Out of the darkness of 2024, a new meme is born: In a recent interview with Wicked: Part One stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist told both actresses that she’d witnessed fans “taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that, and feeling power in that.” Erivo and Grande both became visibly emotional at this (apparent) revelation. The clip soon caught the attention of TikTok and X users, who transformed the interview into the kind of meme that eclipses its humble origins.
Part of what fascinates me about this meme is how it both indulges in earnestness and pokes fun at it. Because, look—in the most literal sense—we as a society are collectively holding space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”! Wicked: Part One is an enormous record-breaking box-office hit. The merchandise is inescapable! People are crying as they leave the theater! Whether willingly or otherwise, we are all indeed “holding space.”
But as we do collectively hold space, such a meme begs the question: What are we holding space for? What, in the year 2024, is “Defying Gravity”—a certified hit since its debut in the Wicked stage musical during the early aughts—meant to evoke? What should Wicked: Part One’s iconic ending make us feel?
There’s the obvious answer, sure: “Defying Gravity” pulls our heartstrings around the false defeat of Elphaba Thropp, now otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West. In Jon M. Chu’s remarkable film adaptation of the musical, Erivo’s Elphaba reaches the long-awaited Emerald City with her best friend and Shiz University roommate, Glinda Upland (Grande), only to realize that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) is a fraud.
Initially Elphaba is charmed by the Wizard, as most Ozians must be for his brand of razzle-dazzle to work. But when she reveals that her deepest wish is for animal rights to be protected throughout Oz, the Wizard instead steers Elphaba toward an ancient spell book known as the Grimmerie. Eager to prove her worth, she interprets the previously indecipherable letters with ease, reading aloud a levitation spell from the tome. But as her words come together, one of the Wizard’s guards, Chistory, begins to claw painfully at his back. Moments later, wings rip through his armor. When the spell is at last finished, Elphaba realizes she has accidentally transformed all the primate guards into winged monkeys, whom the Wizard and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) intend to employ as spies throughout Oz.
Horrified at what her power has wrought, Elphaba turns on the Wizard, imploring him to reverse her damage with his own ample magic. But the look on his face convinces her he doesn’t have any power of his own. The Wonderful Wizard is a story Ozians wanted to hear, and not a word of it is true.
Elphaba realizes she’s been cornered, brought to the Emerald City in order to become not the Wizard’s apprentice but his ignorant accomplice. Snagging the Grimmerie and renouncing the Wizard, Elphaba flees, sprinting through the palace as Glinda (and the winged monkeys) crash through the surrounding windows and chase after her. Madame Morrible takes the opportunity to disseminate a powerful piece of propaganda to all of Oz: There is a “wicked witch” on the loose.
Glinda finally catches up with Elphaba, and she attempts to convince her friend to stay, to apologize, to earn the Wizard’s good graces once again. But Elphaba condemns Glinda for her eagerness to “grovel in submission” after the cruelty they both witnessed. There is no world in which Elphaba can return to the Wizard’s side, especially now that Madame Morrible has proclaimed her a national security threat. The future Elphaba once envisioned is now impossible.
Instead, she implores Glinda to go with her—to escape the Emerald City and build a rebellion together as “the greatest team there’s ever been.” That Glinda loves and cares for Elphaba is never in question here. But the young Upland is nevertheless a product of Oz’s prejudiced hierarchy; following Elphaba would mean sacrificing that accompanying privilege, the rules by which she has always governed her world, and the future of which she’s always been so certain. She does not have the foundational “tools,” as Grande herself put it in an interview with iHeartRadio, to take Elphaba’s leap of faith. She is not a rebel. She is (and always has been) a fixture of the system itself. And so she wraps her friend in a cloak, bidding her a tearful, tender goodbye as Elphaba attempts another levitation spell, this time enchanting a broomstick rather than sprouting her own set of wings.
As the Wizard, Madame Morrible, their human guards, and their winged monkeys close in, Elphaba jumps from the tower and flies toward Oz’s western lands (“look to the western sky,” as she sings), where Prince Fiyero’s home of Kiamo Ko resides. In the final moments of Wicked: Part One, we watch Fiyero himself flee Shiz University on horseback. Although the film doesn’t tell us where he’s going, it’s safe to assume he’s embarking on a journey to find Elphaba, the witch who’s had him “thinking” so much lately.
And thus the first chapter of Chu’s Wicked saga ends with Erivo belting the final notes of the iconic “Defying Gravity” riff. Such an ending matches the Act I finale of the stage musical, in which the curtain drops in the same manner the credits of Wicked: Part One roll. But Chu’s film cuts up “Defying Gravity,” adding scenes between lyrics to make the song ultimately longer—and much more powerful in its emotional wallop. Close-ups on the faces of Erivo and Grande allow us to sit in their feelings with them, particularly as they navigate the emotional minefield following the Wizard’s betrayal. How can they stay true to each other as their paths violently diverge? How can they stay true to themselves as Oz reveals the extent of its corruption? As Chu told GamesRadar, Elphaba knows during the earliest moments of “Defying Gravity” that “you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. She has to prove [her strength] to herself. How do we show that through this number that already exists? And you’re not going to add new words to it. So what are you going to do?”
What Chu does is make “Defying Gravity” not merely a song or a scene but an entire sequence, one that toes the line between aching nostalgia and modern poignance. There’s a reason why such a song invites reflection, otherwise known as “holding space,” even if that phrase has been reduced to utter meaninglessness amidst the influx of therapy-speak. “Defying Gravity” is a song that resonates inside and outside of its context, as it has now for decades. Inside that context, the song proclaims the freedom of a green-skinned outcast as she grasps the reality of her value and purpose. Outside that context, it’s an anthem for any outcast—especially in a society where, as in Oz, propaganda and conspiracy theories have convinced huge swaths of the population that the common enemy is not a corrupt leader but, in fact, one another.
The song actively invites parallels: Elphaba’s resilience to that of the LGBTQ community and people of color, Oz’s prejudice to that of American xenophobia, Glinda’s reluctance to that of white feminism. The book upon which Wicked is based was written with similar political parallels in mind; it’s only right that the musical and film would follow suit. And not everyone will recognize these parallels in the same manner. For some, “Defying Gravity” will simply represent The Outcast in every group: for instance, the “theater kid” who doesn’t fit in with their peers, and who has earnestly adored Wicked since its Broadway debut in 2003.
Regardless of the specific symbols it evokes, the ending of Wicked: Part One is not the end. (For one thing, there’s a Part Two coming out next year.) But Part One’s ending-that’s-not-an-ending is precisely what lends “Defying Gravity” its signficance. Elphaba’s cliffhanger high note is a ferocious cry of hope, one that explains why so many viewers are leaving the theater in tears, or otherwise feeling compelled to “hold space” for lyrics from 20 years ago. The “ending” reminds viewers of what they already know intrinsically: The story is not yet over, and the work is not yet done.
