Fans customized the Wicked movie poster to more closely match the original Broadway poster.
Original Broadway Poster:
Movie poster:
Some fans, disappointed by the poster, altered it to be closer to the original, moving Grande’s hand and lowering the brim of Erivo’s hat to cover her eyes. The edits prompted Erivo to respond. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” Erivo continued. “The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”
So, this seems like a completely reasonable reaction to fans making fan content.
Look, I'm all about listening to a woman of color explain how something that might seem innocuous to a white man like me might actually be harmful. I'm willing to accept that there are things I don't fully understand and I'm willing to take a different perspective if pressed.
But I can't wrap my head around this one. Elphaba is a fictional character. The movie poster is almost the same as the Broadway playbill. Theatre nerds with photoshop adjusted it as a homage, and understandably so. Hiding beneath the the rim of your hat with a smirk on your face has a much different feel than staring deadpan at the camera. Wicked fans are just expressing their excitement about this movie...
This argument that "covering my eyes erases me and silences my nonverbal communication" just doesn't check out. It's clear why people made that specific adjustment, and to suggest that it was a deliberate attack against the actress is just grasping at straws. This isn't a story about the woman Cynthia Erivo, this is a story about the character Elphaba Thropp, The Wicked Witch of the West. She isn't the first to play Elphaba, and she won't be the last. If she's mad that people see the character she plays and not her, she needs to reconsider her philosophy towards acting, because that kinda the whole point...