The release of Wicked: For Good has triggered criticism from a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ conservative influencers.

Among them is Isabel Brown, a YouTuber and friend of the late Charlie Kirk. Brown has claimed the Wicked movies are pushing a “radical LGBTQ+ agenda.” 

She’s one of several right-wing influencers who are using press tour videos of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo to “prove a point” that Hollywood has corrupted the Wizard of Oz story. Vanity Fair reported that much of this uproar can be traced back to a video from conservative rage-bait account Libs of TikTok. 

In the clip, Grande declares: “Oz has always been a queer place, a safe place for queer people, for every different colour of the rainbow, for everybody. Read the L. Frank Baum books. It’s the truth.”

This is at the heart of Brown’s YouTube video, From Oz to Outrage: How Hollywood Hijacked Wicked (and Womanhood). In the YouTube video, she claims that Hollywood ruined the Wizard of Oz story.

“I have been a massive, massive, massive fan of the story for basically my entire childhood and growing up into adulthood,” Brown says in the video.

“These unbelievably out-of-touch, coastal-elitist, psycho-leftist members of Hollywood, whether they are in front of the camera or behind the camera, are intentionally trying to manipulate some of the greatest stories of all time to specifically push a radical LGBTQ+ agenda, even if it has nothing to do with the story whatsoever.”

“There is something very sinister happening behind the scenes on the set of Wicked, and somebody needs to do a wellness check on both of these young women,” Brown continued. 

“Apparently, everyone’s gay. The Wizard is gay, the witches are gay, the professors are gay, the animals are gay. Even though literally all of this is fantasy.”

‘You are trying to canonically change our most beloved stories.’

She continued: “You are trying to canonically change our most beloved stories that tell timeless tales of the battle between good and evil.”

Though Brown is arguing that “everyone’s gay,” the only main character understood as gay is Pfannee (Bowen Yang). There are many fan theories that Elphaba and Glinda are in love with each other, however, that’s subtext and not a confirmed plot point.

Some of the other right-wing reactions include conservative influencer Brittany Hughes stating that, according to her, “purple-haired, gender-bending unicorns with made-up pronouns never once crossed [Baum’s] mind.

“The original novel and the first Wizard of Oz film had nothing at all to do with being queer, and the fact that Hollywood now has to make everything gay doesn’t rewrite history.” 

Wicked has also recently been co-opted by the Trump administration. They used “Defying Gravity” to promote the work of ICE on TikTok.

The White House’s official TikTok, which was launched by the administration in August despite lawmakers’ concerns that the app’s Chinese owners represent a national security risk, shared a video over the weekend using Cythnia Erivo’s Wicked “Defying Gravity”, alongside distressing images and videos of people being detained.

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