The surprisingly queer story behind Glinda the Good Witch
The actress behind the iconic film character had a relationship with another woman.
By Matt Keeley for LGBTQ Nation –
In a recent interview, Ariana Grande said she sees her Wicked character, Glinda, as “a little bit in the closet.” Since both Kristen Chenowith, the originator of the role on Broadway, and Gregory Maguire, the author of the original Wicked novel, agreed, it was canon: Modern Glinda is queer.
Obviously, we have to clarify that we’re not speaking about the original Glinda who first shows up in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz as Glinda the Good Witch of the South. After all, could a character who was first created in 1900 be LGBTQ+? Surprisingly, the answer is yes—in a couple of different ways.
Let’s start with arguably the most famous iteration of the character, Glinda from the massively popular 1939 film adaptation of the novel. Admittedly there’s not much in the film itself that hints at her romantic life—we honestly don’t get a whole lot of Glinda in that film at all. But there’s evidence Billie Burke, the actress that played her, was queer and had a relationship with the lesbian director Dorothy Arzner.
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https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/the-surprisingly-queer-story-behind-glinda-the-good-witch
Billie Burke and Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz
