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The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

bbc.com

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Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#11

Post by davidw »

EGreg wrote: post #9
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

"Oz-tray-lee-ah"

Edited to reflect a pronunciation, not necessarily a correct or accurate one, from which it's easy to derive 'oz'.

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#12

Post by dekhn »

EGreg wrote: post #9
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

Because oz sounds like "aus"

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#13

Post by [deleted] »

EGreg wrote: post #9
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

[deleted]

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#14

Post by jaredlightman »

davidw wrote: post #11
EGreg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

"Oz-tray-lee-ah" Edited to reflect a pronunciation, not necessarily a correct or accurate one, from which it's easy to derive 'oz'.

Nobody says it with a z sound, always an s.

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#15

Post by rjkennedy98 »

rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

Worth noting: the slippers were originally Silver (as a parable for the silver standard), but changed to Ruby for the movie

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#20

Post by Causality1 »

This kind of thing is why I love that JRR Tolkien spent a whole introduction page lambasting people who read too much into symbolism in books and stating explicitly that Lord of the Rings was written as an exercise in long-form storytelling with no hidden meaning.
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