The Courage to Be Called Wicked

The enduring power of the musical “Wicked” lies in its quiet, unsettling question: Who decides who the villain is?

In the story, the misunderstood green-skinned outsider, Elphaba, becomes the so-called Wicked Witch not because she commits evil acts, but because she refuses to accept a corrupt system built on lies and propaganda. She challenges authority, questions injustice, and refuses to remain silent when the powerful manipulate fear for their own gain. For that courage, she is branded dangerous. A villain. An enemy of the state.

Meanwhile, the institutions of power—those who shape public perception—craft a narrative that turns truth into treason. Posters are printed. Rumors spread. And suddenly the one voice speaking out becomes the one the public is taught to fear.

It is difficult not to see echoes of that dynamic in today’s political climate in the United States.

In moments of national strain, those who raise their voices in defense of democratic norms—journalists, educators, public servants, ordinary citizens—are sometimes painted as enemies rather than guardians. To question corruption or cruelty is reframed as disloyalty. To defend constitutional principles is labeled obstruction. Like Elphaba, those who refuse to look away from injustice can find themselves recast as the “villains” in someone else’s narrative.

But Wicked reminds us that history often reveals the deeper truth. The labels imposed by power rarely last forever. What endures are the actions of people who stood up when it mattered.

Elphaba’s story is not really about wickedness at all—it is about moral courage. It is about the lonely, necessary act of saying no when a system demands silence.

For those in today’s democratic “resistance,” standing firm for constitutional law, accountability, and basic human decency, that message resonates deeply. The lesson of Wicked is that the loudest accusations are not always the most truthful—and that sometimes the people called villains are simply the ones who refused to surrender their conscience.

In the end, the question the musical leaves us with is not: Who is wicked?

It is who had the courage to see clearly—and still stand up.