Wizard of Oz Parables

[Berzerker]

While I've heard of the drug parable, the Wicked Witch sends the gang across a field of poppies to stop them from reaching Oz and the Good Witch sends "snow" to revive them, I've learned of another parable. In Milton Friedman's book, "Money Mischief", he cites other researchers who've discerned how the story is about the battle in the late 19th century and early 20th between competing economic policies - the gold standard and the gold/silver standard.

Oz = ounce, the Cowardly Lion perhaps played by the blustery but powerless William Jennings Bryan (an advocate of gold and silver), the Tin Man representing other metals (and a common replacement metal for silver), the scarecrow representing farmers, and Dorothy representing the future (just my guess). The gang is repeatedly told to "follow the yellow brick road" - those advocating the gold standard - to Oz to find the cures to their ills which turn out to be illusory. The Wicked Witch of the "East" represents the eastern establishment (NYC) wanting gold as the standard, and the Good Witch of the North apparently a defender of adding/keeping silver as a standard along with gold. How "The Emerald City" and Dorothy's Ruby slippers fit in I don't know, but both are precious stones so I'll bet they play a role in the parable.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Friedman stole his analysis from a famous analysis of The Wizard of Oz that appeared in American Quarterly in the early 1960s. You've got the general picture, but you (or Friedman) have garbled it a little bit:

Broadly, yes, Oz can be read as a parable of Populist monetary politics in the late 19th century -- a parable that is pro-populist/silver and anti-Republican/gold. Thus, the Yellow Brick Road (gold) doesn't help Dorothy get home, but her silver slippers do (MGM changed them from silver to ruby when they made the movie, because silver looks lousy in 3-strip Technicolor). She is assisted by farmers (Scarecrow), industrial workers (Tin Man), and Williams Jennings Bryan (Cowardly Lion), all of whom become heroic by following her. As for the Emerald City, it is thought to represent Chicago, and it is as fraudulent as the Wizard himself: in the book, you must put on green-tinted glasses (green=money?), and are then invited to marvel at the "emerald" city; in fact, it's an ordinary city, and only the glasses keep you from seeing that.

It's a pretty persuasive analysis. The only problem is that, IIRC, there's little evidence that Baum sympathized with populists, and that the name of Oz comes not from "ounce" but from Baum's lower filing cabinet in his office, which was labelled "O-Z" (as opposed to the upper one, "A-N").

[Berzerker]

I didn't read either Friedman or the AQ article, just heard a condensed version from someone who was reading Friedman's book. I heard that abbreviated version and tried to fill in the symbolism with what I thought it meant - e.g., mistaking the Tin Man's role for metal, but at least I did get the scarecrow and cowardly lion right. Thanks for the more thorough analysis, that bit about the slippers being silver in the original certainly fills in a hole or two. But I do have to take issue with your claim that Friedman stole it, even in my post I said that he cited others who did the research...

Btw, what page did you find this on? Seems like it would have sunk way off the radar screen by now.

[Pekka]

I know for a fact that Cinderella story is really about something else....

Cinderella, aka Princess of Lust had orgies with 7 midgets ALL THE TIME. You think the one called shy was really shy? Let me laugh at your face. He was the one always in the nude, even when eating.

But it wasn't real. It was all acid trip, and Princess of Lust, aka Ally was experiencing with hallunosigens, and was tripping 3 days in a row, and THOUGHT she had orgies with 7 midgets. In reality she had sex with 7 drunk homeless people, and let me tell you that was not pretty, or sexy.

So, then Ally recoveres from the acid trip and realizes what she's done, living in box and messy in all imaginable ways, she passes out. She didn't sleep 100 years, she slept 3 days, and that was because she was on 3 day continuous speed hook, so she needed the rest. She took speed, because she was shocked realizing the drunkars videotaped the orgies and sold it on www.dulf.com aka druggies U'd like to.. you know.

So she went to court, settled the thing and bought speed with the money and passed out for 3 days. There was no prince to wake her up. It was acutally ER personel, a big Turkish med student that goes by the name of ahmed al Timelejev (half Russian as well).

Oh he was a good man.. knew all about ancient mythologies, and I bet he made up 90% of them, just to lure Ally into more obscene lust making... and they did. They used moprhine Ahmed stole from the ER and were high and did the nasty...

Anyway it turned out that Ally didn't have medical insurance. So she couldn't pay for the treatment, and because of the stolen morphine, Russian mob was after Ahmed. Ahmed told them that it was Ally who did it, and she could pay for it.

So Ally perfomed in series of medieval type of sex flicks, wearing Cinderella dress. To pay the Russian mob.
But she couldn't.. the interest was too high (5% per week) and she was already down to 60 big ones to them. So they sold her to Holland as a sex slave.. to red light district. That is where she wrote the story of Cinderella, because at that point she had done 3grams of hash in coffee shops on daily basis, and was on H, so she was getting delusional. So the story turned out to be a great one.

Did you know it was her diary? Yeah, she thought that was what happened to her.. her way to cope with things, getting really mentally ill at this point.
Anyway, she sold the story, it was a success, and at this point she had HIV and died away.

That's why I don't read this story to my future kids, I think it's sick.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I didn't read either Friedman or the AQ article, just heard a condensed version from someone who was reading Friedman's book. I heard that abbreviated version and tried to fill in the symbolism with what I thought it meant - e.g., mistaking the Tin Man's role for metal, but at least I did get the scarecrow and cowardly lion right. Thanks for the more thorough analysis, that bit about the slippers being silver in the original certainly fills in a hole or two. But I do have to take issue with your claim that Friedman stole it, even in my post I said that he cited others who did the research...

Btw, what page did you find this on? Seems like it would have sunk way off the radar screen by now.

Oops! My mistake about Friedman; I read your first post to quickly. Mea culpa.

And, yeah, this was down on pag 4 or 5, but I've been on vacation and was just leafing through things.

Anyway; I didn't mean to sound snotty (chalk that up to being really tired; I've been travelling all night); I actually think it's pretty cool that someone else knows about this!

[lightblue]

Originally posted by Pekka
I know for a fact that Cinderella story is really about something else....

Cinderella, aka Princess of Lust had orgies with 7 midgets ALL THE TIME. You think the one called shy was really shy? Let me laugh at your face. He was the one always in the nude, even when eating.

But it wasn't real. It was all acid trip, and Princess of Lust, aka Ally was experiencing with hallunosigens, and was tripping 3 days in a row, and THOUGHT she had orgies with 7 midgets. In reality she had sex with 7 drunk homeless people, and let me tell you that was not pretty, or sexy.

So, then Ally recoveres from the acid trip and realizes what she's done, living in box and messy in all imaginable ways, she passes out. She didn't sleep 100 years, she slept 3 days, and that was because she was on 3 day continuous speed hook, so she needed the rest. She took speed, because she was shocked realizing the drunkars videotaped the orgies and sold it on aka druggies I'd like to.. you know.

So she went to court, settled the thing and bought speed with the money and passed out for 3 days. There was no prince to wake her up. It was acutally ER personel, a big Turkish med student that goes by the name of ahmed al Timelejev (half Russian as well).

Oh he was a good man.. knew all about ancient mythologies, and I bet he made up 90% of them, just to lure Ally into more obscene lust making... and they did. They used moprhine Ahmed stole from the ER and were high and did the nasty...

Anyway it turned out that Ally didn't have medical insurance. So she couldn't pay for the treatment, and because of the stolen morphine, Russian mob was after Ahmed. Ahmed told them that it was Ally who did it, and she could pay for it.

So Ally perfomed in series of medieval type of sex flicks, wearing Cinderella dress. To pay the Russian mob.
But she couldn't.. the interest was too high (5% per week) and she was already down to 60 big ones to them. So they sold her to Holland as a sex slave.. to red light district. That is where she wrote the story of Cinderella, because at that point she had done 3grams of hash in coffee shops on daily basis, and was on H, so she was getting delusional. So the story turned out to be a great one.

Did you know it was her diary? Yeah, she thought that was what happened to her.. her way to cope with things, getting really mentally ill at this point.
Anyway, she sold the story, it was a success, and at this point she had HIV and died away.

That's why I don't read this story to my future kids, I think it's sick.

Nice story, but might want to take away the thought up link as it actually does link through to something, which most of us prolly don't want to see (not sure about red_jon, Boris, MrFun etc), as it's a website called Dads I'd like to ****....

[Pekka]

Wow, really? Damn, didn't look it up. Thanks for the warning I'll remove it..

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by lightblue
Nice story, but might want to take away the thought up link as it actually does link through to something, which most of us prolly don't want to see (not sure about red_jon, Boris, MrFun etc), as it's a website called Dads I'd like to ****....

Nice idea - warning him that his post used to contain a link to a "bad" site. You have rendered it quite ineffective, however, by quoting the very same link in your warning post.

[Pekka]

Yeah, I hope lightblue gets banned for having a porn link in his post!

[Monk]

Pekka,

Why would Cindarella know seven midgets? You must mean Snow White, right?

[lightblue]

Oops.. took it out now

[Pekka]

Monk, No.. It was one story, but the publisher wanted to make more money, creating 2 stories. Ally called herself also Snow White.. you get it? Snow? Oh yeah. She did that too. It's all about business..

[Monk]

Pekka, you're insane. I still love you man, but really, that story is the most far out, I've ever...

[Pekka]

Hey, don't blame me, I wasn't the one on acid writing to my diary.. It never occured to you, that she was never noticed by anyone, but when she had wishes she got all beautiful and she was the #1 girl? Ring any bells? That's the needle. Truth about santa, and all the little elves? Made by a woman who worked for salvation army and got into drugs too.

[Monk]

Pekka,

I hope you're joking me. Snow White, for instance, is a classic fairy tale that was collected by the Grimm brothers a hell of a long time before video cameras and HIV.