'Wicked: For Good' is Here, and We're Focusing on All the Wrong Things

Wicked: For Good is, arguably, the biggest movie release of 2025, and that’s a big deal. 

For the uninitiated: Hi, I'm Zara, and I've been obsessed with Wicked since the musical made its Broadway debut in 2003. And I’m going to tell you why it’s a big deal that this movie is such a big deal. 

At its core, Wicked has always been about the power of women. Those are stories we don't often see in a mainstream way. I understood this as a teenager watching the show for the first time, but now, as a grown woman, I see the many, many layers of commentary woven throughout the story.

It's not just the story of Wicked that puts the power of women, of female advocacy and female friendship, at the forefront. It's also the fact that this is a Hollywood juggernaut in which two women take the lead. How often do we see that? 

When Wicked (the first installment of the film) dropped last year, we finally found ourselves having these important conversations about the female power of it all, the fact that finally (finally!!!) the role of Elphaba, a woman who is a perpetual outsider because she has green skin is played by a woman of color (because like…maaaayyyyybe a WOC understands this experience better than anyone?). Of course, much of that was overshodowed by speculation that the two female stars were feuding...which then blurred into commentary about how they're "too close" and "co-dependent". Like...can we win? Ever?

This year, with the second’ installment’s drop, most of the discourse I’m seeing has more to do with the stars’ bodies than it does with these larger themes.

A certain publication even ran an article about the “very thin elephant in the room”, referencing the stars bodies, which, according to the article, have become smaller over the course of Wicked’s press tour. 

Listen, there’s something to this. Young girls idolize the women of Wicked, and in an Ozempic-loving world, it is concerning to think about what messages they’ll take away from only seeing very thin bodies in pop culture. 

At the same time, these conversations just don’t feel productive. They don’t propose solutions, instead they just make women scapegoats for a larger problem. And they do the thing we’ve also done: They dehumanize women by turning their bodies into fodder for commentary and criticism.

We can talk about body image and beauty standards, but in this particular conversation, we’ve lost the plot.