(Kristin Chenoweth) and Elphaba - Camera Obscura: Feminism ...

Wicked Divas and Internet Girl Fans • 65
22. Alexander Doty, Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass
Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 6.
23. John M. Clum, Something for the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay
Culture (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999), 137.
24. Brantley, “How Broadway Lost Its Voice to ‘American Idol.’ ”
25. Rohan Preston, “Musical Has a ‘Wicked’ Case of Success,”
Minneapolis Star Tribune, 9 July 2006.
26. Susan J. Leonardi and Rebecca A. Pope, The Diva’s Mouth:
Body, Voice, Prima Donna Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1996), 163, 21, 57.
27. The field of girl studies is growing as adolescents are no longer
defined only as boys. Ethnographic studies of girls, friendships,
and identity formation include Pam Gilbert and Sandra Taylor,
Fashioning the Feminine: Girls, Popular Culture, and Schooling (North
Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991); Vivienne Griffiths, Adolescent
Girls and Their Friends: A Feminist Ethnography (Brookfield, VT:
Ashgate, 1995); Lorraine Delia Kenny, Daughters of Suburbia:
Growing Up White, Middle Class, and Female (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2000); Hey, The Company She Keeps. It
is important that Wicked does not simply present a “girlpower”
narrative but embeds more contradictory female characters in
a story of lasting friendship. On “girlpower,” see Anita Harris,
Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-First Century (New York:
Routledge, 2004). Also see Catherine Driscoll, Girls: Feminine
Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002).
28. The girl fans never use the term diva, but they readily note the
characteristics that qualify both protagonists as such. On the
diva, also see Wayne Kostenbaum, The Queen’s Throat: Opera,
Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (New York: Random House,
1993).
29. ChenoAsGlinda, 31 October 2005, witchesofoz.com/forums/
viewtopic.php?t=318 (accessed 21 July 2006). “Megan” refers to
Megan Hilty, the actress playing the role. Fans frequently reveal
their knowledge about theater and musicals through references
like this one. Other posts ask for explanations of theater terms,
such as the meaning of the “green room.” In general, much
teaching takes place on the fan sites. On fans’ posts, I have only