The Wicked press tour has been absolutely wild. There were the rumors about Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater having an affair, there was the unfortunate porn-related mishap with the official dolls … and then there was the incident with the fan-made poster. It was a take on the original Broadway poster for Wicked, which featured Elphaba, Cynthia Erivo’s character in the movie, with the brim of her hat pulled over her eyes and a smile on her face.
Back in October, Erivo posted the fan edit to her Instagram Stories and wrote (via People), “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question ‘is your p**** green.” The AI of Elphaba and Glinda was a different matter, as was the rude question.
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us. The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION,” she went on. “I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer … because, without words we communicate with our eyes. Our poster is a homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
Plenty of people thought that that was an overreaction, because the poster was thoughtfully made and it seemed inappropriate for someone with such a big platform to publicly denounce an artist’s work. Now, Erivo is speaking out about it.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Erivo said:
Having that passion for what this piece [Wicked] is and loving it so much and knowing how much I want to communicate through Elphaba, that’s probably where that came from. And so in my little human moment I had … I fell out on the internet, when really I should have just picked up my phone and called a friend. We have these human moments. And me being human and sensitive, I shared something that I think is part of the little girl in me.
She went on to list the things she had in common with Elphaba, which included, “We don’t mince our words, that’s for sure.”
None of this controversy has affected the power of Wicked. It currently has a score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and is projected to gross $100–125 million. Countless people are going to see it who never even heard about the fan edit. However, the last word should probably go to the creator of that edit, an X/Twitter user who’s remained anonymous. They reposted the fan edit on October 20 and stated, “This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that!”
They also clarified that the poster was not made with AI before saying, “Also, I will say that Cynthia is valid in having her feelings on the matter, and I’m also valid in wanting to keep my version of the poster up as I truly meant no harm with it and just made it as a way to show love for the original. Both can be true.” And hopefully that puts the matter to rest and everyone can go enjoy the movie.
Published: Nov 21, 2024 01:42 pm