WHY are the shoes SILVER??

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:18am

i apologize if this has already been discussed but the board is so hot with wicked today....why aren't they RUBY slippers...? it has been driving me nuts! LOL

[Craig]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:20am

Have you read the original Wizard of Oz book? The slippers were silver. The reason they were changed for the MGM movie was because of technicolor - they wanted the shoes to really stick out - and silver would have been "bland"

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:22am

i had heard that..but i LOVED those Ruby slippers! =)
like the show is anywhere near close to either book anyway! they should have kept the slippers red...i think MOST people remember the slippers as red...i like red! hahahah!!

[Phantom487]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:25am

The Ruby Slippers are copyright... they couldn't use them even if they wanted to. So is the name "Dorothy", hence why they never call her by her name in the show...

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:26am

I don't think Dorothy's name is part of the copyright. Her name came from Baum's book. I think the Dorothy/Toto stuff is a modern urban legend.

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:46am

wow...interesting! i still like red slippers! hahahah!!

[Tag]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:52am

In the show they allude to turning them ruby, don't they? When Elphaba is doing the spell on the shoes and Nessa says that they are burning - the lighting changes them red.

And I don't think anyone really knows the truth behind the copyright issues. Everything is just speculation. When you think about it, the scarcrow and tinman look exactly like the movie, Nessa's stockings, yellow brick road imagery, the lemons and melons and pears thing, etc.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:57am

According to Kristin Chenoweth's most recent Chatterbox interview, they had to take out references to the movie, like Toto and the ruby slippers.

[zepka102]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 12:59am

i think the red lighting just has to do with magic... to show the shoes were what was helping her. that's the way i took it!

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:00am

The slippers I'd understand (though that doesn't explain the pesky green issue), but I don't understand how calling the dog by the name he had in the book would constitute copyright violation.

[Tag]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:11am

Thruthfully it might have just been done as 'Dodo' for a laugh.

[RockabyeHamlet]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:14am

MGM copyrighted the Ruby Slippers as well as several other Wizard of Oz references. The produers would have had to pay an enormous sum of money to MGM, if they were given permission at all.

[lfae]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:16am

In Maguire's book as well, they are dressed with silver beads. They sparkle other colours when reflecting the light, but are, on their own, silver. I like that the musical drew more from the books than the movie on that respect, if I'd seen red shoes I'd have probably thought ugh

[AnotherDay46]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:51am

It has to do with money. The city was green - green is the color of the american currency. Silver also represents wealth, as well as gold. In the original books, this was what was portrayed.

Posted: 1/9/06 at 1:52am

who knew? well you did..and now i do! thanks!

[jasobres]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 7:25am

Wait a minute, let me get this straight, using Dorothy in the show is copyright infringement, but using the names "Glinda," "Aunt Em," "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," "Flying Monkeys," "There's No Place Like Home," "I Am Oz, The Great And Terrible," "The Wicked Witch of the East," "The Wicked Witch of the West," "Oz," "Munchkin," "Emerald City," and "Aaaa-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!" are not?????!?!?!

Updated On: 1/9/06 at 07:25 AM

[jasonf]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 7:36am

Shouldn't the copyright - if one exists - from the book have expired by now? I don't know how long those lasts - but the LONGEST I'd ever heard was 100 years, and we're already past that mark....

[pianoman215]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 8:49am

The book is in public domain, so the characters and book related items are ok to use. The movie is not. Using the name Dorothy (whose name is used in the advertising) and Toto in the show would not violate any copyright.

[jasobres]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 8:52am

Yeah, I just said, Elphaba does not say, "Do you want to see your aunt and uncle again?" She says, "Do you want to see your Aunt Em and your Uncle Whatshisname again?"*

*Makes me wonder if in the original script, it was "...and your Uncle Henry again?" and Idina really forgot the name and it permanently became part of the show.

Updated On: 1/9/06 at 08:52 AM

[WalveMalve]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 8:54am

Firstly, copyrights are generally renewed for most books and movies by either the publisher or author's estate/relatives.

Furthermore, the slippers are silver because that is the original cover from the orginal book. Though there is no definite hard evidence, The Wizard of Oz series is often believed to be a parable for the American populist movement. While the yellow brick road is symbolic for the gold standard, the silver slippers represent the silver standard. The populists believed in the use of both silver and gold as the standard for the American monetary system. Also of note is that the scarecrow is representation for farmers, the tin man of industrial workers and the cowardly lion represents William Jennings Bryan -- the candidate for the populist party who seemed to be useless and barely put up a fight in the presidential race. Kansas was also very much a populist state and was mostly farmers at the time the story was written. The Emerald City is Washington, DC; if you read the original book, the emerald city is not actual emerald at all, it's grey. It appears emerald to its citizens because they all wear emerald tinted glasses (this concept was used in The Wiz as well). Anyway, it's lack of color in actuallity is a dismayed view of politics. The Wizard is President Grover Cleveland who is portrayed as useless but very appealing to the gullible companions who (in the book) all see the Wizard as a comforting image even though he is in the end useless. Witches are releated to regions: the good witches are in the north (midwest) and south where the populists tended to reside in the US and the wicked witches are of the east and west which were the other parties. The origin of the name 'oz' is also of some debate because it's the abbreviation for the word ounce which is how the gold and silver standards were measured. However, this is one of the larger stretches of the parrable assertion.

[jasobres]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 8:57am

"Though there is no definite hard evidence, The Wizard of Oz series is often believed to be a parable for the American populist movement."

That is a complete myth and a whole load of BS!

But the other cool thing is that if you turn down the sound of the movie after Leo the Lion's third roar and turn on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album, the lyrics coincidentally match up to the events on screen.

Updated On: 1/9/06 at 08:57 AM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 9:02am

The whole thing is a copy right issue. Though one thing fell through the cracks. The Wicked Witch of the West is NOT GREEN in Baums books, that too was am invention by MGM for the techinicolor film. Wonder how they got around that infringement?

[Sluggy]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 9:06am

I've read articles about the parable theory before, but I've also read that the name Oz came about because the children L.Frank Baum was telling a story to asked him the name of the magical land. He looked over at a filing cabinet whose drawers were marked A-N and O-Z and said, "Uh, Oz! It was the Land of Oz!"

[jasobres]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 9:06am

Time Out! Wasn't the original Wicked novel based more on the original 1939 movie and less on the books themselves?

[Fosse76]

Posted: 1/9/06 at 10:30am

"Time Out! Wasn't the original Wicked novel based more on the original 1939 movie and less on the books themselves? "

No. It is based SOLELY on the book. While there may be a few copyright issues with the musical, since the musical is almost a parody, they would be fine to use them (the ruby slipper are unbder copyright, and because they would be used in the show in the same context as they were in the film, would not be protected as fair-use). Since the film itself is so embedded in pop-culture, MOST of the film references in the show are protected by the fair-use doctrine in copyright law. Since the yellow-brick road is in the original book, there is no problem with its representation there.