Why Nessarose From ‘Wicked’ Isn’t Tragically Beautiful Just Because She Uses A Wheelchair

No one should pity her.

Dorothy Gale from Kansas murders two women during her brief visit to Oz. She crushes the Wicked Witch of the East with a farmhouse, but that’s technically an accident even if she didn’t have a license to operate a flying residence. Dorothy kills her second victim, the Wicked Witch of the West, while attempting to steal her personal property. That’s usually considered felony murder.

Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked, which inspired the successful musical and film adaptations, softened Dorothy’s killing spree. The Wicked Witch of the West, whose less judgmental name is “Elphaba,” is not so wicked and not so dead after Dorothy’s spontaneous shower. However, the Wicked Witch of the East, whose name is Nessarose, remains really most sincerely dead and deservedly so. Dorothy’s reckless house driving freed the Munchkins from her reign of terror.

Nessarose is disabled and a villain, an unfortunate character trope in fiction. Nessarose’s condition is presented as wholly tragic. Her elder sister was born with green skin, and the attempts to spare her that fate permanently paralyzed her. Nessarose was born with twisted legs that mirror her twisted, bitter soul. She is often described as “a beautiful but physically disabled young woman,” as though her disability mars her beauty. This is a stark contrast to Elphaba, whose physical challenge is merely superficial. Sure, she’s green but behind the glasses and Lilith Sternin bun, she’s obviously gorgeous.

---

---

Where Elphaba is kind and generous, Nessarose is spoiled and selfish. When the two sisters arrive at Shiz University, Nessarose is presented as an ungrateful burden for Elphaba, who loves her unconditionally, but Nessarose returns that love only under conditions that serve her best interests. That’s a troubling dynamic, given how many real-life disabled people rely on a sibling caretaker. She guilts and gaslights Elphaba, shaming her into using her powers to make her walk. Most productions of the musical present this moment in a truly disturbing manner, like the famous scene from Dr. Strangelove. What’s worse, though, is when the audience applauds her newfound mobility. Even under the worst possible conditions, walking in charmed shoes is still considered preferable than using a wheelchair with dignity.

Boq, a Munchkin, takes Nessarose to a school dance, but he’s clearly infatuated with someone else. The ballroom dance scene highlights the differences between the sisters. Elphaba shows that her self-worth doesn’t require the validation of others, but Nessarose desperately clings to the illusion of a romance she knows is false.

After her awful father dies, Nessarose rules Munchkinland with an iron fist and keeps Boq as her “servant” so he can never leave. That’s messed up. When Boq finally rejects her, she almost kills him before Elphaba intervenes.

Nessarose hits every note of the disabled villain trope, which reinforces cultural biases about physical disabilities and those who live with them. On the CW’s Flash series, the supervillain The Thinker’s self-explanatory powers led to his accelerating physical deterioration until he needed a high-tech chair to move. He tells his wife at one point, “What is knowledge without love?” but his advanced intellect steadily makes him less human. The connection between physical and mental “corruption” is all too clear.

The X-Men’s Professor X recalls a separate trope. In an early issue from the 1960s, Charles Xavier’s thoughts reveal that he’s in love with the teenage Jean Grey but believes he “had no right” to share his feelings with her because he “was leader of the X-Men and confined to this wheelchair.” The first part makes sense for HR-related reasons, as well as most states’ age of consent laws, but people with disabilities can and do live normal, fulfilling lives. There are more options available than isolation or mad science.

Even in Wicked’s fantasy world, Nessarose feels as if she’s unworthy of true love because she’s disabled. She can’t even freely score some Munchkin love (no offense to Munchkins). Nessarose is an awful person but that’s not presented as the actual source of her chosen misery.

A disabled villain is in itself not problematic, especially in a story where the two primary villains aren’t disabled. My personal issue is that Nessarose’s disability is treated as a reason to pity her. It’s what makes her a “tragic” villain, as opposed to an entitled asshole who walks around. However, most disabled people aren’t miserable. They face more challenges in life, but that doesn’t make them bitter by default. My son uses mobility devices, including a wheelchair for long distances, and many well-intentioned people have remarked with some surprise that he’s so happy. Sure, that might seem a shocking emotional state for someone with my DNA but stranger things have happened.

Idina Menzel, who originated the part of Elphaba on Broadway, is Jewish, and the film’s Elphaba, Cynthia Erivo, is Black. Although their specific backgrounds have certainly informed the character, the bigotry Elphaba experiences is rooted in the fantastic. Nessarose’s disability seems oddly matter-of-fact. After all, Nessarose’s resentment could simply come from her lack of magical powers, while Boq or the dashing Fiyero could use wheelchairs without the need for a tragic origin. They would just exist, like everyone with a disability. (The students at Shiz University are seemingly diverse in every way but physical mobility.)

The Wicked musical premiered in 2003, but Marissa Bode, who plays Nessarose in the film, is the first wheelchair user cast as the character who prominently uses a wheelchair. (When Menzel and Erivo had green makeup applied to their faces, they weren’t denying a part to an actor with green skin.) “To be that representation for not only disabled people but disabled people of color is so exciting and so surreal,” Bode told Diva magazine.

Major roles for actors with disabilities are rare, so it’s great that Bode was cast as Nessarose. Villains are complex and most of all fun roles, of course, but I do hope that Bode’s performance serves as a springboard to other parts where she’s not playing someone whose disability makes her miserable.

Bode has performed onstage since she was eight years old, but she’s used a wheelchair after a car accident when she was 11. In interviews, she seems an exceptionally positive person who doesn’t lash out at the world even if it doesn’t easily accommodate her. There are so many more Marissa Bodes out there than Nessarose Thropps, and that’s perhaps the most needed disability representation.