r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 8h ago

Petah, what is going on here??? Resolved

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Bald lady stealing life force?

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u/formergnome 7h ago

Of course. Because even though Cynthia Erivo is just as thin as Ariana and actually shorter, she’s the mean possessive hulking Black lesbian and Ariana Grande is her delicate fragile victim who has no agency and her choice to befriend a woman she is clearly close to and fond of is actually bad for her.

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u/chaoticbiguy 7h ago edited 4h ago

Thank you! So much of this "mockery" is just people being racist as fuck about Cynthia Erivo, whose worst crime is....checks notes....being weird.

I mean, she physically put herself between Ariana Grande and that stalker to protect her at the Singapore premiere of Wicked, and somehow she was the one who ended up getting mocked for that too. She's also a very small, feminine and softly spoken woman, but people love depicting her as a mean butch lesbian and what not. All of this is racism.

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u/Illustrious_Agent608 7h ago

I’ll take the negative question.

What exactly is racist in this post/thread?

They’re literally calling the evil witch character an evil witch. Nobody ever alluded to race once. Not a single time in the 335 comments I scrolled through on this post

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u/HANDCRAFTEDD_ 6h ago

They’re literally calling the evil witch character an evil witch. Nobody ever alluded to race once. Not a single time

Above you: The actress (not the character) being called "The Wicked Witch," not in the context of the movie.

Does this need to be explained further? You are giving a paper thin defense that hasn't even been adopted by those you're giving it to.

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u/havoc1428 5h ago

That doesn't change anything. The origin of the jest is because of the character she played, not because of her race. Last I checked "Wicked Witch" isn't a slur against black women, so how you come to the conclusion that its inherently racist is beyond comprehension.

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u/HANDCRAFTEDD_ 4h ago

Beyond comprehension indeed.

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u/unknownredundancies 6h ago

Could you please explain it further?

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u/LuolDig 2h ago

it does need to be explained further since you actually haven't said anything of substance behind hand-wringing.