Maybe not quite a headline: gay man excited that gay music remains gay, but here we are. This weekend the crowd stormed the Emerald City to create Bad: Part One the third biggest opening of the year– and the biggest opening for a movie musical ever. It’s a classic four quadrant hit: young, old, girls and gays. My display consisted of wall-to-wall witch costumes, BFAs, and queer people breathing a collective sigh of relief. To paraphrase Jennifer Garner in Love, Simon: “You can exhale now, gays.” Bad is here, and it’s still very, very strange.

Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Bad: Part One follows Elphaba, a magically inclined outcast from Shiz University, and G(a)linda, a nepo baby who hides her evil streak behind hair, on their journey to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good, respectively. At school, Elphaba and Glinda go from enemies to best friends (as so many do), bicker over a boy (as is so often the case), and ultimately forge divergent paths: Elphaba as the evil rebel against the oppressive Wizard of Oz and Glinda as a political pawn.

The story of Bad has become a resonant allegory for many marginalized communities, especially the LGBTQ+. Elphaba’s story is one of otherness, as she is ostracized for qualities she cannot, will not, or should not change about herself (the casting of queer, Black Cynthia Ervico in the role only underlines these themes).

Meanwhile, the plight of Oz’s animals reflects systematic government oppression, which may have some harsh consequences for people preparing to avoid post-election chats with family members during the holidays. Bad is also about finding a way to live with your annoying roommate – who is not exclusively gay, but is somehow very queer-relatable.

The Curse of De-Queering: Lessons Learned In the forest and beyond

Ten years ago the In the forest amendment was a striking example of what can go wrong when simplifying a complex Broadway adaptation on its way to the big screen. On stage, Stefan Sondheim and that of James Lapine In the forest is a dissection of fairy tales, featuring the death of Rapunzel, the baker’s wife’s affair with the charming prince, and Little Red Riding Hood’s sexual awakening thanks to the Wolf. The Disney adaptation has it neutered: Rapunzel simply disappears, the affair is toned down to a kiss, and the Wolf is reduced to something akin to a drunk uncle making his niece uncomfortable at her bat mitzvah.

Other adaptations have been even more explicit in erasing queerness, and Disney’s live-action remakes have led the way and removed that queer subtext from the villains. Melissa McCarthyUrsula is inside The Little Mermaid is serviceable, but lacks the camp menace of the divinely inspired original. Scar’s queening-out has arrived The Lion Kingand while Marwan Kenzari’s Jafar is inside Aladdin is distractingly hot, he doesn’t bring the manic gay energy of his animated counterpart.

Even The balla musical explicitly about queer empowerment, fiddled with its adaptation through casting James Corden in a much-criticized performance as a flamboyant gay man. There are many problems with it The ball, though it feels somehow justified to lay them all at Corden’s feet. Even for a musical that is as difficult to “invent” as Badthe fear that it would suffer the same fate as some of these earlier adaptations was very real.

The strange triumph of Bad: Part One

Instead of, Bad: Part One leans completely into its strangeness. Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba; Jonathan Bailey, an openly gay actor, takes on Fiyero; and Bowen Yang steals scenes as Glinda’s sidekick, Pfannee. Unlike From Beauty and the Beast infamous “exclusive gay moment” for LeFou, Pfannee is not an ambiguously feminine prop; he is a real gay man in a school uniform with skirts who responds to Fiyero exactly as he should: “You can do anything to me,” Pfannee says when he meets him. Same, girl, same.

Bailey’s Fiyero radiates ‘bisexual energy’, as Yang aptly described it Las Culturistas. After seeing the film It’s not just an energy he’s exuding, Fiyero has known the touch of a man. Director Jon M. Chu leans into this and shoots Bailey with a seductive look that objectifies him in the most knowing way. Fiyero comes in to seduce everyone with looks, touches and winks. No one is safe: not you, Glinda; not you, Elphaba; not you, the horse Fiyero rode; not you, the lucky extra whose face is caressed by Jonathan Bailey. We have a bisexual king on our hands, everyone, and I’m very happy to see it.

The film’s strangeness extends to its world-building. Shiz University and the Emerald City are places where queer people simply exist. Background actors of all genders respond to Fiyero with genuine thirst, and the Oz Dust Ballroom is filled by men in beat mugs dressed after the gods. These details may not feel radical, but in tent-pole adaptations where queerness is often sanded away, they feel daring.

(This is not to say that in every scene Michelle Yeoh is dressed in full drag, wicked and wonderful, looking like she’s about to walk the runway for a Night of 1,000 Marie Antoinettes on Drag race. “Icon” is an often overused label, but not when it comes to this queen!)

It It would be irresponsible to talk about this Bad without the central strangeness of Glinda and Elphaba’s relationship. Their relationship has launched a thousand ships and countless fanfictions. The chemistry between Erivo and Grande in the first half of the film is electric, crackling with tension – part rivalry, part lust; They want to pick each other’s brains out. As the film progresses, that chemistry becomes tender and romantic, landing somewhere between love and friendship.

Grande herself said she believes Glinda “may be a bit in the closet‘ and Cynthia Erivo calls the bond between Elphaba and Glinda ‘true love’. FWIW, the OG Glinda, Kristen Chenoweth, she supports. Who are we to argue? It reminds us that queer love stories don’t have to be overt to have an impact.

Why Bad Being queer is important

Queer audiences have long sought representation in mainstream media, claiming everything from the Pigeon Lady Home alone 2 and the Babadook Unpleasant Star Wars stormtroopers and the Green M&M. Go on Bluesky any day of the week, you’ll find someone who says, “Yes, she ate the house! Strange icon!” and it’s a background animated character from a 1996 episode of Nickelodeon Doug. But with Badyou don’t have to squint. The strangeness is ingrained in its DNA – from the casting to the storytelling and the aesthetic choices.

And yet the online discourse has been as wild as you might expect. A now viral clip shows an interviewer earnestly telling Cynthia Erivo that “people are saving space for your rendition of Defying gravity.” Erivo reacts in such a theater-kid way, clutching her chest, eyes immediately brimmed with tears, it’s perhaps the clearest form of representation the film has to offer. Not to be outdone, Twitter and TikTok are full of posts debating whether Grande’s Glinda has the “right vibrato” and analyzing whether Jonathan Bailey’s butt has gotten enough screen time. (Spoiler: That could never happen.)

The only way the stakes on social media could be higher is if Bad were a dress that is blue and black or gold and white. These are the kinds of debates that will live on in gay bars for the next twenty years. And we have already made room for it.