Homer Township Public Library

"Wicked" Essay Contest Winner

"Glinda, the popular witch in Wicked, sings that it is more important to be popular
than to have brains or knowledge. What do you think?"

[This is the prize-winning essay written by one of our Library users. Congratulations, Emma!]

By Emma O’Shea, Age 13

Knowledge or popularity?? Well, wouldn’t “knowledge” be the popular choice?! But Galinda, as clueless and “teenage” as she is when she sings the song Popular, has a point.

Yes, brains are important--you won’t get far without them. But being well liked, as much as it sounds wrong, plays a big role in success. No matter how smart you are, if you don’t have friends or at least make an effort to be nice to others, you won’t be that successful. Like Galinda says as she sings Popular, most politicians and public figures are where they are because of their popularity. Also, in most jobs, you won’t get raises or be promoted if you are mean and unfair to others, particularly in jobs that involve social interaction as most do. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t “play nice,” even with people you don’t really like.

As much as we want them not to, people often judge us. And we are usually judged by how nice we are and how many friends we have, not on how smart we are. It’s just the way people are. Look at Elphaba, for example. People just assumed she was wicked because she only had a few friends, and others in power said she was evil. They didn’t look at the real her inside. The Wizard, on the other hand, was “our wonderful wizard,” even though he wasn’t as wonderful as he appeared. No one bothered to really look at what he was doing to the Animals. He seemed great on the surface, so people assumed he was great on the inside, too.

This brings up the dilemma about the importance of popularity. Unfortunately, people rarely dig deep to uncover the true personality of others and instead, stereotype them based on their popularity, sometimes with dangerous consequences. For example, Hitler and the Nazis stereotyped Jews and others and then killed them. People either approved of them, were too afraid to speak up, or didn’t know what was really happening. The Holocaust actually sounds eerily similar to what the Wizard was doing to the Animals. He said silencing the Animals was good for the country, like Hitler did with the Jews, and people believed them. Both leaders would never have been able to do the horrible things they did if they had never been popular in the first place.

Therefore, we must be careful how we much value we place on popularity and look beneath the surface in order to find the truth about others, whether the truth be good or bad. When Galinda sings Popular, I don’t think she knows what moral issues she raises by singing a simple, fun song.

Finally, I believe that as much as we would wish it otherwise, popularity is the key to success. But we shouldn’t forget that while popularity unlocks the doors, it is knowledge that keeps us in the room.