Lectures For Lifelong Learners!

The Wizard of Oz, Wicked, and Shrek are all beloved by both children and adults, have been produced as books and plays and inspired seemingly endless sequels. Their popularity is partially due to ways they operate at multiple levels. The children’s stake centers around archetypal themes of initiation, confrontation, heroism, transformation, romance and resolution. Grown-up viewers can find satisfaction in these timeless themes, while also recognizing more mature and timely ones: resistance to authoritarianism, dangers to women and girls, including from men who say they love them, the power of the green (nature), sexual freedom and gender diversity, Goddess myth, and an endorsement of the utopian possibilities so characteristic of the fairy tale.