Anti-green skin rhetoric in Wicked has earned the movie a trigger warning for “discrimination” by the British Board of Film Classification. According to the regulators, seeing “beloved characters” being mistreated could be “upsetting and poignant” for some audiences.
Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, played by British actress and singer Cynthia Erivo experiences a troubled childhood as a result of being bullied for her green skin.
The bullying experienced by Elphaba for her green complexion “leads to some emotional and upsetting scenes, until she is finally accepted,” the BBFC said.
Regulators also cited a disabled woman in a wheelchair being “treated in a condescending manner by able-bodied people,” and talking animals being “persecuted in a fantastical society,” as additional reasons for the content warning and PG rating.
“Occasional threatening scenes”, “brief scary moments” and an ending that is “not wholly reassuring” were also factored into the rating.
BBFC guidelines for PG ratings specifically denote that discriminatory language or behavior “should be clearly disapproved of.” The guidelines allow for some language and behavior “if justified by context,” namely “reclaimed, historical, lack of discriminatory intent.”
BBFC research from 2021 found that parents want content warnings on racism and discrimination so they can make informed decisions. Its findings also reported some parents saw value in exposing children to examples of discrimination to prepare them for real life.
The regulators’ decision with Wicked, however, has not been entirely well received. Writer Simon Evans mocked the content warning in an interview with The Daily Mail as “ridiculous and counter-productive at the best of times, dampening excitement, destroying creative, dramatic tension and creating a muffled atmosphere appropriate to an HR seminar than a movie.”
Sociology professor Frank Furedi echoed Evans' remark, also when speaking to the Mail.
“Green skinned people under attack? You cannot make it up. It is evident that the authors of this silly classification are living on planet Bonkers,” he said.
Meanwhile, columnist Stuart Heritage defended the regulators in The Guardian, explaining that the content warning was integral to BBFC’s purpose.
“Some people might even argue that Elphaba’s skin color is an allegory for any form of racism—in fact an allegory that if anything is a little too heavy-handed," he wrote. “And that the organization had a moral duty to explain that these depictions of racist abuse are what landed Wicked with a PG certificate rather than a U.”
