The overly petty Wicked poster drama with Ariana Grande, explained

Ariana Grande, the cast of Wicked and pretty much half the internet are all caught up in a deeply petty drama… over a poster.

Here is an extremely thorough explanation about why everyone and their dog is arguing over this Wicked poster.

Ok so I’ve decided to repost this – the last few days have been wild & have helped me realise that the initial reaction was largely overblown. This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that! pic.twitter.com/XeyWPt2tvF

— 🇵🇸 (@midosommar) October 20, 2024

Which poster even is it and why do people care?

So, this is the official poster for the new film version of Wicked, which drops in UK cinemas on 27th November. Ariana Grande is in character as Glinda the Good Witch, and Cynthia Erivo is portraying Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West.

The source of the internet’s problems
(Image via Universal Pictures)

It’s a revamped take on this iconic original poster from the musical. The main difference between them is that in the original poster, the witchy hat covers Elphaba’s eyes. She has red lipstick and smiles in a creepy and mysterious way. In the film poster, Elphaba stares straight into the camera. Her lips are green, and smile-free.

The theatre kids were unimpressed with the very tiny differences between the posters

Quite a few fans of the original musical felt showing Elphaba’s eyes was blasphemous to the spirit of theatre or something. Lots of people edited the film poster to look more like the OG musical poster, and shared them all over social media.

Cynthia Erivo was not pleased

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The actress who plays Elphaba in the new film, Cynthia Erivo, was not exactly keen on the fanmade posters. She slated one of the most popular ones on her Instagram story. She posted an image of the poster, and wrote, “This is the wildest, most offensive think I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting equal to people posing the question ‘Is your ***** green?’

“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me.  It degrades us.

“The original poster is an illustration. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because without words, we communicate with our eyes.

“Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”

Image via Instagram

Cynthia Erivo then reposted the official film poster, and wrote, “Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette.”

Image via Instagram

She is referring to two AI-generated fake clips of the Wicked film which have been circulated online. One is of Glinda and Elphaba punching each other, and another is of Glinda asking Ephaba what colour her genitals are.

It’s fair enough if she doesn’t like the fanart, but calling it “the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen” and saying it’s on the same level as nasty AI videos is perhaps a bit far?

People reckon Ariana Grande implied she thought Cynthia Erivo overreacted

Ariana Grande then weighed in on the drama over the Wicked poster. Variety asked her what she thought about the whole poster saga. She said, “I think it’s very complicated because I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it’s just kind of such a massive adjustment period. This is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits.”

The reporter asked Ariana Grande if AI fan edits can sometimes go too far. She replied, “I think so. And I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much. It’s just a big adjustment period. It’s so much stimulation about something that’s so much bigger than us.”

My personal takeaway from that is a) Ariana Grande has had a lot of media training b) she thinks AI is scary and can be used to do nasty things c) she thinks it’s fair enough for fans to “have fun” by making harmless edits, so she might be implying that Cynthia Erivo’s response to the fanart Wicked poster was a bit far.

The person who made the edited poster revealed it wasn’t AI at all and everyone was arguing about the wrong thing

Apparently the particular fanart poster which Cynthia Erivo slated so much wasn’t made by AI, but by a human with good computer skills. The person who made it reuploaded it to X on Sunday 20th October, and stood by her opinion that the fanart was just for fun and she didn’t mean it to be offensive.

She wrote: “The last few days have been wild & have helped me realise that the initial reaction was largely overblown. This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

“Fan posters have been around for as long as movies have existed. I never meant to cause any harm and the poster is just a homage to the original broadway poster, just like the movie’s recreation is.

“Also, no AI was used!”

I hope they’re all happy now.

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• Inside the incredibly adorable long distance friendship of Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey
• In defence of Ariana Grande and her ‘boyfriend stealing’ behaviour
• Petition to keep James Corden out of Wicked musical movie has over 25,000 signatures

Feature images via Universal Pictues