Every Xmas it’s the same for me, that perennial annoyance comes into the terrestrial broadcasters schedules. Not the Queen’s broadcast, though as a committed republican that seems quite bad enough to me. Nor even the dire and dismal offerings known as “Xmas Specials”. I’m talking about a personal bugbear of mine; a film that is always shown around the Xmas period, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” made in 1939.
It may well be a children’s favourite, a film for young and old alike, an enduringly popular classic, all the usual descriptions of those films that feature every Yuletide can apply. I don’t intend to debate these points but to instead show you why the film is a travesty of the book from whence its story line came.
The book was first published at the turn of the twentieth century, the year 1900 to be precise, and was by a journalist and political activist named L. Frank Baum. I call the film a travesty for its totally ignoring the true nature of and purpose behind the book. All audiences who see the film will likely know of Baum’s seminal work is that it is apparently a children’s novel. The reality of the piece is far more than this bowdlerisation at the hands of Hollywood. Baum intended his work as a political allegory and wrote it for adults to be enlightened by it, not to have it be a fanciful amusement for children. Baum was greatly fascinated by the world of economic theory and distrusted the power of city financiers, he had created a new model for economic trade he called a “bimetallic dollar”, this was to be based on two metals as the term indicates, namely gold and silver. During the time of Baum’s adult life one of the main economic debates had been over whether to have a single gold standard or a bimetallic standard of gold and silver to make up the money supply.
The “gold standard” won the argument and was the cornerstone of world trade for some years.
The U.S. and many other Western countries adhered to the gold standard during the early 1900’s. Today, however, gold’s role in the world-wide monetary system is negligible. Britain abandoned the gold standard 1931; the USA abandoned it 1971. Holdings of gold are still retained because it is an internationally recognised commodity, which cannot be legislated upon or manipulated by interested countries. On August 15, 1971, the world entered the first era in its history in which no circulating paper anywhere was redeemable in gold, by anyone. At one point in time it was illegal for a U.S. citizen to own gold. President Richard Nixon of U.S. closed the “gold window.” This action broke the last tie between gold and circulating currency, resulting in our modern financial system which is called a “floating currency” system. I had best get back to the subject of this piece rather than giving you an economic theory lecture though!
Baum chose to put his side of the debate by means of satire. He created his story of a naïve and well meaning Kansas farm girl named Dorothy who was intended to represent his view of the average rural American citizen. He also seems to have used a character created by a popular orator of the time, Leslie Kelsey, nicknamed “The Kansas Tornado.” to fill out his own heroine’s details. His allusion continues with a “twister” whisking Dorothy and her lap dog Toto up into the air from her native Kansas and depositing them both into the fictional Munchkin Land. Once there the allegory is extended as they both set out on a torturous journey along the “Yellow Brick Road” to the capital city Oz. They encounter and are joined by a number of notable characters as the make their way along the road.
The Scarecrow Clearly this character represents the typical American farmer. At the time farming was a far more important sector of the US economy that it is currently and employed a great many more people as direct labour.
The Tin Man Here we have an allusion to typical factory workers, once again a key economic sector at the time and in our age too of course.
The Cowardly Lion This character is specifically targeted at a leading political figure of the time, one William Jennings Bryan. Baum believed that Bryan had the ability to act but that he lacked the courage of his convictions.
The entire journey to the city of Oz is an allegorical recreation of an actual historical event, the 1894 march of Coxey’s Army. A group of unemployed male workers marched on the American Capital City, Washington. They demanded fresh funds to generate employment for the “common man” in the form of a public issue of $500 million “greenbacks”. In a British context I would suggest that this is reminiscent of the Jarrow March of November 1st, 1936.The Wizard
An earlier Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) in type, Marcus Hanna is the specific person referenced to this allegorical character. Hanna was the real economic power behind the Republican Party at the time, though the US President, William McKinley, led it.
The Emerald City had its economic levers pulled by the Wizard, Hanna was known as the “Wizard of the Gold Ounce” the link here is clear enough as the “Gold Ounce” is abbreviated to give us “The Wizard of Oz”The Munchkins
Allusion yet again here, this time to “the simple minded people of the East who did not understand how the Wizard and his fellow financiers pulled the levers and strings that controlled the money, the economy, the government.” As Baum put it when questioned at a later date. In Baum’s book the citizens of Oz were required to wear glasses that were coloured green and attached to them by a gold buckle. These are further allusions to the greenback and to the gold standard.
The Wicked Witch of the West This allusion refers not to a person but the western culture of the time. Baum has his Witch enslave the yellow “Winkies”; this refers to the aims of the “imperialist” Russian Administration of the time. The Russians had captured the Philippines from Spanish rule and were refusing demands from the populace for the granting of independence.
It was Baum’s assertion that all the good people of America need do was to expose the “Wizard” to full publicity. He believed that this would result in a worldwide realisation that they were frauds and adoption of the bimetal standard of gold and silver as the economic system of choice.
He wished to illustrate this resulting in the following:The “Scarecrow” coming to realise his intelligence.
The “Cowardly Lion” gaining courage by coming to terms with “reality”.
The “Tin Man” gaining strength from his new bimetallic system, (in the book a golden axe with a blade of silver is the chosen allusion) and also gaining a silver oil can encrusted with gold and jewels. An obvious link to “oiling the wheels of commerce”.
The most confusing aspect of the film when it comes to following the allusions given is that Dorothy is shown with Ruby slippers, in the book these are silver and this then links perfectly to the rest of Baum’s ideology. Hollywood decided that Ruby was a far more dramatic colour than silver and thus destroyed any last remaining element of Baum’s grand allegory. I have laid out for you here but one theory as to the true meaning behind the story but it has been reinterpreted many times. For instance one of the most notable gave the following reappraisal.
The Tin Woodman is France, the Cowardly Lion is Great Britain, the Scarecrow is Poland, Dorothy is European Civilisation, the Wicked Witch is Adolf Hitler, and the Winged Monkey is Benito Mussolini. This ideology was evidenced in a cartoon that came out just after the 1939 film and it had a caption added where the Monkey is saying, "Hey, Boss -- Maybe that lion isn't so cowardly!" The winged monkey was not a part of the book but added for the purposes of the film version so I have not commented on it before. I am sure that most of my readers will not care one bit about all of this and just enjoy the film on its own terms. Perhaps your view regarding any thought of Baum spinning in his grave is, “let him rotate”, however at least I can now say I’ve done my own little bit to bring his allegory back to life after Hollywood killed it so successfully.
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07.09.2005 11:19
Informative, perceptive, exceptionally well written. Well done :-) Tre x
24.12.2003 00:39
Wow - this was awesome! It's great to see someone critically evaluating something on this site. Maybe if I ever get round to reading Baum's work, I might be able to think of some way to disagree with you. As it stands, you present your argument in such a way that I can't believe it hadn't occurred to me before...regards, Plissken
03.12.2003 19:35
Incredibly perceptive, well-written and well-constructed review. Extremely informative, enjoyable, easy to read explanation.