The Times has been running an interesting blog lately called The Stone. It's a forum for modern philosophers to take up pretty much any topic they choose – linguistics, ethics, boxing, business, the nature of philosophy itself – and run it through its paces. Some of them have been exhilarating, funny, entertaining, thought-provoking.
I found the most recent blog entry insufferable, however. In it, a professor of philosophy from the University of Chicago named Robert Pippin goes on for paragraphs about how the teaching of literature in academia has become needlessly convoluted. (I love needlessly convoluted essays about needlessly convoluted topics, don't you?) He advocates (I think) for something he calls “naive reading,” which apparently means reading for pleasure.
Man, I could have written the same thing much more briefly. Something like this: “Hey, folks! You can read a book or watch a movie purely for pleasure. You don't need to parse it or pull it apart, if you don't want to.”
But sometimes I like pulling things apart.
Here is my all-time favorite off-the-wall interpretation. I heard a version of this a long time ago. I've thought about it for many years. It's wonderful.
So anyway: “The Wizard of Oz.” The movie, not the book. Thinking about it, now? Okay.
First of all: both Kansas and Oz are run by women. Kansas is run by Aunt Em and Miss Gulch, who are at odds with each other. The Kansas men (Uncle Henry, the three hired men, and Professor Marvel) are nonentities. Oz is also run by women: the two Wicked Witches (one of whom gets killed by Dorothy as soon as she gets there) and Glinda. The Wizard doesn't count; we find out later that he's just a fake anyway.
Dorothy is growing up. She's maybe thirteen or fourteen in the movie, right on the edge of womanhood. She runs away from home in Kansas, because Aunt Em and Miss Gulch won't let her keep her dog; she rebels against the ruling matriarchy. Then the tornado happens, and she ends up in Oz. And what's the first thing she does? She kills one of the Wicked Witches. She “liberates” the Munchkins. She becomes, in Glinda's words, the “national heroine” of Munchkinland.
And what's her prize? Red shoes. Red. The color of blood. Beginning of womanhood. Are you following me?
Dorothy's on her way to becoming a powerful woman in her own right. She shows the Wizard up to be a fake, all on her own. She kills the Wicked Witch of the West almost by accident. She's braver than any of her companions.
Oz is a great growth experience for Dorothy, but she keeps saying that she “wants to go home.” She doesn't want to be a grown-up after all, or independent. She just wants to go home and let Aunt Em take care of her. And she uses the ruby slippers to wish for that very thing, and the wish comes true. “And I'll not going to leave here, ever ever again,” she sobs, back in black-and-white Kansas.
Not exactly a happy ending, is it? Dorothy is going to be under Aunt Em's thumb for the rest of her life. She had her chance to be an independent woman, and she lost it. She wished it away.
Let's look again at what happens in Oz. Dorothy gets lots of “good advice” from Glinda – another powerful woman – but Glinda very gently points Dorothy back in the direction to Kansas. Glinda doesn't want Dorothy in Oz longer than necessary, does she? Dorothy rubs out Glinda's competition for her, and then Glinda politely shows Dorothy to the door and tells her it's time to go home. And Dorothy meekly does as she's told.
And how about Dorothy's three “companions”? Back in Kansas, they were at least human. They weren't beautiful, but they were at least marriageable; they strutted around and showed off for Dorothy back on the farm. In Oz, however, two of them are walking talking inanimate objects, and one of them is a lion. No marriage material here.
One last thing. Everybody in Kansas turns up in Oz. Miss Gulch is the Wicked Witch of the West; the three hired men are the three “companions”; Professor Marvel is the Wizard. (Well, Uncle Henry doesn't turn up, although I always the Wicked Witch's guard who says “She's dead” was the same actor; I find on imdb.com, however, that the guard was an actor named Mitchell Lewis, may he rest in peace.)
Where's Aunt Em?
She only turns up once in Oz. Dorothy is trapped in the Witch's castle, and the hourglass is running out. Dorothy is hugging the Witch's crystal ball and crying, and suddenly she has a vision of Aunt Em back in Kansas, crying “Dorothy! Dorothy!”
And then Aunt Em turns into the Wicked Witch.
We already know that Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch are the same person. Now the Witch is equated with Aunt Em. All three (not to mention Glinda) have a vested interest in keeping Dorothy subservient – keeping Dorothy down on the farm, in a word. Preventing her from growing up. Preventing her from getting married and striking out on her own.
Because “there's no place like home.”
How do you like them apples, Professor Pippin?
