The very opening moments of Wicked’s 2024 musical fantasy film adaptation capture the crowd letting out terrified gasps at the sight of Tony and Grammy-winning Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba due to the colour of her skin. Days before the cinematic premiere, netizens were disturbed by the thought of this onscreen vision translating into our reality, which is already weighed down by traumatic baggage along these lines.
Several videos and posts emerged online ahead of the Wicked theatrical release, starring Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey and others, slated for Friday, November 22. These notifications particularly drew attention to the British media publications’ coverage of the upcoming epic premiere. Criticism mounted against the UK media as Erivo’s erasure took the front seat with the sole considerably sizeable focus on Ariana Grande. Despite their contributions to the new musical iteration being at par, given their leading roles as Elphaba and Glinda (not to forget the Broadway star is actually British), the British media appeared to perpetuate its pattern of neglecting Black artists.
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Cynthia Erivo kept out of leading UK newspapers’ front page despite her British roots
A day ago, The Shade Borough, an originally Instagram-based fellow source of celebrity gossip in the UK, posted a video highlighting how printed publications in the UK had omitted “Cynthia Erivo, main character in ‘Wicked’, from coverage.” The clip displayed a stack of leading newspapers – The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Mail. Each paper had Ariana Grande’s London Wicked premiere’s red carpet look plastered on its front page. However, a similar visual proof of Cynthia’s presence at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this week was nowhere to be seen on the cover page, even though plenty of sensational snaps from the night showed the two posing alongside each other.
Netizens react to Cynthia Erivo’s omission
Some fans eventually argued that the film’s marketing so far has led many to believe that the “7 Rings” pop princess’ character surpasses the Broadway actress’ role. On the contrary, others defended the move as intentionally planned to present Grande in a favourable light, aligning with the portrayal of her character, who later becomes the famous Glinda the Good Witch of the North.
Twitterati took to the social media platform to open a fierce debate surrounding the Wicked controversy. A user fumed on X/Twitter, “Not a single sight of Cynthia Eviro on the cover of these newspapers. She literally plays the MAIN character Elphaba and it’s so easy to find a pic of them both. I hate what white media in Britain do.”
The person continued in a follow-up post, “White media in the UK repeatedly use their resources to systematically tone DOWN black excellence to amplify white talent.
Its not even subtle.
Its actually cruel,
Cynthia Erivo looked sensational & ABSOLUTELY SMASHED her role. Her voice in defying gravity had me in tears.”
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Meghan Markle’s “racist” treatment by the British media revisited
This particular post kicked off a parallel conversation that took netizens back in time to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. The couple, who stepped down as senior royals in January 2020, addressed how the royal family had remained mum in the face of the Suits alum’s racist treatment by the British press.
“No one from my family said anything over those three years,” the Duke of Sussex told Winfrey. Meghan added to the conversation by pointing out that the coverage “was bringing out a part of people that was racist.” Over the years, critics have accused the British press of starkly contrasting Markle’s character and personality with a noticeably flipped positive coverage of Kate Middleton.
On those same grounds, a 2016 report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance revealed how visible displays of this fuelled prejudice among tabloids and forms of traditional media “continues to be a serious problem,” as per CNN.
Back then, the UK Society of Editors had vehemently torched Meghan and Harry’s claims of the UK media’s bigoted representation and racism allegations. Nevertheless, Cynthia Erivo’s erasure from UK newspapers’ covers has led the audience back to Markle’s example.
Harry again addressed this “unconscious bias” in their 2022 Netflix docuseries. He said, There is a huge level of unconscious bias. The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one’s fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right. It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.”
Netizens recall Meghan Markle’s confession
Responding to the original X post, another user quote-posted, “I mean Meghan Markle told y’all about the British media, y’all acted like she was being dramatic.”
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At the time of writing, the post has already amassed nearly 3 million views and over 123K likes. While someone questioned Erivo’s omission in the comments, “SHE LITERALLY BRITISH IS SHE NOT? Why is she not on cover after cover,” someone else replied, “People should have believed Meghan.”
A third X user wrote back, “Exactly. She literally laid it out, but some people dismissed her as overreacting. Now, the receipts are coming in, and it is looking a lot like she had a point all along.”
“She wasn’t being dramatic she was being honest. Some people just weren’t ready to hear it,” yet another person commented.
Someone even turned back a few pages to revisit these “receipts” and re-shared a years-old thread of exhibits displaying the British media’s “inconsistent treatment of Meghan for identical behaviour as Kate.”