Wizard Of Oz Conventions

The Wizard of Oz is a film directed by Victor Fleming in 1939, serves as a timeless testament to the representation of conservative values imposed upon women from the 1900’s. At a time in an economic slump called the Great Depression, where many men lost their jobs which left women to be the primary workers of some households to support their families. But this meant that women now had a freedom to explore pathways previously unavailable to them. With this newfound freedom, some women finally stood up and this film allows the audience to view this societal shift. 

The director has made clear that men wanted women to keep inside their traditional gender roles. This led a lot of women to confirming that it was right and normal for sexism and gender stereotyping to be okay. This can be seen in the quote after the tin man asks what she learnt in the trip, Dorothy tells the tinman, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?” This quote shows Dorothy's complete loss to the sense of adventure and unwillingness to relinquish the values that she originally had, even after a life-changing experience, by not ever looking further than the backyard her aunty and uncle have. This tells the audience that women do not seek greater thing other than traditional female roles such as a housewife and adds a parallel to women in that period who sought nothing more than to become what their parents told them to be due the influences of parental figures and men. Additionally, women thought that it would be impossible that could escape their traditional lives as they have seen others trapped before. This shows the director clearly wanted us to see through to the ideas and views that most women originally had. This is shown by using colour throughout the film. The real world is pictured as grey and is a world Dorothy tries to escape but ends up coming back to only be told that Oz was just a bad dream. This portrayal of Dorothy as a woman who tries to escape her black and white life by dreaming of a new place for herself is a key concept in this movie. Women from this time were told by men that these new places would not be made for them, so they resigned themselves to believing that they were meant to fulfill the role of their traditional gender roles. This is shown through costuming. In this specific costuming and setting, we can see each character's personality and how they follow each other. We can see this is Dorothy’s blue gingham dress and Glinda’s pink gown. The costuming allows for the author to characterise how a woman should be and what was expected of them. This allows for the audience to create an idea of what a traditional woman looks like and how they were stereotyped by men. With these three pieces of evidence, the author has made it clear that women, throughout these times, were kept within the society’s conservative values and many resigned themselves to it.  

However, the director has made it clear to us that while many resigned themselves to their fate, some women in that time were trying to become self-realising within a man’s world. This was disapproved of by others, but these women stood up for themselves. This was first made evident to us in the use of Dorothy as an allegory. We know that Oz is an imaginary world, a place created by Dorothy through a dream when she hits her head in a tornado. Along the way to get back home, she meets the scarecrow, who is on the hunt for a brain, the tinman, who is looking for a heart and the lion, who is searching for a way to be more courageous. It is important to note that since this is a place made by Dorothy's subconscious, these sidekicks are also a part of her and what she aspires to be – smart, empathetic and courageous. This relates to the women of the 1900’s who wished to find these qualities and, in the process, themselves. On top of this, we are told that Dorothy already has these qualities which makes use of the convention of irony. Towards the end of movie, we are showed that the lion, tinman and scarecrow indeed had the courage to beat the witch, the heart to save Dorothy and brains to kill the witch. This was a big comparison to women of that period because they were starting to realise the true power. However, we are showed how some women treated other women that didn’t have the same values as most of society. This is shown through the film convention of character archetypes and interaction. We can see this in the archetype and dynamic of Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of The West. They are characters in need of help who could easily help each other out but instead the antagonist (The Wicked Witch of the West) forces the protagonist (Dorothy) to fight her. This shows a parallel to women both want something and need helping but instead the women with traditional values try and shun and fight the women who wish to escape from their lives. These features together shine the light on new values that some women had and what others thought about it. 

Lastly, the director has shown to us that women were very emotionally connected to one another and advocated for each other, even if the other women didn’t approve of it. We can see that women that wanted freedom followed in each other's wake to free themselves. Through the portrayal as Glinda as a mentor we can see the use of character archetypes. Glinda is shown to be caring and a figure that Dorothy can rely on in times of trouble, like in the field of poppies. This shows to the audience how reliable free women in this society were for other women who wanted to be free. Also, by using props, it is possible to view the author’s ideas on stubborn women. The reader is told through this how women stuck up for themselves and others. This is shown through the Wicked Witch of the East’s Slippers. Dorothy’s decision to take the slippers from the Wicked Witch of the East symbolises the reclaiming of power from oppressive forces showing the refusal to be subjected to the whims of others and to get others to refuse. This symbol is a direct reference to the women of that day refusing to allow others and themselves to be subjected to men. 

With these three key ideas and references put together, we can see the director’s depiction of women as majority being weak and concurring with men however the strong women are depicted as helping of the weak women and help them find themselves. Through this, we can a strong insight into the women’s wishes and representation of women from the 1900’s.