Is it Wicked to erase actors and their choices?

The controversy around Cynthia Erivo and the fan-edited poster for Wicked

There are benefits and downsides to the age of social media and the average person’s ability to edit photos. On one hand, fixing and editing your photos and making promotional posters can be a useful tool. However, a recent situation on social media showed the hurtful side of the act. Popular actresses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande recently posed for a newly released promotional photo for their upcoming movie, Wicked, which was released on Instagram on the @wickedmovie account on October 9, 2024. The poster is an homage to the original poster from 2003, when Wicked the stage musical opened on Broadway. This controversy stems from a fan of the Broadway musical who decided to edit Erivo in what the actress has called a disrespectful way. This caused people to question how much the fans of the original Broadway show were owed imagery consistent with the original, and how Erivo’s response shapes the future of fan edits.

Riley Small – Argosy Illustrator

This situation poses questions relating to how much original fans think they own a piece of media. In cases like this, fans can feel ownership over the original content and might feel a parasocial protectiveness. This is why when remakes of movies, or books that are made into movies deviate from the original material, fans can feel a certain protectiveness. Many decide it is their responsibility on the internet to fix, add, edit, or scorn remakes. In editing these photos, regardless of their intentions, some fans make it seem like they do not respect the new choices and take on the original story. In the edited version of the poster, the fan hid Ariana Grande’s face with her hand. While this erases her acting choices, the editing done to Erivo’s face is much more drastic. The editor lowered the brim of the hat to cover half of Erivo’s face, covering her eyes. They took her lips and made them into a smile and made them red. 

The person who made the edit, @midosommar on the app X (formerly Twitter) deleted the post after Erivo’s response. In this way, it seemed like the X user was respecting Erivo. However, after things began to settle, the X user reposted their edited photo with a new caption. “Ok so I’ve decided to repost this – the last few days have been wild & have helped me realize that the initial reaction was largely overblown. This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that!”

As an actress, Erivo made choices for her interpretation of Elphaba’s character. Many fans seeing this have given her backlash. Every version is different, and for a movie musical many things will be different in comparison to the Broadway version of Wicked. Erivo and Grande’s faces in the homage photo are more clear than the original illustrated image. These actresses made decisions on their characters and the facial expressions that they made in this image. For that to be covered by a fan is an erasure of the talent and choices that the actresses had made. After seeing the image, Erivo made a post on her Instagram story saying; “Our poster is an homage, not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.” Erivo’s decision to look the camera and the audience straight in the eye is a vulnerable and interesting choice for the character. By looking the audience in the eye, you can see the emotion in her eyes. By erasing this actress and her choices, fans are erasing a person and her art form, which can be hurtful to the actresses. 

 

By editing the way that these actresses decided to portray their characters, fans might unintentionally take away the actor’s autonomy and the expression of their art form. Editing a photo of performers whilst they are in character outside of the film’s staff, is in some ways similar to taking paint to a painting made by another artist. Acting is an art form, an important one that should be treated as such. By erasing and changing the way that the actresses decided to play their characters in that moment, you erase part of their message and vision. Erivo speaking out about her boundaries is an important thing to think about. If any fans are upset with the poster, it is important to remember what Erivo said, “Our poster is an homage, not an imitation.” The fans of any media are important, but they do not own the material and we all have a responsibility to respect an artist’s vision.



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