Leibniz Universität Hannover

Englisches Seminar

“Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in the Dust Bowl anymore”
The Wizard of Oz and the New Deal

By
Elisabeth M. Reh
Student Number: 2723240
Email: elis.reh@web.de
Course: The Great Depression and
The New Deal in American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Prof. Dr. phil. Ruth Mayer
Winter Term 2012/2013
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Contents

1. Introduction 2

2. Theories and Methods 3

3. “Optimistic Voices”: The Wizard of Oz as an Allegory for Post-Depression America 4

4. The Death of E.Y. Harburg 8

5. Conclusion 10

6. Works Cited 11
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1. Introduction
When Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful (Walt Disney Pictures) was released in
theatres this year, the Land of Oz was still a well-known cinematic place for people of every
generation. Although Oz the Great and Powerful is not a direct adaptation of either Lyman
Frank Baum’s juvenile novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), or any of his following
thirteen Oz works, nor of the highly successful MGM musical of 1939, I consider the movie
as part of the complex Oz universe of serial narration in Frank Kelleter’s sense in his work
“‘Toto, I Think We’re in Oz Again’ (and Again and Again): Remakes and Popular Seriality”
(2012).
Considering that L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz over a hundred
years ago, it is remarkable that the whole Oz franchise is still alive and kicking. It would go
beyond the extent of this paper to analyse the success of the Oz universe and its crucial
impact on pop culture in its entirety. Nonetheless, I would argue that most adaptations of the
material are this successful because every one of them takes on something characteristic of
the time in that it was produced. These innovative elements can be, for example, “media
innovations” (Kelleter 33) like the use of Technicolor in the 1939 musical version, or the use
of state-of-the-art 3D techniques in Sam Raimi’s movie of 2013. But various adaptations and
remakes of the original story have been found to include social, political, economical, and
cultural problems, as well as the general public sentiment of their time in the production. For
example, the musical film adaptation The Wiz (1978) is set in a pre-Giuliani Harlem setting
with an all-black cast. An adult Diana Ross plays the part of Dorothy and Michael Jackson
performs as the The Scarecrow. Although the movie flopped at the box office, it still is a
common post-structural approach to watch these adaptations “for the information they
provide about historical change” (Kelleter 28) because “popular culture loves repetition, and
repetition offers an excellent opportunity to measure temporal difference“ (Kelleter 33). That
means that a remake or an adaptation can indicate the temporality of culture much better than
any single text. Nonetheless, there are many different interpretations for Baum’s The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz already. Henry M. Littlefield, for example, read the children’s novel
as a parable on American populism in his 1964 essay “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on
Populism”. Several other scholars, for example Helen M. Kim, see the book as an allegory on
mass culture and consumerism (1996). And as there are various interpretations on Baum’s
original story, there is widespread agreement to read the MGM musical The Wizard of Oz as a
parable on US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the post Great Depression era and the
New Deal.
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In this paper, I want to analyse if it is expedient to read the movie’s symbolism in these
allegorical terms or if The Wizard of Oz should rather be seen as a part of the whole Oz
universe of serial narration that includes all thirteen Oz novels, every adaption and remake, as
for example The Wiz, and every spin-off like the Broadway musical Wicked (2003).

2. Theories and Methods

In this paper, I will first analyse various scenographic elements of the movie by using a
New Historicist approach: I will use the method of close reading in order to compare the
scenes to certain political, social, and cultural aspects of the New Deal era in America.
After that, I will analyse if reading The Wizard of Oz as a parable on the Roosevelt era,
as Richard Nate, Paul Nathanson and many other scholars understand it, is a fruitful approach
or if it rather should be analysed detached from the circumstances of its production in line
with Post-Structuralism. I start with Roland Barthes’s basic notion that the author of a text is
dead and thus not available as reference for the analysis of a literary work. For Barthes,
“writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” (142). Herewith, he stands
in tradition of Post-Structuralists. He furthermore states:
As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but
intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very
practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the
author enters into his own death, writing begins. (142)
In this paper, I will apply Barthes’ terminus ‘text’ to the movie and extend the notion of the
‘author’ to the circumstances of the movie’s production. I will consider especially the
approach used by authors like Francis MacDonnel who uses the biography of head lyricist
E.Y. Harburg in order to analyse the Hollywood musical. MacDonnel states that Harburg
liked to employ fantasy and musicals in order to make a political point (73). But I think it is
important to challenge the pessimistic school of media studies and their opinion of the
audience as passive and ignorant (Kim 215). This is also how Jean Baudrillard described the
mass media consumers in his essay “The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media”
(588). I think it is important not to conceive the audience as an apathetic mass that absorbs
any (hidden) political message which is suggested by authors that analyse how much of
Harburg’s admiration for F.D. Roosevelt can be seen in The Wizard of Oz.
Considering the above, I will analyse if it is expedient to read The Wizard of Oz as parable on
the New Deal or if that interpretation would limit the movie’s significance to just one level of
symbolism.
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3. “Optimistic Voices”: The Wizard of Oz as an Allegory for Post-Depression America

MGM’s The Wizard of Oz has strikingly huge allegorical potential. Not only the high
amount of symbolism in the Land of Oz invites the audience to see parallels between this
magical place and New Deal–America, but also cinematic techniques and narrative content
can easily be understood as a parable for the post-depression era. Although the movie is
known as one of the great Technicolor classics, it is important to remember that the scenes set
in Kansas are shot in a sepia tone. This creates a powerful impression of the Midwest in the
late 1930s, which still suffered from the consequences of the Great Depression and disastrous
sand storms that turned these states into the Dust Bowl (Nate 224). Also, Dorothy lives on a
small farm, a place of great symbolic importance to the thirties. The Midwestern farm bears
special importance as background in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and
thus also in its 1940 movie adaptation. Furthermore, the run-down farm along with its
inhabitants is a significant setting for the black and white photographs of Walker Evans and
Dorothea Lange. Thus, when Dorothy’s poor farm appears on screen in black and white, the
audience is immediately reminded of the Dust Bowl and the problems farmers had to cope
with at that time. Roosevelt’s Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 imposed a restriction on
agricultural production in order to help independent farmers to sell their goods for a better
price. Unfortunately, this law impaired the living conditions of people who lived on small
tenant farms even more (Nate 27).
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Fig. 1: A scene from The Grapes of Wrath with the farm in the background.

Fig. 2: Tractored Out by Dorothea Lange, 1938. (Nate 257)

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Fig. 3: A scene from the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is standing in front of the farm.

Moreover, the farm’s wealthy neighbour Miss Almira Gulch threatens Dorothy’s aunt
Em to go to court with the likely consequence that the poor family will lose their farm. Also,
many indebted tenant farmers were forced to leave their farms behind and leave the Midwest,
for example to become fruit pickers in California as in The Grapes of Wrath (Nate 225). Aunt
Em says to Miss Gulch in the beginning of the movie: “Almira Gulch …just because you own
half the county doesn’t mean you have the power to run the rest of us!” This scene reminds
the viewer of what Ma Joad says at the end of the movie The Grapes of Wrath:
I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though
we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide
world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and
scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up and they die,
and their kids ain't no good and they die out, but we keep on coming. We're the
people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa,
cos we're the people. (quoted by The Grapes of Wrath (1940))
The politically confident attitudes of the maternal figures in both works show a crucial
resemblance. Thus the whole Kansas scene in The Wizard of Oz gains the actuality of the
late 1930s Midwest.
Scholar Paul Nathanson does not only see Kansas as a true American landscape, but also
interprets the different places in Oz as different ecological images of American identity
(Nathanson 117). He says, that every symbolic Oz landscape corresponds to a particular
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American way of life and its relation to history (Nathanson 117). For him, the Emerald City is
a symbol for an “Eastern metropolis” like New York City (Nathanson 132). Although
Americans “flock to their own glittering cities” (Nathanson 132), they continue to hanker for
the simpler ways of rural life. Also Dorothy is amazed by the pompous Emerald City. But
“the Emerald City is not home” (Nathanson 109) and Dorothy’s only wish is to return to her
farm in Kansas. In a sense, The Wizard of Oz is also a coming-of-age movie. Dorothy has to
grow up: she has to learn “how to be at home” (Nathanson 109). For the 1930s this can also
be applied on a more collective level: the USA itself has to grow up and learn to be at home.
As Kelleter puts it: “This is a story of the Great Depression indeed: there is no place like
home, even if home is a rundown farm in the middle of nowhere” (30).
In the 1930s, US citizens put all their hope in the New Deal but their
expectations remained unfulfilled for a very long time. Only the enhancement of the
munitions industry led to a steady economic upturn (Nate 13). President F.D. Roosevelt had
to encourage Americans to be brave and patient during the crisis. He did this by encouraging
people to remember the core American values. Although there were still nine million
unemployed in 1939, the majority of people still had the feeling that Roosevelt had not
forgotten about the “common man” (Nate 13).
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Fig. 4: Caricature depicting F.D. Roosevelt and “The Forgotten Man”. (Nate 31)

Especially by showing a new level of media presence, the Fireside Chats for
example, Roosevelt succeeded in giving the nation a feeling of security and coined the idea of
a New Frontier: a complete moral new start for the nation (Nate 53). So, as the economic goal
of the New Deal remained unachieved for a very long time, Roosevelt’s greatest achievement
was the restoration of hope (MacDonnel 74). Here, the audience can draw parallels between
the former US President and the Wizard of Oz. The wizard tells Dorothy’s companions the
Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion that everything they ask for already is
in their possession: a brain, a heart and courage. These are key values Roosevelt also wanted
to restore in the people of the USA: courage to live through the crisis, love for the nation and
fellow citizens, and sense. Roosevelt even summoned a “Brain Trust”, a group of academic
advisers who were delegated to fight the economic crisis with scientific means (Nate 25).
In the late 1930s, many Americans noticed Roosevelt’s impotence towards
the crisis (Nate 225). Already in 1936, the publisher H.L. Mencken called Roosevelt a quack
(Mencken 259), equating him with the wizard who is also a humbug. When Dorothy insults
him as a fraud, he answers: “I am a very good man. I am just a bad wizard.” The wizard as
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well as Roosevelt’s power is solely based on their rhetoric (Nate 225). Also, MacDonnel says
“it was not uncommon for representatives of the New Deal to be referred to as strange and
mysterious magicians” (74). Frank Morgan plays the wizard as a charming and beloved
leader, although he makes promises he is not quite sure how to keep (MacDonnell 74).
As Dorothy and her friends finally approach the Emerald City, the audience hears the song
“Optimistic Voices”: “You’re out of the woods, You’re out of the dark, You’re out of the
night, Step into the sun, Step into the light.” Already the song lyricist of The Wizard of Oz
E.Y. Harburg noted that he especially liked the song since “it heralds not only the four
principals’ escape from the woods and an evil spell, but, on another level, the end of the
Depression“ (MacDonnel 73)

4. The Death of E.Y. Harburg

Admittedly, it is very persuading to read The Wizard of Oz as a parable on the political
and cultural situation of the USA in the 1930s. MacDonnel argues that the musical’s lead
lyricist E.Y. Harburg turned the musical into a political satire intentionally. To prove this,
MacDonnel chooses a biographical approach and states, that Harburg was a socialist who
supported the Roosevelt administration and had felt the impacts of the Depression at first
hand (71). His political convictions eventually got him into trouble and he was blacklisted
during the McCarthy era (MacDonnel 72). Also, in his earlier work, Harburg had employed
fantasy to make a political point. His Broadway musical Hooray for What? (1937) satirized
war, for example (MacDonnel 73). MGM’s musical supervisor Arthur Freed gave E.Y.
Harburg and his colleague Harold Arlen unusual creative independence (MacDonnel 72).
Thus, Harburg eventually wrote the cue-ins to all songs, as well as significant portions of the
movie’s dialogue (MacDonnel 72). Although MacDonnel gives in and notes, that the movie
was a “collaborate effort in which many different artists were involved”, he also states that
“no single contributor was in a better position to infuse the film with a message than Harburg”
(72). Francis MacDonnel is not the first scholar who tries to unveil subtle messages in the
Wizard of Oz works by using a biographical approach. Stuart Culver uses L. Frank Baum’s
background as a window dresser to explain the artificiality of Oz in his essay Growing up in
Oz (1992), while Helen M. Kim sees Baum’s former career as an indicator to read
consumerism into his narratives in her work Strategic Credulity: Oz as Mass Culture Parable
(1996).
But the question here should not be if the movie succeeds as an allegory for the New
Deal or if you can read E.Y. Harburg’s or L. Frank Baum’s personal background into their
works but rather if that is the right approach. Roland Barthes says: “To give a text an Author
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is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing” (147).
To analyse The Wizard of Oz, it is important to overcome Baudrillard’s notion that the
audience of mass media is reduced to “the level of anesthetized zombies” (quoted by Kim
215) that can be infused with political messages. It is necessary to consider the musical in
itself as a paradoxical film genre that constructs reality and meaning “by openly
demonstrating how it does so” (Kim 220). Helen M. Kim furthermore states: “The urge to
realize utopian fantasies propagated by the mass media, then, paradoxically leads to an acute
state of textual self-reflexivity, therein making available unique opportunities for oppositional
readings” (220). Additionally, Frank Kelleter suggests that “we not only ask how a given
serial text reflects the cultural situation and intentional structures of its time but also what
work it performs in constituting its own cultural realities and intentional follow-ups.“ (37)
Due to the fact that The Wizard of Oz is an adaptation of Baum’s work, scholars and critics
tend to search for indicators of social, political and cultural realities in the movie more
intensively than they probably would have done if the musical was a single Hollywood utopia
without a literary background. Kelleter writes: “it is precisely because a remake repeats a
story that has already been told that the disparities between its own telling and a previous one
are highly visible.“ (28). This might be a reason why scholars try to read a 1930s social reality
into The Wizard of Oz since it was released in 1939.

5. Conclusion
It is compelling to read the MGM musical The Wizard of Oz as an allegory for the
time of the Roosevelt Administration. As the background of the movie is a children’s novel
from 1900, it is absolutely possible, the producers and screenwriters altered its content to
make it suitable and accessible for a late 1930s audience. Furthermore, the written text had to
be transferred into a Hollywood musical, which invites the viewer to interpret some of the
songs and settings as a parable on Post-Depression America.
On the contrary, it is important to analyse the movie detached from its 1930s
Hollywood background, because first and foremost, The Wizard of Oz is an adaptation of an
earlier work. It is important to consider that the musical as a very marginalised Hollywood
genre had the ability to manipulate its audience and to openly show how it does so (Kim 217).
Furthermore, it is crucial to understand that The Wizard of Oz belongs to a huge franchise of
pop cultural serialisation. As Post-Structuralism taught us (Kelleter 28), there is no such thing
as an exact repetition, and so, every remake is an adaptation and interpretation. If we consider
The Wizard of Oz as exactly this, a part of the huge Oz spin-off, remake, reference point, and
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adaptation universe, it becomes obvious why scholars tend to see the movie as a political
parable. Frank Kelleter states that the serialisation of a work makes historical and cultural
change visible first (28). Of course, it remains crucial to regard The Wizard of Oz as a product
of that time, but to view it even as an allegory can be erroneous. Francis MacDonnel himself
gives in and says: “The Wizard of Oz is not a perfect allegory in which every character or
event has an exact counterpart in Depression America. For example, I do not suggest that the
mayor of the Munchkin village is Fiorello LaGuardia, or the horse of a different color
symbolized the Democratic Party“ (74). Additionally, this allegorical reading does not take
the inner structure of the movie sufficiently into account. Although I am certain that the socio-
cultural and political discourse of the time influenced the movie, I conclude that to interpret
The Wizard of Oz as an allegory for The New Deal puts a limit to the movie’s meaning and
falls short of the cultural significance of the movie.
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6. Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Art and Interpretation: An Anthology of Readings in
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 1998.

Baudrillard, Jean. “The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media.” New Literary History, Vol.
16, No. 3. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Culver, Stuart. “Growing Up in Oz.” American Literary History Vol. 4, No. 4. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992.

Kelleter, Frank. “‘Toto, I Think We’re in Oz Again’ (and Again and Again): Remakes and Popular
Seriality.” Forthcoming, 2012.

Kim, Helen M. “Strategic Credulity: Oz as Mass Cultural Parable.” Cultural Critique, No. 33.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Littlefield, Henry M., "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism," American Quarterly 16 . Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964.

MacDonnel, Francis. “‘The Emerald City was the New Deal’: E.Y. Harburg and The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz.” Journal of American Culture 13.4. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1990.

Mencken, H.L. “Dr. Roosevelt is a Quack.” The American Mercury 37. Baltimore: Alfred A. Knopf
Publisher, 1936

Nate, Richard. Amerikanische Träume: Die Kultur der Vereinigten Staaten in der Zeit des New Deal.
1st Edition. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003.

Nathanson, Paul. Over the Rainbow. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991.

The Grapes of Wrath. By John Ford. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell et al. 20th Century Fox. January 24,
1940.

The Wizard of Oz. By Victor Fleming. Judy Garland, Frank Morgan et al. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
August 25, 1939.