If I’m going to be honest, then I have to admit that I was never really a fan of movies growing up. The fact that my major is media and communications is quite ironic considering I never really dabbled in media, such as movies and shows, before. It was not until my junior year of college that I began to really get into movies. I started to realize how great they were and the potential they held. All of it was so magical and full of wonder.
I always felt out of place when I was growing up. It was as if I was a puzzle piece with a broken edge that always kept getting discarded. That is a feeling that a child should never have to feel, but somehow that feeling is universal – no matter how much a parent or guardian might try to protect their children from that god-awful feeling. Almost all of us know the feeling of wallowing in self-hatred, pacing like a ghost, and wondering if it ever gets better.
I didn’t realize it when I was growing up, but movies show us that it does get better and I regret not getting into movies sooner because of that. Movies show us the possibility of realities that we would have never even imagined otherwise. So, if you never got into movies, now is the time to start and I would start with Wicked.
Over break, I decided to buy a ticket to see the movie Wicked – starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Ervio. Wicked is about a girl who’s misunderstood because of her green skin and her name is Elphaba. Elphaba decides to attend a school called Shiz in order to watch over her younger sister. In doing so, Elphaba meets Glinda, who desires popularity. An unlikely bond forms between the two. However, their bond gets tested when they encounter the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba and Glinda are forced to go on different paths in their lives to discover who they are.
I didn’t expect it, but Wicked turned out to be one of my favorite movies that I have ever watched. Everything about it was just so good. Wicked made you engrossed and it made you feel every emotion imaginable for the characters, plot, and place. Wicked left me wonderstruck and in a trance all the home.
Never once did I realize how much I needed a movie like Wicked until I saw it. Wicked was a movie so full of magic, friendship, love, self-reflection and philosophical questions that kept you engaged until the very end. The movie left me so verklempt that tears were coming out of the corner of my eyes by the end. The movie was over two hours long, slow and compassionate. It felt like reading a love letter that was written from your younger self. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like for the actors to be playing the characters because just watching it alone felt extremely emotional.
When we are kids, our emotions feel so heavy and some of them are tragic. It’s like doors are constantly getting slammed in our faces – shutting us out from our whole world. The universal feeling of being misunderstood and discarded can become so incessant that even just the possibility of things getting better can be hard to imagine. I didn’t know it at the time, but movies help us make it easier to imagine those hard possibilities, and that is exactly what Wicked did.
If you ever felt like a broken puzzle piece – and I know you have, watch Wicked. It will give you the hug you always wanted as a kid, the one you never told anyone you needed.
Featured Image by Allison Schmidt
