American Alice, How You Came To Be?

It’s not a secret that different countries like to adopt successful folklore, book or movie characters fitting them into their own cultures wiping off  their foreign shiny colors so that they look native through and through. That’s happened with Winnie-the-Pooh, Pinocchio, Princess Frog and most recently with Harry Potter. Nowadays it became a way of plagiarism when writers/directors/designers just incorporate what is tried and tested to make it sellable. But actually there is nothing wrong with using some popular character as a source of inspiration like  L. Frank Baum did. He used Lewis Carroll’s Alice as a base for his main protagonist – Dorothy – while creating his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (published 1900).

Alice and Dorothy are so similar and poles apart at the same time: an English girl who was taught to do curtseys and recite “Father William” and a Kansas orphan raised on the farm by her uncle and aunt. All that Dorothy wanted was to come back home; Alice in her turn didn’t care much about it, she wanted adventures and it was her choice to follow the White Rabbit. Dorothy on the contrary was’t expecting to embark on a journey it was more of a challenge for her.

But all in all Oz is a wonderland full of bizarre creatures – big and small, good and bad. But unlike Caroll’s Wonderland that is a pure product of imagination ( it is a good summertime dream, indeed), Oz exists not only for Dorothy it’s absolutely real. It was surely visited by people before whe come to know it when the Wizard of Oz himself narrates his story (which became a plot for a new Disney’s OZ movie).

With all this being said, there is one thing that unites these two child-heros: after their adventures are over they become so much more mature, they get a better understanding of who they are, what they are made of and what they are capable of.

To me the best Oz movie showing this big transition of growing up is The Wiz (1978), very inspiring and encouraging.

Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it’s real, real to me

And I’ve learned
That we must look inside our hearts
To find a world full of love
Like yours
Like me

The musical’s closing song “Home” is extremely touching and powerful. There is no such place as home, they say. But it really lies in our hearts more than anywhere else.

I hope you’ll stop by and listen to this sweet song.