Meanies

This weekend my family and I took a trip into the city to watch the play Wicked. It was amazing! From the beginning to the end the story kept the audience at the edge of their seats and full of laughs. If you are unfamiliar with the play and without ruining the ending, it is the story about the relationship between the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North before Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, came into the picture. Growing up, the Wizard of Oz was definitely part of my vocabulary. I remember wanting to be the Good Witch of the North one year for Halloween and those highly coveted ruby slippers from Dorothy’s feet was part of my everyday wardrobe. But after seeing this play, and learning about the friendship between the two witches, I realized that the Wicked Witch wasn’t so bad after all. In the play, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) is very different from her peers around her. She is so different that even her own father does not acknowledge her as his daughter. But despite it all, she held her head high and fought for what she believed in while everyone laughed and talked behind her back. This got me to think about how too often, being different is hard to overcome in such a ruthless society. We forget our own voice and conform to the voices of others. Last Thursday I was coming back from class and a little person passed by me and the group of people behind me after passing her too started snickering and made the comment "dude, she will make for a good footstool”. It was completely mean and uncalled for.