by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Wicked | 2024
Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked the musical debuted on Broadway in 2003, becoming one of those rare crossover stage hits that reverberated beyond the typical audience of Broadway fans and theatre kids and into the general consciousness. Yet despite its popularity, it's taken over 20 years to bring this Broadway juggernaut to the screen.
A trans woman gets out of bed and pads across the room to the bathroom. She is naked. She goes to the bathroom. She brushes her teeth. It is a ritual I've performed so many times without a second thought, and now I'm watching it in a movie. I am struck by how commonplace this feels, how incredibly normal. I notice that her body isn't that different from mine. This is not a hyper-sexualized porn star; this is a regular transgender woman living a regular life. Our bodies are so often fetishized that it feels wholly transgressive to see a nude trans woman on screen simply existing - not being used as a sex object or an object of pity, just another woman going through motions that feel so mundane yet so familiar.