A shadow is offensive?
I don’t think so. Most people don’t think so. But apparently, most people aren’t Cynthia Erivo. She’s the Broadway actress who will play the title role in the film adaptation of the wildly popular musical “Wicked.”
In case you managed to entirely miss that eminently missable play, it involves the transformation from Elphaba Thropp into the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz” in terms sympathetic to the witch.
Yet, a fan-art poster which makes the poster for the movie look more like the poster for the play is apparently so deeply offensive to her that she’s calling it the most noxious thing to ever hit her eyes or ears.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” the British-born Erivo said on Instagram last week, calling it equal to “awful Ai of us fighting” or people posing an offensive question first seen on social media a decade ago. (If you really want to know what the vulgar question is, click here. I am not responsible for any offense you might take to the childish obscenity of it, but there you go.)
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute,” she continued.
“It degrades me. It degrades us.”
Because it put a shadow over her eyes?
Cynthia Erivo has reacted to viral edits of the ‘WICKED’ poster:
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting… Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face & hide my eyes is to erase me. That is just deeply hurtful” pic.twitter.com/y3P1Qh379S
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 16, 2024
Was this an overreaction to the edited poster?
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As people noted, this was a bit of an overreaction, particularly because it resembled the iconic poster for the original musical:
Or… Hear me out … It looks a lot like the poster for the musical? pic.twitter.com/RiZjVR1QL8
— Ogre Media Group (@OgreMediaGroup) October 16, 2024
Her explanation for this was that “[t]he original poster is an ILLUSTRATION.” (Oh, and the movie poster is a screenshot from a cinéma vérité production?)
“I am a real-life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer. . . because, without words we communicate with our eyes,” she wrote.
“Our poster is a homage, not an imitation,” Erivo added. “To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
Just to be clear, this is fan art that existed to make the film poster look more like the Broadway one. And it’s not like she objects to fan art, as demonstrated by the fact she apparently celebrated this pic, definitely not from the initial promotional materials:
how she felt posting this: pic.twitter.com/u3E6B1bK1f
— Zoey 🖤 (@LilKittyZoey) October 16, 2024
she’s so unserious cause she posted this yesterday 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/VHlTOmqlup
— 4KT WHO YOU HATE (@royal_bobby24) October 16, 2024
Ariana Grande, who plays the Glinda the good witch in the “Wicked” films, supported Erivo in remarks to Variety, although she made it sound like an artist issue with artificial intelligence.
“I think it’s very complicated because I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it’s just kind of such a massive adjustment period. This is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits,” she said.
“I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much,” she added. “It’s just a big adjustment period. It’s so much stimulation about something that’s so much bigger than us.”
While one understands that there’s going to be an adjustment period to artificial intelligence, AI fanart is hardly the most offensive thing one has ever seen. Heck, it’s not even the most offensive thing about this story (see: asterisked question in Erivo’s initial Instagram post).
Erivo has more or less been tight-lipped about what her problem with AI is, although it’s assumedly the same ethical concerns we all have about it. However, the matter drew the attention of some fans, who thought that racism was involved.
Re: the Wicked poster controversy: the optics of editing a Black, queer woman’s face aren’t great.
All they’ve done to Ariana is move her hand, while they’ve hidden Cynthia’s eyes and changed her mouth.
— Rachael Eyrewolf 🐺 (@Alrightpunk) October 17, 2024
For everyone saying they’re not understanding why Cynthia is upset about the edited poster please take into account that her features in the edit were made to look bigger and made her into a caricature that we have seen over and over again in black women. #wicked #CynthiaErivo pic.twitter.com/8ol1IyyhcO
— Xaki – BB26 #bisexuals4kimo (@heartxkai) October 16, 2024
Again, though: The racism here isn’t overt, or even covert. It’s interpretational, and loosely at that. And even then, for anyone of any race to say that this the single most loathsome act of bigotry they’ve ever experienced in this world is preposterous.
If this is “the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” count your blessings at a sheltered life.
Otherwise, cease the absurd hyperbole.
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