The color green has been synonymous with Wicked since the Broadway musical debuted in 2003. Now that the first part of the Wicked movie has hit streaming, the color green has only become that much more a part of the Wicked Witch of the West’s identity. But why is Elphaba green in Wicked actually? The real answer may be darker than you expect.
Why is Elphaba green in Wicked?
In the Wicked movie and Broadway musical, Elphaba became green because her mother, Melena Thropp, drank a green elixir when she became pregnant. The elixir was given to her by the mystery man she had an affair with while married to Elphaba’s father, Governor Thropp of Munchkinland. It’s presumed that the elixir had an effect on Melena’s pregnancy, leading Elphaba to become green when she was born.
“Have another drink, my dark-eyed beauty,” the mystery man sings to Melana in “No One Mourns The Wicked.” He continues, “Have another drink of green elixir.” In the Wicked Broadway musical, the mystery man — who is also Elphaba’s biological father — is revealed to be the Wizard of Oz. The movie and Broadway musical portray Elphaba’s mother’s affair with the Wizard of Oz as consensual, while the book depicts it as sexual assault, with the Wizard using the green elixir to drug Melana to have sex with her.
Elphaba’s green skin color is also believed to be a metaphor for racism as seen in how Elphaba’s skin color made her an outcast in Oz from the moment she was born, including with her own family. When Elphaba attends Shiz University, her skin color also makes her the victim of prejudice and bullying by other students.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in April 2022, Cynthia Erivo, who played Elphaba in the Wicked movie, explained that she actually wanted her skin to be painted green in the film instead of using CGI to be closer to Elphaba’s experience. “[Director Jon M. Chu] asked me at one point if I wanted to be actually green or CGI green and I was like, ‘I’d like to actually be green because I’m not sure that the CGI will sit the way you need it to sit.’ I want it to still feel like it’s my skin,” she said, adding that she was “happy to sit in makeup for hours and hours to go green.”
She continued, “[It] will also help me when I look at myself and see a green person. I will feel like I’m playing this character as opposed to looking at myself as I am now and then they fill in the green. I think it will help me perform because I will know when I look at my hands, I’ll see someone who is green.”
Erivo also told Refinery29 of the importance of a line Elphaba says in the Wicked about how she didn’t become green because she’s seasick or ate grass. She’s always been green. “I really love those lines, because it immediately takes the ownership of who she is and what she is, and there’s a sort of bravery to it, even though there’s that vulnerability of making the joke before anyone else makes the joke,” Erivo said. “But to finish it with, ‘and yes, I’ve been green my whole life’ owns it all, and I think that’s something that I’ve learned to do over time, to really own all of who I am, and that not just what I look like, but what I am, my queerness — all of those things combined that make me who I am. And I think that quiet confidence that she has is something that I really wanted her to have. She has pride in who she is.”
She also told the site about how she related to Elphaba’s identity with her skin color. “I think I’ve had some time to reckon with the skin I’m in, and to be comfortable walking into a room and being the only one; people looking at me and not necessarily seeing beauty, but having to find that for myself and accept all of the things I am, find my own beauty and be able to call myself beautiful, regardless of what other people think,” Erivo said. “What I wanted for Elphaba was that when she walks into a room, the skin she’s in is not new to her. It’s something that she’s lived with her whole entire life, and so there has to be a confidence otherwise she would never leave the house. I felt like, why would she not be confident in what she looks like if it’s what she knows every single day?”
Wicked streams on Peacock.
