The Wonderful Interpretations of The Wizard of Oz

by Aisha Gilani

"The old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as 'historical' in the children's library, for the time has come for a series of newer 'wonder tales' in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and bloodcurdling incident(s) devised by their authors to point to a fearsome moral to each tale, Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in his wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all the disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares left out."

The above quotation is from Lyman Frank Baum, included in the introduction of his novel: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," published in 1900, which was later transformed into a movie in 1939, as "The Wizard of Oz" by MGM.

Some people seem to think that there was a deeper or hidden meaning to the movie, such as a call for American isolationism in light of the troubles going on in Europe at the time, or a parable on the benefits of President Roosevelt's New Deal policies.

Lawrence Grossberg, the Morris Davis Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has written a book: "Mediamaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture," which includes a chapter named "The Interpretation of Meaning." In this chapter Grossberg mentions:

"Audiences interpret messages by articulating them into their own codes. It is thus reasonable to assume that the decoded meaning will differ from the encoded meaning, which describes the ways the text is articulated within the institutional contexts of its production."

But like the book, any message is there if you look hard enough, but it is extremely doubtful that any one particular message was ever intended. The film was based on the book and was made merely to entertain, just like the book.

Besides exposing the readers to all the different interpretations people gave the book and the movie, this site includes pertinent information about the author's life, the novel, the filming and the production of the movie and also the production of the theatre play, based on the novel. The content on this site has been compiled from various sources of media such as films, documentaries, books, journals, Internet, academic material, etc. The site respects the copyright laws of all kinds of media and so; all the sources used for the content on this site have been listed and are accessible by the reader.

Home | About Baum | Different Forms of Oz | Various Interpretations of Oz | References