It’s a publicity nightmare for Universal that there was a petty dust-up on social media revolving around a harmless fan edit for the Wicked poster. Here is a Tik Tok user describing the story:

Erivo is now being raked over the coals on YouTube. I’m not saying they’re wrong. It seems silly to have taken a fan edit so seriously when you have a movie coming out that’s expected to make lots of money. It also seems like career suicide to make it harder for fans of the Wicked musical to want to see the movie without feeling depressed about the whole thing.

Obviously, we have a massive content machine, and we need more fodder for the churn every day. This juicy story cracked open the culture wars. Erivo believes the fans diminished or erased her, but they didn’t see it that way.

@ferlozarI’ve heard you all, so I did my best to fix my mistake #photoshop #cynthiaerivo #wickedwitch #elphaba #wickedmovie #wickedthemusical #arianagrande #defyinggravity

♬ original sound – Ferlozar

The internet now is full of wildly creative content creators. They amaze me every single day of what they can do. You can’t control them or shame them or resist it. You have to ride it like a wave. It’s fun! I suggest we not take it that seriously, to the point of forcing the movie to bomb outright. Do we really want another major bombing of a primary Hollywood production that only had the best of intentions to entertain fans?

Also, I like the fan edit. It’s cute, and she looks good with red lips. But I also understand that she might feel defensive, being a Black actress playing a traditionally white role. Maybe she thinks this was racist, but it was done out of love for the original, not to make her look white.

On Twitter, it’s fashionable to go along with the lie that Universal is somehow in the conspiracy to not show Cynthia Erivo’s eyes. How crazy does a person have to be? 250K likes? Really?

The media dragged Ariana Grande into it:

Maybe the movie is good or terrible, but I was looking forward to it because my Gen Z daughter was looking forward to it, and we would see it together. As a controversial loudmouth myself, Cynthia Erivo can say whatever she wants to say. That’s her opinion. But the movie is the movie. Whether you like it or not shouldn’t depend on whether you like her.

It’s unfortunate for Erivo, the movie, and Universal. It was a big misunderstanding on Erivo’s part. Many young people did not know who Cynthia Erivo was until they heard about this. They see it on TikTok or YouTube, and it does influence how they might feel about turning out. Maybe it dampens their enthusiasm a little. Maybe they felt it was a slap in the face. Erivo felt the same way.

Can I just be the one who begs that people still go see the movie? With one or two exceptions, there has been one major bomb after another. If it keeps going this way, there won’t be anything left.