If Ever, If Ever a Wiz There Was...

The Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, is a fantastic fantasy. It was originally penned by Frank L. Baum who is said to have gotten the name of the Land of Oz from a filing cabinet sign with the designation of “O through Z.” He put them together and came up with OZ. The Wizard of Oz is a classic tale, about a little girl named Dorothy and her little dog Toto who are transported via a tornadoto the magically beautiful, color-filled rainbow land of Oz, that is located somewhere in the middle of the “Continent of Imagination.”

In this adventure, Dorothy discovers that the Land of Oz is ruled and thereby maintained by a wizard who is said to be extremely wise and wonderful and who lives in a place called Emerald City. This wizard is so wonderful in fact, that all the little dwarfy munchkin people of Munchkin Land greatly respect him and call him “the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz,” and look to him for help, leadership and guidance. They tell Dorothy that in order to get back to where she came from she will have to travel to the Emerald City herself and seek his help.

Dorothy sets out on a long journey down the yellow brick road to see the wonderful Wiz, and along the way she makes new friends and has many trials, particularly with the Wicked Witch of the West. Finally, reaching Emerald City, she audience with the Wizard and humbly approaches him to ask for his help in returning home to Kansas. To her surprise, and dismay, he is scary and mean. He demands that she and her traveling companions kill the Wicked Witch of the West before he will grant them assistance.

The movie varies slightly from the original book by Baum, but in both instances, Dorothy is responsible for dousing the witchy woman with water and she melts away breaking all her magic on her captives.

The friends then return to the Wizard for his promise of their reward and this is when the tables turn, and Dorothy learns that the Wizard of Oz who she has put her hope and faith in, and been obedient to, is really no wizard at all. He is a fake, just a man, not great and powerful, not even a wizard. She discovers that he has no power to help her at all.

Now the “Great” and “Terrible Oz,” as he called himself, feels guilty and has an apparent change of heart about Dorothy’s dilemma. He determines to help Dorothy and her friends with their requests the best he can, even making plans to sail Dorothy home in an enormous hot air balloon. But before he does, he meticulously presents gifts to the travelers. He gives gifts to each of them, though each gift is really no gift at all because as he presents each gift, he announces that they are really unnecessary because each already had the very things they sought from the Wizard inside themselves the whole time.

After the presentations the Wizard prepares to take Dorothy home but at the last minute Toto runs away. Dorothy jumps out of the balloon basket and chases the dog, but with the balloon already untethered, the bumbling wizard haphazardly sails off into the sky alone, leaving Dorothy stranded in OZ, apparently unable to return home to Kansas after all.

But never fear….for from the air the Wizard informs Dorothy that she had the power to go home to Kansas anytime that she wanted to the whole time that she was in OZ, she just didn’t realize it.

(Oh, if only she had known!)

All she had to do was click the heels of her ruby red slippers, (the ones that originally belonged to the wicked witch of the East, sister to the Wicked West,) three times… and say the magic words, “There’s no place like home.” Dorothy says the magic words and clicks the heels of her ruby slippers and magically returns home to Kansas.

(Yeah!)

Upon arrival in Kansas, as if waking from a dream, Dorothy sits up in bed with her friends and family by her side, who act as if she had been in some altered state or coma. Little do they know, they were all a part of her OZ adventure, but thankfully, she is now back in Kansas, and has learned her lessons well.

What did Dorothy learn? She learned that there were good witches and bad witches. She learned that all she had to do was to follow the yellow brick road and it would take her to where she wanted to go and she would make many good and loving friends along the way. She learned that the Wizard in Emerald City, was nothing but a fake and that everyone who thought He was real and wonderful was deceived. She and her companions also learned that there was no need to for anyone to look anywhere besides inside of themselves if they lacked brains or heart or even courage. Most of all she learned that, “There’s no place like home, ”even if it’s boring black and white wheat farm world where there were tornadoes and evil people who want to kill your dog,

Kansas was much different than Oz, which was bursting with color, adventure and above all, imagination. She was done chasing rainbows. She was home where she belonged.

Thoughts on the Wizard of OZ

There has always been speculation and debate about what political, social and religious implications Baum had in mind when he published the original Wizard of Oz story in 1900. Many people would declare, including Baum, that there are none at all. In fact, i read that to Baum the whole story was just an interesting idea he dreamed up one day; an idea that he simply pulled out from thin air that existed someplace between O and Z in a filing cabinet. He says it was a story he made up in his own mind, his imagination, to delight his own children, but despite the denial, some have thought the story to be filled with social and political implications.

For me, I thought it interesting that there is a seeming correlation between the description of the Wizard of Oz who lives in Emerald City and the throne of God as described in the Bible in the last book, called Revelation, chapter 4, verse 3. In this verse is a description of the throne room of God. It reads, “There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”

Consider Dorothy's discovery... that the Wizard the whole land of Oz believed in, was a fraud. What exactly is the significance of a children's story where such a discovery is made, particularly if you related the concepts to the Christian religion?

Consider:
It is Christians who believe not only in the Bible, and it's revelation, but who consider God to be awesome, wonderful, and powerful. Not only that, until the death of Christ, he remained somewhat unapproachable, even behind a curtain in the temple. It is also this God who is said to have given mankind the rainbow as a sign of His promise, and we read, whose throne in heaven is “in sight like unto an Emerald.”

Do you think pehaps, the religions statement Baum makes in his imaginative tale, is that God, like the great and terrible, Wizard of Oz, is nothing but a fraud? The rainbow?.. Well, Maybe the message is that people should really just get over it, realize Kansas and friends are all there really is, at least unless you are in pure imagination... and the bottom line of course, is that you need nothing from the silly old bumbling Wizard, after all, all you have to do is believe in yourself and realize that whatever it is you lack, you have within yourselves all along.

There are messages we latch onto as we engage in life. I happen to think movies, in particular are a powerful medium for messaging ideas, after all it's a direct link to the mind. Not only that, they say, " seeing is believing," but is it? I have to wonder, "How do the messages of movies, in particular, affect our human minds.. affect our imagination.... as well as the reality we perceive ourselves to be in.

"If ever, if Ever a Wiz there was.... the Wizard of Oz...."