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moghedien · 2 years

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Max in Oz

For many reasons, I was thrilled with the Wizard of Oz allusions in episode six. I’ve always been obsessed with the film, I read Wicked at entirely too young an age, and I love that they used its real connections into the queer community to explore the queer community of the 1940s. However, there’s also a deeply selfish reason why I was thrilled to see the Wizard of Oz featured heavily, and that’s because not even a month before the show came out, I had just finished reading all fourteen of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. The fact that this lined up was pure coincidence; I didn’t even know the show existed until a few days after it had been out. Just having spent so long in Oz, and then to see Oz used as a sort of metaphor for queer community, was wonderful for multiple reasons but it also had me thinking of connections. Not between the film and the show, but between the books and the show. Specifically, it had me thinking a lot about parallels between Dorothy from the books as she goes through Oz and the queer storyline of Max Chapman.

If you’ve read any of my previous essays, expect this one to be a bit different. Mostly because I won’t just be pulling from details in the show, but also explaining some elements of the Oz books. I will not expect people to have read those books and will do my absolute best to provide as much explanation as is needed, but expect this one to be slightly more literary.

I’ll have to explain Oz a bit before we get into it.

Most people are familiar with the 1939 film, which is a wonderful film, but it also differs dramatically from the books in a handful of ways. The most profound way it differs is Oz itself. The film takes the approach of framing Oz to be a dream Dorothy has after being injured by the tornado. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, Wicked Witch of the West, and Wizard are all people that she knew in Kansas. This is not the case for the books.

In the books, Oz is real. Very real. It is a fairy land that Dorothy visits by accident, but is actually transported to. The people she meets there are not analogs for people she knew in Kansas and are their own very real persons. She doesn’t leave Oz simply by waking up, but has to be physically transported back to Kansas. When she does return, she’s under no illusion that it was a very, very real place. It’s a place that is both frightening and confusing to her at first, and yet where she meets friends like she’s never seen or had before. Still, at the end she chooses to go home and return to her life on the farm with her family. This is a very brief and unspecific summary of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and if we keep with the show’s metaphor of Oz being the queer community, it fits with Max’s first dabblings into queerness.

She said that she was 17 the first time she had a queer experience. We can assume that the “woman” being referenced in this is Leah, who we first see her with in episode 2. Given that Max doesn’t give Carson any details about other women, we can also assume that Leah was the only connection to queerness that Max had for a while. One brief glimpse at what it's like to be among people like her, but when it's over she still chooses to go home and continue living her life as she had been doing. Its confirmation that people like her exist, but not really being a part of a larger group.

Dorothy was a stranger in Oz the entire first book. She didn’t understand anything and was among people she liked, but still mostly alone. The same can be said for Max. We don’t know that she knew of any other queer people beside Leah. When she sees Carson and Greta kissing, she doesn’t seem alarmed by it but maybe a bit surprised. That could literally just be that she was startled at being caught in the closet with them (unintentional wordplay but it works), but even so seeing two random women kissing doesn’t automatically connect you to them just because you’re all queer. Especially when they’re two white women, and one of them just caught you seeming to spy on them. Max isn’t the only queer person in her world just like Dorothy isn’t the only earthling in Oz. The Wizard is there too. As is Toto (it should be noted that Toto is a lot more of a full character in the books and even gets dialogue later). But just like Dorothy doesn’t really connect with the Wizard in any serious sense in this first book, Max doesn’t connect immediately connect with these other queer people (like Carson) she happens to find. Those connections happen eventually, but it takes time.

Now, because Oz is a real place in the books, it's a place that can be returned to, and Dorothy does on many occasions. The fact that she returns so often is what’s driving this analysis, in fact. But before we touch upon Dorothy’s return, I need to explain the second Oz book. Because you see, Dorothy isn’t in Baum’s second Oz book at all. The main character of this book, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), is one of the best parts of Baum’s series and someone who’s background will need to be understood for the continuation of this essay. So, allow me to explain Princess Ozma of Oz.

I’ll avoid explaining the entire plot of The Marvelous Land of Oz, but the main character of that book is presented as a young boy named Tip. This main character was raised by a cruel witch. After a series of adventures that include entirely new characters and the old friends of Dorothy, an all female army that had taken control of Emerald City decides to step down once a specific detail about the main character is revealed. That being that this young boy named Tip is actually a young girl named Ozma and is the rightful ruler of Oz. This comes as a surprise even to Ozma at first, who had been presented as male throughout the entire book, up until the final pages. In these final pages, Glinda provides a gender transformation that turns Ozma into the girl that she is meant to be and from then on, she is only ever considered to be a girl. Ozma is a main character throughout the rest of the series, and the few times when her gender is discussed, it is done like this:

“Princess Ozma once brought him to life with a witch-powder, when she was a boy.”

“Was Ozma once a boy?” asked Zeb, wonderingly.

“Yes; a wicked witch enchanted her, so she could not rule her kingdom. But she’s a girl now, and the sweetest, loveliest girl in all the world.”" - From Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908) by L. Frank Baum

Now, the reason why Ozma is so important for this analysis is two-fold. One, Ozma is without a doubt the most explicitly queer character in Oz canon. Ozma is literally a transgender character. I do not think that Baum’s intention was to write a queer or trans character with her; I highly doubt he would have even been aware of the concept of transgenderism. Regardless of whatever his intent with her was, I don’t think there’s any fair interpretation of Ozma that can be done that doesn’t include her being trans, as she is literally raised as a boy and is then transformed into a girl as part of her happy ending.

The second reason why Ozma is important is because her relationship with Dorothy is pivotal to Dorothy’s future in Oz. The next time Dorothy goes to Oz, it’s again by mistake as she and a chicken are thrown overboard while on a boat on their way to Australia (that is the most normal thing about these books ok). This happens in the third book, Ozma of Oz (1907), and as you might imagine from the title, it's when she meets Ozma for the first time.

Now I’ve been talking about Oz for a while, so let’s go back to Max, specifically when Max takes what I’ll call her second real dive into queerness. Initial assumptions might be that it's when she starts blackmailing Carson and interacting with her more, but no. Max doesn’t initially seek out Carson again because of queerness other than that she can blackmail Carson because of her queerness. That’s more about baseball and they don’t start discussing their mutual queerness until later. Carson plays an important role with helping Max make certain decisions, but they’re still largely in separate worlds. No, Max’s second real experience with queerness is when she gets introduced to Bertie.

Before Max (or the audience) really meet Bertie, we get a few mentions of him and one shot of him riding down the street on a motorcycle. The first mention of Bertie is all the way back in the second episode and from then up until when Max actually meets him, he is always misgendered. We don’t have enough context to know this yet, and we don’t even know that Bertie is queer yet. Neither does Max though, until she hears her parents discussing him when they think she isn’t listening. What is clear is that there is backstory with Bertie. He has an entire history and life up until this point in which Max isn’t really involved. People she knows are involved in Bertie’s life, but not her

Like Dorothy and Ozma, Max and Bertie have similar but separate stories up to this point. Their stories include the same characters, but in different contexts and in different periods of time. They know of each other to an extent, but have never really met. Dorothy is a young farm girl who keeps getting drawn to a place she finds strange but wonderful. Max is a young queer girl who is struggling to figure herself out and figure out why she’s drawn to certain things. Ozma is a trans girl who, by the time Dorothy meets her, is ruling Oz and seems to be sure of herself in that position and literally comes to save Dorothy when she finds herself in danger. Bertie is a trans man who has clearly established a life for himself that actively embraces his queerness and the community, and he continously helps Max as she finds herself confused and unsure about herself and her queer identity.

These parallels are obvious if you know to look for them. I doubt they’re intentional just because the Oz books are so different from the movies, and less people are aware of them, but it's still there. This alone is not why I want to discuss Max's relation to Oz though. Because while the parallels are there and fun to look at and point out, they wouldn’t be all that important if they didn’t say something. And I feel like if you look at Dorothy’s journey throughout the rest of the Oz books, you can pick up on some things about where Max is going.

To keep things as brief as possible, Dorothy meets Ozma in the third book and they become instant friends. They go on some adventure to solve some problems with the rest of their friends, and at the end of the book, Dorothy is sent home. Or in this case, she’s sent to Australia. This is more or less what happens for the next three or so books (albeit she’s not sent back to Australia again but wherever she was on Earth). Dorothy finds herself in Oz somehow, usually with some other earthling that accidentally tagged along. She meets up with Ozma and the rest of her friends (but Ozma is always explicitly prominent as she’s basically the second main character from here on), they have a nonsense adventure or solve some problem, and then Dorothy goes home. That eventually changes, however.

In the sixth Oz book, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), Dorothy makes her final real journey to Oz in Baum’s original books. This is her final journey because at the end of the book, she doesn’t return to Kansas. She is made a princess of Oz and lives with Ozma in her palace. She stays in Oz and from this point on, Oz is the only home she has.

If you read the book, you can also very clearly tell that Baum was trying to end the Oz books here (which clearly didn’t happen) because he wraps up Dorothy’s story and everyone else’s so neatly. The Wizard is also in Oz again, as are Dorothy’s aunt and uncle, and it is made clear that they are never going back to earth. This is the perfect ending for them: being able to live peacefully in Oz and never, ever go back to where they came from.

This is a perfect ending for Dorothy, but when I parallel this with Max, it might seem a bit more alarming. Let’s not immediately jump to the most dramatic conclusions though, and instead look at Max’s journey into Oz after she begins having a relationship with her Uncle Bertie.

With Bertie in her life, she suddenly gets to see this world open up around her that she never saw before. She finds out that Gracie, one of her coworkers, is actually Bertie’s wife (though I’m unsure if they ever actually use that word or any specific term). She finds new ways to present herself that feel right and like herself. She finds a whole world of queerness that she didn’t know existed until she is literally welcomed into their home.

She also meets Esther, and by meeting Esther, she eventually gets not only a relationship with someone she genuinely has feelings for, but she gets to pursue her dreams of playing baseball. By taking the time to explore this queer, Ozian side of herself, Max stumbles into everything she ever wanted. You see her happy in ways she wasn’t before and you see her figuring out who she is, while still pursuing and achieving the dream that had distracted her from doing that in the past.

Now, compare this side of Max to what she tells Carson right before we see her decide to go to the party.

Before Max came to the party, she couldn’t imagine a world where she made sense. She knew of a handful of people that were sort of like her, but none of them seemed to be fully like her. Even among the other queer people she knew up to this point, she didn’t feel entirely understood. But after she goes to the party, and she sees that there are so many queer people, and so many different types of queerness, she seems more confident in herself. She is willing to explain her feelings to Bertie. She is able to go to Esther and make the first move. And she is rewarded for this every step of the way, with everything she’s ever wanted. And none of this would have happened if Max hadn’t pursued “Oz.”

If she would have stayed in Kansas and lived as she had been, as her mother intended for her to, then nothing would have changed in her life. By actively seeking out this relationship with her uncle and then having a community given to her from there, she is able to not only figure out who she is and what she wants, but she is also able to actually achieve those things for the first time. At the end of the season, she is leaving the place she’s from, where she’s lived her entire life, to travel with Esther and the rest of Red Wright’s All Stars and play ball. Like Dorothy, her happy ending is leaving home.

But unlike Dorothy, we don’t necessarily want her to leave forever, do we? Unlike Dorothy leaving Kansas, we see that Max has a life back in Rockford. Most obviously, Clance is there and Clance is pregnant (and Max doesn’t know that Clance is pregnant!). Their goodbyes to each other are full of clear love and devotion, and no one–least of all them–wants this to be the end of their friendship. There’s also her family that she’s leaving behind. Her relationship with her mother is tense at best, but there is possible growth that could happen there (more on that in a moment). She has a good relationship with her father and that doesn’t seem like something that needs to end. Then there’s also the fact that Bertie is still in Rockford. He may have opened up the world to Max, but if Max doesn’t return to Rockford, then she’s less likely to see him or Gracie again.

These details make me think that this isn’t Max’s final trip to Oz. She isn’t leaving her hometown permanently in order to get her happy ending, because she isn’t at that place yet. There’s still more to her story. Dorothy needed to make the round trip a couple of times. For some time there were still reasons for her to return to Kansas, and for now, it seems there is still reason for Max to come back to Rockford. The main question is how long until she, like Dorothy, has nothing left in Kansas?

Let’s look at Bertie and Toni’s conversation in episode 8.

Bertie is basically warning Toni exactly of this possibility. Now that Max is pursuing the self and world that she actually wants, she will eventually leave parts of her past life behind permanently. One day, she will go to Oz and not come back. But that doesn’t mean leaving everything behind. When Dorothy made a permanent move to Oz, she took her aunt and uncle with her. They were confused by the situation but supportive of her eventually, and they all benefited from the move.

The time for Max may be now, but it may not be and probably isn’t. Regardless, a time will come when Max is so secure and engrained in her queerness that it can’t be something she can step away from when she visits home. Cutting her hair was the first step of this path, as was changing how she dresses, and now she may be at the beginning of a serious relationship with another woman.

What Max leaves behind and what she takes with her will depend on how others react to her at this point. Clance will almost certainly be a permanent fixture in her life, but her family? Like Bertie says, whether or not she has a relationship with her parents will largely depend on how they react. Specifically her mother, as her father seems to accept whatever she chooses. Toni specifically doesn’t use Clance’s pregnancy as a way to bring her home, which is perhaps a good sign, but time still needs to tell. Because Max is just beginning her journeys into Oz, and we don’t yet know what the rest of those journeys will look like for her. But what she takes with her when she fully makes Oz her home will have to depend on the rest of the world.

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Other ALOTO essays:

Lupe, Carson, and Gaydar

Queerness, Contamination, and the Neurosis of Shirley Cohen

Greta Gill: Visibility and Isolation

#a league of their own #league of their own #aloto #max chapman #bertie hart #aloto analysis #this isn’t showing up in the tags and it’s really pissing me off I’m trying to fix it so lmk if you see this while looking through tags

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