<em>The Wizard of Oz </em>Invented the ‘Good Witch’
Whenever I introduce myself as a witch who writes about witches, the conversation often turns to The Wizard of Oz, and when it does, I’m always tempted to focus on the movie’s verdant villain. Many fans delight in the Wicked Witch of the West’s deranged cackle and her lust for power and ruby pumps. Even when she meets her demise at Dorothy’s hands, she goes down in style, seething: “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?” The filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray) has said, “That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.”
Still, on the 80th anniversary of the movie that made the Wicked Witch famous I find myself more drawn to her pastel counterpart, Glinda the Good Witch of the North. She was arguably the first American pop-culture figure to provecame out in August 1939, the typical moviegoer would have been most familiar with screen witches who were or out to get wide-eyed ingenues. In all her rosy-pink goodness, Glinda was literally and figuratively a witch of a different color and an unlikely feminist force.
