Prep School: Elements of Oz

Recommended readings to accompany the Indefinite Article by R. Luke Dubois.

Ranjit S. Dighe, The Historian’s Wizard of Oz: Reading L. Frank Baum’s Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory. Praeger, 2002

Steve Dixon, Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation. The MIT Press, 2015.

Shannon Jackson and Marianne Weems, The Builders Association: Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater. The MIT Press, 2015.

Jay Scarfone and William Stillman, The Road to Oz: The Evolution, Creation, and Legacy of a Motion Picture Masterpiece. Lyons Press, 2018.

Evan I. Schwartz, Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

The 1939 cinematic classic The Wizard of Oz is a touchstone of gay culture – but why? Theories abound, from Queen Judy to coded language to the Cowardly Lion’s fabulous makeover look.

It’s clear that the resonance of The Wizard of Oz continues today. Here are some more recent callbacks to the show from queer creators: Todrick Hall fulfills his life long obsession with the classic film by creating and starring in a feature-length visual album. And Taylor Mac discusses the choice of “judy” as a pronoun.

Judy Garland’s famous rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow is widely understood – without any single, definitive source – as one of the reasons The Wizard of Oz resonates so strongly in gay culture. The rainbow was officially integrated into queer iconography with the creation of the iconic rainbow flag.

The rainbow flag was created in 1978 by activist Gilbert Baker, who saw the need for a unifying symbol of gay pride. The original flag had 8 stripes – hot pink and turquoise were cut from later iterations due to production costs – and was hand-dyed and sewn at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco, CA. In May 2017, Baker added an additional 9th stripe to his original flag – lavender, to symbolize diversity – as a response to the Trump presidency.

In June 2017, the city of Philadelphia added a black and a brown stripe to the commonly used 6-stripe rainbow flag, to signify the city’s commitment to “more outward-facing advocacy for LGBTQ people of color.” This is now known as the Philly Pride Flag, or the More Color More Pride Flag.

Philadelphia and its Pride campaign’s addition of two stripes to the rainbow flag comes amidst the city’s underlying problem with racial discrimination in its gay bars.

Read more about the flag, and subsequent racist backlash against its adoption in Philadelphia.