Wicked Friendships

If your bestie isn’t making you green with envy…your doing it wrong

Good news! Wicked content is popping up on my FYP page again, and I’m not complaining. Even if you aren’t a musical fan, one must admit the idea of jazzing your way through Oz, defeating flying monkeys, and singing a note so high it slays the screen with your bestie…sounds like an adventure.

Truly, the ups and down of Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship soars Wicked to new heights. It anchors this piece of pop culture into eternity.

From the 16-year-old who saw Wicked onstage to today, I’ve always loved how Wicked portrays the nuances of female friendships.

Now, do all platonic friendships suffer and experience some commonalities? Yes.

However, research shows that differences occur in the dynamics between female friends. Long story, longer it’s a wicked time.

The Loathing Phase

Women intently seek out friendships to bond and form community, but I believe most of us have an awkward, tentative holding stage when deciding if this girl is yay or nay.

For Elphaba and Glinda, the What Is This Feeling number may be exaggerated for effect, but that unease can be experienced in real life.

This may not be Universal (see what I did there), but at some point, your best friend and you may have experienced a slight friction, disagreement, or conversation that left you two on asphalt.

In my opinion, that doesn’t have to be negative. I’ve had moments with those friends; we’ve talked about it, and it strengthened us.

It’s an interesting notion to navigate this nuance in a relationship. It’s only when a guard falls that the heart of the friendship can begin.

The Mirror Phase

Elphaba’s vulnerability in showing up to the Oz dust ballroom required the one thing we as women hate doing. Being vulnerable! Again, does everyone struggle with vulnerability? Yes.

Yet, because of societal standards and the restrictions placed on female emotion, I believe it’s harder for us to genuinely be vulnerable with others. This is partly why, as women, we go out of our way to seek, cultivate, and build safe spaces among each other.

It’s what makes female friendships so unique. There’s also something to be said about expectations and communication in friendships. As Glinda and Elphaba come to lean on each other more, there’s a mirroring that happens between the two, each showing an example of what ‘showing up’ in a friendship looks like.

The contingency is that what we strive for in female relationships can undo it under the wrong circumstances.

This is why by the time we reach Defying Gravity, everything changes.

Defy(inin)g Expectations

I love Defying Gravity for the insane vocals and gut-wrenching emotion as anyone, but I give it the most praise for peak female friendship fallout. It shows what happens when clear expectations aren’t expressed in a relationship and what grows in between.

Codependency can wreak havoc on friendships. It’s terrifying to address and realize that it may be what your friendship has been built on all along. Glinda and Elphaba, breaking from each other, change the role of their friendship entirely.

Part of what is ingenious about No One Mourns The Wicked is that you can hear the journey of their friendship in Glinda’s voice. The finality of it. The connective tissue. The weeping.

In my personal experience, walking through something similar with a friend has changed my outlook on how I approach friendships going forward. It opened my outlook on navigating the ups and downs of friendships as we mature. The willingness to have the hard conversations and to keep showing up.

Losing your best friend can feel like your world is gone in an instant. If the friendship has been fraught with tension, there may be relief that comes in the separation, and more so if you two come back together - you may be the wiser for it.

I’m excited to watch Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship develop in Wicked: For Good, as we’ll be watching their camaraderie through a new and tense lens.

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Hi everyone and Happy April! I hope you all enjoyed the above post. Some exciting updates:

The Women’s Work Podcast research podcast is up and running!

As I wrote birthday post, this podcast has been an effort of love and discovery and something I’ve been wanting to share with you all!

Enjoy and be on the lookout for show notes and episodes dropping this week!