I love being in the Wicked: For Good era. It’s so fun not only seeing a movie of this kind crush it at the box office, but spark so many different kinds of conversation among its audience.
Amid the layers of reactions to those connections to The Wizard of Oz, and the emotions surrounding the movie’s titular musical number, there is one specific chain of discourse that I need to address: a particular item of clothing worn by Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo).
***Spoilers for Wicked: For Good below!***
Midway through the movie, after the planned (and arguably, performative) wedding between Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) goes awry, Fiyero and Elphaba run away together. This not only marks the first time they’ve seen each other face-to-face in several years, but it fully confirms that they are on the same side in the conflict against Oz. As they return to Elphaba’s woodsy home, they begin to sing “As Long As You’re Mine,” undressing so they can eventually consummate their relationship. For Elphaba, this means taking off her clothes to reveal a matching set of black lingerie… and then immediately putting on a chunky grey cardigan over it.
This cardigan has left some For Good viewers baffled, as evident by the dozens of TikToks and tweets I’ve organically seen since Friday poking fun at it. Some have called it ratty, or out of place during what is usually one of the sexiest scenes in musical theater. Comparisons to that one photo of Selena Gomez have, naturally, followed.
The jokes are fun, and the addition of the cardigan is one of the smaller changes the movie makes to the source material, and therefore easier to have this kind of discourse about. But I also think anyone who is outright mad about Elphaba’s sex cardigan is woefully missing the point.
It’s more than just a cardigan!
Let’s start with one fact that might be lost on older and chronically-online members of the audience: Wicked: For Good is a PG-rated movie. I’m not pointing that out in a “won’t somebody think of the children” kind of way, but really to marvel at how the movie executes Elphaba and Fiyero hooking up. Even though there isn’t a lot of physical touching in “As Long As You’re Mine”, there is still an overwhelming sense of physical and emotional intimacy… and once we cut back to Elphaba cuddled up with a shirtless Fiyero the next morning, we are able to infer what just happened.
I think, in this context, the cardigan is a key part of what makes that work. It helps “As Long As You’re Mine” retain its PG rating by covering Elphaba, but it makes any sight of her bare skin or her lingerie more impactful. It also adds another layer to her and Fiyero’s intimacy, as he is the only one who is able to fully see her once they hook up offscreen. For a modern movie with this wide of an audience, which is surely going to be a foundational text for a generation of tween and teen girls, being able to have such a healthy depiction of sexuality (even offscreen) feels like a marvel. It reminds me of the ways that classic Hollywood films skirted around the Production Code while still expressing that their characters are sexual beings.
I also have to talk about the physical cardigan itself. Does it look a little worn out, with its haphazard holes and loose threads dangling everywhere? Yes. Do I worry that it snags on the branches of her treehouse? Absolutely. Would that specific shade of grey have been a lot of people’s first choice for a seduction outfit? Probably not. But the cardigan is still a work of art.
I have been crocheting for half my life. I am currently in the middle of weaving in hundreds of ends on a cardigan that I’m almost finished with. So trust me, I speak from experience when I say that fiber arts take a lot of time and effort. That fact might be lost in the age of knitted clothing mass-produced on machines, and crochet clothing that is criminally underpriced, and might be why people are so quick to make fun of the cardigan. Hell, now I want to know what fiber arts are like in Oz. Do they have knitting machines, or did someone (maybe Elphaba herself) make it by hand?
And finally, I think the cardigan debate is overblown for another reason: Elphaba has every right to be cozy. By the time “As Long As You’re Mine” rolls around, Elphaba has spent several years alone as a societal pariah, after already having endured a lifetime of being ostracized and emotionally neglected. She finally gets to have a moment with the man she loves, and it’s totally understandable that she would want to be as comfortable as possible the entire time. (Also, she lives in a literal treehouse, which probably gets very cold at night.)
As Taylor Swift illustrated on one random July day in 2020, cardigans can be a symbol of love, longing, and comfort. So it honestly feels fitting that we got a new one onscreen during Wicked: For Good, and during a number as big as “As Long As You’re Mine.” Now if you don’t mind me, I’m going to go hunt for a crochet pattern to make my own.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
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