Cynthia is valid in having her feelings on the matter, and I’m also valid in wanting to keep my version of the poster up as I truly meant no harm with it and just made it as a way to show love for the original.”
Did actress Cynthia Erivo overreact? Or was this Wicked’s marketing team’s way of advertising the film by stirring up drama?
