Cynthia Erivo recently spoke out against fan-made edits of ‘Wicked’s poster that went viral.
Erivo plays Elphaba in the upcoming movie. The official poster shows Ariana Grande’s Glinda whispering into Elphaba’s ear, in a nod to the iconic Broadway musical’s original poster. Fans altered the poster to make it more like the Broadway version. In that version, Elphaba’s eyes are hidden by the shadow of her hat.
On her Instagram stories, Erivo called these edits ‘the wildest, most offensive thing’ she’s seen and said they are ‘deeply harmful.’ “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,” she explained.
She said that the movie poster is meant to be a homage to the Broadway version, not a direct copy. Erivo also said that editing her face to hide her eyes feels like an attempt to ‘erase’ her. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posting the question, ‘is your p*** green.’ None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” she added.
Erivo says the edits are also degrading to her co-star, Ariana Grande. She claims editing the poster for the sake of looking more like the Broadway version is hurtful.
‘Wicked’ movies won’t be exactly the same as the Broadway show. The movies aim to honor the original, but there will be creative changes like splitting the story into two feature-length films. The first part is set to run for two hours and 40 minutes. It is nearly the same length as the entire Broadway production.
Photo Credit: Deadline
