Why This, Why Now?

In today's episode, we jumped right back on the Emerald City Express with third-time guest, Leena Norms (she/her). Leena joined us for our episode Wonka x Antisemitism and Censorship in January 2024 and then again in December 2024 for our episode Wicked x Paratexts. Now she's back to help us make sense of Wicked: For Good. Marcelle leads the episode beginning with a quick conversation about femslash, a subgenre of fan fiction which, broadly-speaking, focuses on romantic/sexual relationships between female fictional characters. Before jumping deeper into the history of femslash, Hannah, Marcelle and Leena discuss the essential question: how gay is this sequel? From there, Marcelle takes us into a conversation about subtext and representation. As always, the episode ends with a perfectly sound thesis and discussion of the movie, the media storm around the film, how Glinda is positioned as a hero, queerbaiting and revolutionary politics.

Follow Leena on Youtube here! Instagram here! And Substack here! You can support Leena's Patreon here!

Works Cited

“Femslash.” Ultimate Pop Culture Wiki. Fandom, Inc. 2025. https://ultimatepopculture.fandom.com/wiki/Femslash.

Hall, Margaret. 2025. “Wicked: For Good Is for the Gelphie Shippers.” Playbill. November 21, 2025. https://playbill.com/article/wicked-for-good-is-for-the-gelphie-shippers.

Russo, Julie Levin. 2014. “Textual Orientation: Queer Female Fandom Online.” The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. Carter, Cynthia, Linda Steiner, and Lisa McLaughlin, eds. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203066911.

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Music Credits:

“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020

Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

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