Recently, the Wicked movie team released a poster paying homage to the original Broadway musical, with Glinda (Ariana Grande) whispering to Elphaba (Erivo). Fans responded to this by editing it to appear more like the original poster, where Elphaba’s eyes are obscured by the iconic pointed hat.
On Instagram, Erivo described the edits as “the wildest, most offensive thing” and said “to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me.”
Erivo has received criticism from fans with her being called “f-cking annoying” and being told to “chill out because it’s not that serious”.
User @MediumSizeMeech wrote, “Ariana DeBose acting like we bullied her for making fun of ‘Angela Bassett did the thing’, Jonathon Groff existing, Cynthia Erivo saying people memeing the Wicked poster is ‘the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen’ — theatre people NEVER beating the insufferable allegations”.
However, some users agreed with the actor. @movie_charles wrote:
“Cynthia Erivo has a right to feel how she feels. She has right to set her own boundaries. It’s always noticeable how ya’ll try to invalidate Women particularly Black Women’s feelings. If her expressing feelings causes u not want to see WICKED that says more about you than her.”
@singforfood said, “Cynthia Erivo is not a villain who needs to be shunned, scorned, and punished. She made a tacky and self indulgent instagram post, that’s all. We can have 24 hours of jokes about it, because it was very dumb, but then we gotta wrap it up.”
Fans expecting the film to be a direct adaptation of the stage show may want to temper their expectations as Wicked (2024) will only be covering the first act of the musical with a runtime of 2hrs 40m – the length of the entire Broadway show.
Wicked will release in UK cinemas on November 22
Featured Image Credit: Universal Studios
He/Him
Arts Editor 24/25
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