Blurb of episode
Wicked is a wickedly relevant social commentary! Allow Catholic philosopher Rene Girard to explain the phenomena of mimetic desire and scapegoating in us all. Be prepared to be challenged!
Full transcript of the episode
So unless you’ve been living under a cultural rock, you’d be aware that Wicked has taken the world by storm, gaining many new fans left, right and centre. And as this episode is being recorded, the movie adaptation has been nominated for 10 Oscars. So it must have struck a chord somehow! I have had the privilege of seeing Wicked three times now… once in the musical theatres, and then more recently twice in the cinemas. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the production very much – everything from the visuals, orchestration, casting, pacing and story. But watching it this time around, I was struck by a few prophetic themes that I think are particularly relevant for our times! Hence this episode.
Story Synopsis
As usual, we’ll begin with a quick summary of the story. There are massive spoilers here, so I do assume you’ve seen the movie before listening to this episode, also cos I’m only doing a cursive story summary here. Wicked is sort of the prequel to L. Frank Baum’s infamous movie Wizard of Oz, first released in 1939. It tells the untold story of Elphaba, the girl who would eventually become the Wicked Witch of the West. It also tells the story of Glinda, the future Good Witch. The film though begins in the magical land of Oz, where we learn that poor Elphaba is born with green skin, a feature that would result in automatic rejection from her father and society. Despite her outsider status, fate allows her as a young woman to attend Shiz University of magic, where she meets Glinda, who is her polar opposite—a student who is popular, beautiful, ambitious, and bubbly. Long story short, their initial rivalry soon transforms into an unlikely friendship, marked by deep contrasts in personality and values. During her time at Shiz, Elphaba discovers her natural giftedness for magic and dreams of meeting the Wizard of Oz himself, hoping he’ll help her gain acceptance and maybe even de-greenify her. By demonizing teachers like Dr. Dillamond, the Wizard fabricates a scapegoat for the kingdom’s troubles, uniting the people against a manufactured enemy. Outraged, Elphaba refuses to be complicit in his schemes and openly defies him. This act of rebellion marks her as public enemy number one, and the Wizard’s regime brands her as “Wicked,” casting her out for good. Meanwhile, Glinda chooses the path of political power and social approval, distancing herself from Elphaba’s resistance. Their friendship is tested by conflicting ideals, ambition, and a shared love for Fiyero. As Elphaba embraces her role as the outcast, she becomes a symbol of resistance against the Wizard’s tyranny. The film ends with her full transformation into the “Wicked Witch”—but only through the eyes of Oz. Curtain falls. Now, while this is only half of Elphaba’s story, and her journey continues in Part 2, for the purposes of this episode, I’ll focus solely on the events and themes of Part 1.
Now, there are two related phenomena I will be covering this episode, both of which have profound Christian implications. First we’ll explore a social phenomenon called mimetic desire – or mimetic theory, and then flowing from this, the social phenomenon of scapegoating. Both concepts are illustrated well in Wicked, and both concepts shed brilliant light upon our own hearts. Please know that the ideas explored this episode originate from the French philosopher Rene Girard, who is becoming more and more relevant today, with figures like Bishop Barron and Richard Rohr often commenting on Girard’s work, who was himself a devout Catholic. Let’s begin.
Part 1: What is mimetic desire?
While many of you will be familiar with the phenomenon of scapegoating – of putting all the blame on something onto someone innocent – very few realise the origins of scapegoating comes from mimetic desire. But I guarantee that once you mimetic desire around you, you’ll never be able to unsee it – it’s everywhere, including in our own hearts. The word mimetic comes from the word mime, or imitate. In a nutshell, mimetic desire is this: we rarely want something because we actually want it, rather we want something because other people want it. We might think our desires are authentic but they’re not – we just copy the desires of the people we idolise most. Rene Girard writes that after the basic human needs are met – food, shelter, etc. our desires mimic influential people like a parent, a celebrity, a colleague or a friend. In Wicked, you can see this of course in how Glinda’s two friends Shen Shen and Pfannee just imitates everything she likes, or adopts attitudes she has. Or notice how when Fiyero starts to ‘like’ Elphaba, Glinda starts to ‘like’ Elphaba too, even though she personally found her loathing. But Glinda unconsciously imitates Fiyero, because he was someone she looked up. In real life, the applications of mimetic desire are many. Fashion trends are a good example: people don’t just choose clothes based on personal preference; they’re influenced by what celebrities or peers wear. Another example is how many people slave away at a high paying job because it’s deemed desirable, even while it sucks the soul out of them. As Jonathan Bai puts it, mimetic desire is so strong, and so hidden, that it drives us to “make money we don’t need, to buy stuff we don’t want, to impress people we don’t like.” Girard first noticed this mimetic desire in kids early on where a younger sibling would be playing happily with a toy, until he sees his older sister enjoying another toy. And then, he’d suddenly want that toy because she wanted it, even though he was perfectly fine a moment ago. Friends can you begin to see how mimetic desire works? How many things that you want today, are actually things you genuinely want?
You know I was recently in the Uffizi art gallery in Florence, and at some point I wondered… how many of the artworks I actually want to see are because people regard them as famous, as opposed to because I actually want to see it? So I did a little experiment. For an entire floor, I chose not to use my audio guide, and to just wander around, taking in all the artwork on display… and seeing what I was actually drawn to. And as you’d guess, what I was actually drawn to were random pieces that weren’t even that famous, even while I walked past the real masterpieces like Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo and Da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi. This is a funny example of mimetic desire, but it can be magnified to the Nth level, world war level, as we shall soon see.
In Wicked, another moment this mimetic desire is particularly on display is in the ballroom scene. Again, when Glinda mocked Elphaba’s outrageous hat, everyone else mocked Elphaba, because everyone just wanted what Glinda wanted. But then Glinda suddenly has a change in her conscience and begins to feels sorry for Elphaba. She boldly steps out and reaches out to Elphaba on the dance floor, and begins to imitate her awkward dance moves. In that moment, Glinda herself wanted to imitate the courage of Elphaba, and Elphaba became the object of Glinda’s mimesis. And then of course, suddenly everyone else changes their attitude towards Elphaba, not because they like her, but because now Glinda now likes her, and just like that, Elphaba’s awkward, undesirable dancing style becomes desirable. Everyone is imitating everyone… except Elphaba, who is probably the most authentic character in the entire story!
Are we then helplessly pulled into the gravity of mimetic desire? Not exactly. Girard suggests that the first step to freedom is simply recognizing that mimetic desire is at work within us. That awareness alone is a victory. However, since we are deeply social beings, avoiding imitation altogether is nearly impossible. The far better approach, Girard argues, is to be intentional about whose desires we imitate. Ultimately, he posits that only the desires of Jesus Christ are truly worth imitating, as they lead not to rivalry and violence, but to love and self-giving. We’ll explore that more in the next section.
Part 2: What is Scapegoating?
Okay, but how does mimetic desire lead to scapegoating? Let’s explore that now. Let’s begin by understanding how the scapegoating mechanism works, for its more than just putting the blame on someone. Scapegoating happens when a dysfunctional group prefer to lay the blame on someone, rather than face their own dysfunction. This group can be anything, a family, an organisation, a church, or even a nation, but the result is always the same, a scapegoat is cast out. Usually, the scapegoat is someone already a bit different – an outlier, a deviant or maybe, someone with green skin. The result is the same – they are villainised, sacrificed and cast out. When this happens, the group feels this false sense of unity and relief, because the ‘cause’ of the dysfunction has been expelled and for a while, the group feels at peace. Until of course… the inherent dysfunction re-emerges and another scapegoat needs to be identified and cast out. You may be interested to know that the word scapegoat originates from the Bible. Every year on Yom Kippur, the high priest would symbolically lay the sins of the people onto a literal goat, which was then sent into the wilderness—carrying away their transgressions and restoring a temporary peace to Israel. This ritual reflected a deep human impulse: the need to purge guilt by placing it onto another. In short, people create scapegoats when there’s a truth they refuse to confront. Rather than taking responsibility for their sins, they thrust the blame onto another and cast them out.
After Germany’s defeat in WWI, the nation was fractured and searching for someone to blame. Adolf Hitler exploited this by scapegoating the Jews, framing them as the cause of Germany’s struggles. Through propaganda, he united the Germans by creating a common enemy, while masking the deeper issues of national shame. This illusion led to horrific atrocities as you well know… and despite the incredible toll, the original issue was never resolved.
However, René Girard suggests that scapegoating operates on a much larger, almost contagious scale when societies experience widespread mimetic tension. In Wicked, this is illustrated through the Wizard’s manipulation of power. The citizens of Oz all long for order and security, but as tensions rise, someone is needed to blame for their unrest. The wizard himself says “Elphaba, where I’m from, the best way to bring people together is to give them a really good enemy.” Rather than confronting his fear of being exposed as the phony outsider, the Wizard first rallies Oz against the Animals – blaming them for the social unrest. Notice the casting out of Dr Dillamond from Shiz – a scapegoat who is literally a goat – this is no accident. When this plan is exposed by Elphaba, the Wizard quickly rallies Oz behind a new common enemy—Elphaba. The Wizard paints her as the new scapegoat, casts her out, and in doing so, does in one sense unite Oz. The full unravelling of this will be seen in the next movie.
Here’s the piercing question though: how might this scapegoating mechanism be at work in our own lives? Girard says that people make scapegoats when there’s some truth they don’t want to acknowledge. Do you have a mimetic desire that’s causing havoc in your life and pulling you away from what you really want? Is there some hidden dynamic going in you do not wish to acknowledge, that you instead blame on someone, or something else, rather than take responsibility? Remember, creating a scapegoat feels good temporarily, because a certain relief and peace is restored. But know that the real root of the dysfunction remains, and new scapegoats will have to be created again and again and cast out. This is the story of the unexamined life (LOL), and in many ways it is the story of the Old Testament.
Part 3: Christ as Scapegoat, exposing Mimetic Desire
The full flowering of Rene Girard’s work lies in his revealing how Christ is the ultimate answer to the disorders of mimetic desire and scapegoating. In short it is this – when we imitate Christ as our model and truly desire what he desires, order is restored to the world, in our own lives and in the world. This is because Christ desires only love and justice, both of which usher forth the kingdom of God. No other role model can replace him. Now I know it sounds rather controversial to say this, but Elphaba in this film, esp. in part 1 is actually a Christ figure who models virtue that like NONE of the other characters have. Anyone who even begins to mimic her as their model – namely Fiyero and later on Glinda, actually become far better people because of it. But now, consider that Christ is the ultimate scapegoat in human history—the one cast out by both the Romans and Jewish authorities so that humanity could continue living blindly in their disordered desires. But then, Christ did something unexpected. By being cast out and yet revealed as innocent, He exposes the entire mimetic mechanism for what it is—a sham. He unmasks the lie that peace can be found through scapegoating and, in doing so, throws the focus back onto us. Rather than upholding the narrative of the victors, Christianity tells the story of the scapegoat—and in an earth-shattering reversal, raises them up. A truly functional society, it turns out, is not built on the exclusion of scapegoats but built upon the one who was scapegoated. As Scripture declares, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42).
Let that sink in for a moment. The Church—the very Body of Christ—is the only society in human history built upon the scapegoat rather than upon casting one out. The implications of this are staggering. It reframes everything, suddenly making sense of Jesus’ most radical teachings: The first shall be last. The least shall be greatest. The humble shall be exalted, while the exalted will be humbled. The Kingdom of God belongs to little children. Blessed are the poor, the weak, the persecuted. Christianity does not merely challenge the structures of the world—it turns them right-side up. This is why I believe Wicked is so deeply resonant with us. In a mysterious way, it begins to tell the story of the scapegoat and goes some way to vindicates it. In doing so it exposes the civilised Oz society for the sham it is – and forces us to reflect upon how much Oz there in us too.
It’s important to say that I’m not saying that Wicked is line-by-line Gospel; it certainly isn’t especially as we watch Elphaba spiral to the dark side in Part 2. But it does go a long way to provide a sort of hope for those who find themselves like Elphaba as the scapegoat, who are unfairly shunned by society. As it turns out, the church is built upon Christ the rejected cornerstone – and so you are in good company. “If I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free” sings Elphaba, and truer words could not be said of Christ the outcast one. By following him, you and I are not merely rejecting a false society, we are rising above it, defying the gravitational pull of mimetic desire itself!
Further Resources
Piano soundtrack used this episode: “Wicked | 20 minutes of Calm Piano” (Minnz Piano)