There's No Place Like Home... There's No Place Like Home...

Consider, if you will, the end of The Wizard of of Oz.

I think as critics, we shy away from reexamining the "classics" of film, the real warhorses that are so bulletproof you can't challenge the accepted wisdom (though it's fair to counter that, I think, with the question of what, if anything, there's left to say). I mentioned it a while back with that penchant we have for making movie lists, too - we're conferring some notion of "classic" onto films that deserve more consideration, more examination, and always, more thought.

The Wizard of Oz is one of those things I've watched for years, but not necessarily considered deeply; like for many, it was my introduction to Judy Garland, and it took me years to see her as anything but Dorothy - gay icon, forever teenaged, pretty and perfect. And when I did broaden my appreciation of Garland, it sort of cheapened "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" - I've come to admire most the battle weary survivor, the gal who could still put on a show almost to the end, and the powerful singer she became. Those pretty, innocent early tunes have less call than "Hello Bluebird" or the no-stops version of "Just in Time" she did in her later years (or to bridge past with present, compare her teenage version of "You Made Me Love You" to the one from her concert years... that's a woman who's aching with desire, not a girl with a crush).

Watching The Wizard of Oz again while on my recent cruise - we got back yesterday - I was struck by the ending, and something I hadn't noticed before: that what really bugs me about the film is the ending. You remember - when, Glinda tells Dorothy she had the power to go home all along, and Scarecrow asks "what have you learned?" and Dorothy says (I'm quoting roughly, because it's not on IMDB) "I think I've learned that everything I need is at home. And if I think I need to go searching for something, I don't need to go any further than my own back yard... because if it's not there, than I probably don't need it anyway." And later, when she wakes up, Dorothy adds "Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home. Home! And this is my room, and you're all here. And I'm not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all, and - oh, Auntie Em - there's no place like home!" (That last line was on IMDB.)

That hokey ending, of course, is pure MGM; I spent my cruise finally reading Neal Gabler's book on the Hollywood moguls and how they remade America through its dreams, and you can, as he writes, see the moralism of Louis Mayer in that ending. All the platitudes about home and family wrapped up in those sentiments, mouthed by Judy Garland, corseted into her role as America's perfect child-woman sweetheart. And of course... it's not true; it's not even true for the character of Dorothy and her actual experiences, considering that she's just learned "there's no place like home"... by not being at home. Moreover, it flies in the face of the other lesson American movies give us - that we need to go out into the world to become the self made people we are meant to be. There's no place like home... that's why we leave it. "I'm not going to leave it ever, ever again" is the voice of the shut-in, the paranoiac, the agoraphobe. We need to be out in the world.

Or consider Garland herself, who of course found a whole world by never wanting to go back to her own backyard. Indeed, Garland is in many ways the emblem of post-modernism as an adult: when she starts to deconstruct the pretty images created for her, to let us into the life behind the mask, the makeup and the costumes - A Star Is Born is her tour-de-force because it takes the manufactured elements of Garland's persona and rips them apart: its a fake name, makeup, a wig... and none of it can hide - or define - who the woman actually is. Yet it does define her, lock her into certain expectations... always on, always performing.... always eager to please. You want the girl next door... go next door. The Wizard of Oz can't be her best work because all it gives us - all she's allowed to give us - is the picture perfect image of a total fantasy without the leavening of realizing that what we're being sold is a lie; and many I think, supply The Wizard of Oz with more depth than it has by layering on what Garland became in real life... but of course... that's not in the movie.

I've realized that what frustrates me about The Wizard of Oz is that lie it tells itself, and us - after seeing a world of such magic, such possibilities... it says we should want nothing more than to stay home, never search, never explore... never even dream. We're given a Technicolor fantasy and then told we're better off if we never go to it. And this, in the end, we celebrate. And call classic.

And yet... coming home from the cruise - five days at sea in a fantasy world of commerce and manufactured expectations - it's true that coming home is, in its way, a relief. A return to the familiar, the expected, the way of life you already know... it's comforting, safe. And less expensive. That's the hallmark, really, of a good vacation - just enough of an escape from your everyday life to le you appreciate coming back to it. There's no place like home. It's good to be back. Forgive me, though, if I still believe in putting more faith in the value of escaping.

Crossposted from New Critics.

Comments

[Jose]

Hi Wes,

Interesting essay. You are right the film seems counter to what the US is all about it. Especially, since Hollywood was already getting a bad reputation of luring young innocent women to La-La Land in hopes of becoming starlets.

However, From a hermeneutic pov, "The Wizard of Oz" was made in 1939 which was a few years pripr to the US involvemnet in W.W. II. A lot of horrible things were happening in Europe and the from that perspective maybe the underlying message was to stay home. Remember, the U.S. was trying to maintain a position of neutrality and one of the events that pushed this country into that war was the sinking of a passenger ship.

On a personal note, it's true "there's no place like home", but, coming back from the same cruise that you were on, I kept telling my wife that this has been on of those vacations where I wish it had not ended.

Hope all is well.

[julia]

If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't go anywhere further than my own back yard. And if it isn't there, I'll know I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?

Good point.