Adaptive Dissonance in Wizard of Oz Films

Abstract

Chapter five traces multiple adaptations across many decades, wherein each adaptation interacts not just with the source text, but also with other adaptations. This chapter builds from theorists like Bakhtin to suggest that in the case of multiple adaptations of a single source, one ideological ramification is adaptive dissonance, or an increased ideological conflict within the adaptation as compared to the source. More than simply a divergence from or conflict with the ideologies of a precursor text, adaptive dissonance describes an internal conflict that manifests within each new adaptation. Considering The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical (1978), The Wiz Live! (2015), Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), this chapter considers the implications of such adaptive dissonance, especially when it comes to depictions of race and gender in contemporary Oz retellings.